A day of building and business management

8/23

A pair of movie 3D glasses and two keys. Is there a story here?

Marty is on the  steps speaking to himself in a high pitched voice. I greet him. He looks up in a wary, anxious way, then quickly scampers off. This must be one of his bipolar episodes. Marty and George, superior intelligence, mental illness, I find it so hard to fathom.

Watson Plumbing arrives. I’m expecting that they’ll handle all our emergencies, but they’re only coming to deal with the men’s and women’s downstairs bathroom. The busted drain outside, the gushing pipes, will take more negotiation, a down payment check. There’s little time to waste and less money.

Hope walks in to prepare for our money meeting with Nan. Then Willy arrives to give an estimate on the 86th Street basement grate and door that is dangerously askew. Looks like $2800. Is this the only way? What are our legal requirements here. Just sealing it off worries me. Hope will help check this out.

Nan the bookkeeper comes for our meeting. Two solid hours of intense money talk. The abyss is looming. Where will the money come from? When will promises be kept? At least we are getting information to facitilitate some planning. But walking on the tightrope without a net gets exhausting.

Stephen and I talk on the street. Plumbing. My bad back. Press. Neighbors. TV may be coming. Opening night is tomorrow.

Feeling done, but I still have another meeting to go to Danielle returns tomorrow. None too soon. 

A few words about beauty and justice, ethics and esthetics

8/22

A full box of pencils. Still awhile before school starts. 

The older balding man is back. I talk to him abut not sleeping here during the day. Later I see that he has  simply moved to the sidewalk a bit further down the street. Call Reachout to talk about George. He is in court. They think they can keep him in his apartment. And our new guest. They will try and connect with him.

Long conversation with Sarah about the church and the Center and spirituality. What are church activities, what Center, what both. Understanding spirituality in the deeper sense, how the process of creation and experiencing what has been created is itself a spiritual experience. My creativity as resistance idea. (See blog for July 16, Creativity as Resistance. http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2011/07/creativity-is-resistance.html)  That these are doors that can open into transcendence, wonder. Their own experience of the holy, not simply didactic metaphors. And that religious practice, the arts, are parallel sometimes intersecting pathways to the sacred mystery that is beyond us.  

Likewise, our idea of ethics and esthetics, beauty and justice. Our artistic experiences lead us beyond materialist anlaysis viewing the world through simply socio-economic lenses to true transformation. Again, not didactic metaphor but expressions of inspiration to reimagine the world.

Ethics without esthetics is deadening, soul numbing. Esthetics without ethics is cultural oppression, even violence to the human spirit. 

The difference between social realist art and say, Guernica, though even that references a particular atrocity. I think of David Michalek’s 14 Stations (see blog for July 15, He has a name http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2011/07/he-has-name.html) installation that graced our walls, itself a call to justice, not didactic, both in its process of creation and its presentation.

And I think of Rubem Alves, one of the first liberation theoogians, who moved from a materialist anlysis of liberation to a theology of transformation. For him, images of only misery ultimately lead to resignation and deadening. If you want to inspire people to work for a better world, they need images of beauty, of imagination. In the Spanish, ver/hacer, ie, see, do. Alves saw his call change from simply a quasi-marxist revolutionary theorist to in his words, Warrior, Poet, Priest. What we are trying to create is a Center where people can explore these ideas, work to build a more just, humane and sustainable world together.

Sarah is excited by these ideas, hard as they are to put into verbal expression. Now to apply them to  concrere tasks, like rebuilding a website. 


While we are talking, a very troubled man walks in.  Sarah looks up, Martin, hello. They've met here before. He's got a much beloved but sickly cocker spaniel.  She tells him we'e got no money for the dog, but Sarah looks up the ASPCA and gives him directions to get there. He shows his picture, thanks us, leaves. 

Around 4pm or so, like everyday, the sounds of Bon Hiver’s michicant fill the sanctuary as Woodshed runs their soundcheck. I tweet about that. It gets retweeted. And I’ve got three new followers. Thank you, Bon Hiver.

Out in the yard, Stephen is anxious with anticipation. The first reviewers come tonght. 

Do not be conformed to this world

8/21

And George  is still there as I open the doors this morning. I’m in too much pain to deal with this as I walk (Limp? Shuffle?) down  the street to pick up the bulletins. When I get back, people are arriving, Luis and Alma, Hope, Samantha, James, Marsha, Arcadia, Stephen, Lilly...I reached out, they all               showed up and came through. That’s how it’s supposed to be. And Andre is sitting at the piano.

Today I’m thinking about Romans 12: 1-8 and what it means to not be conformed to the world. These are tough questions. It depends from whose point of view you are looking at this. For example, those in ther church who have opposed opening up ordination for lgbtq people say that those of us who fought for that were conforming ourselves to the world, not scripture...

What dos it mean? For many of us here, conforming is an impossibiity. Because of who we are, our color, our cuture, our language, orientation, economic situation,  it’s not possible to join the elite. BUT, the way of the world is not simple...it’s complex...

It begins with confession. Not admitting our faults and shortcomings to God, but saying out loud what we truly believe like Peter's confession that Jesus was the Christ. (Matthew 16: 13-20)

Sometimes the church has been a critic of the world, a witness like in the 1930‘s, the German Confessing Church over against the German Christian Movement when the government equated following the Nazi  regime with Christianity and the majority of the church went along. Bohoeffer, Niemoller, others made their confession that their only true authority was Jesus. In that day and time a politically radical statement to make which would cost those who made it.

Following in that tradition, confessions like the Accra Confession from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Ghana and the Belhar Confesson in South Africa carried that theme forward into new days. But putting these words into action is not simple.

Argentine pastor Roberto Jordan, one of the drafters of the Accra Confession and a consultant for WARC’s Covenanting for Justice in the Economy and the Earth Project, was speaking at the 2007 Witherspoon Conference of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He said:

“The people of the South need you to stand up to the powers of the time and say ‘no’ when the world is presented as an enemy simply to support privileges gained at the expense of the rest of the world.

“Be suspicious of the power structure today but don’t withdraw – participate, learn, get involved, commit to change even if it means less comfort for some. And vote when you have elections. Be informed of the issues that are left out of the political debates and do your best to include them.

“The part of the world which insisted on the need for a statement such as the Accra Confession expects from the churches and the Christian women and men of the North to choose to be part of a new way of being church and being Christian,” Jordan said. 

Participate...that’s the hard part when withdrawal seems so much simpler and pure. But such is not our, the Reformed tradition.

I remember taking part in a discussion of Accra held in Berlin. In Martin Niemoller’s very house. With surviving members of the Confessing Church and their children. Trying to discern the meaning of their confession, the Barmen Declararation, for our own day and time. My friends were shocked to learn that in the PCUSA, a reactionary group of pastors and churches had declared itself to be the Confessing Church Movement, implying that those of us on the progressive side were the equivalent of German Christians. That they were the true descendants, the authentic expression of the Confessing Church.

Sometimes church has taken a leading postion. In the US Civil Rights movement, the anti-Vietnam and anti-nuclear proliferation peace movements, in the 1980‘s movement to resist the US poicy in Central America. But just as many times the church has dragged behind, with regards to women and the vote, lgbtq inclusion and orientation, etc...Even the US military was ahead of us on the lgbtq inclusion issue. And state governments are ahead of us on the marriage equality issue.   And we refuse to take responsibility for what our theology has sanctioned in the secular world against lgbtq people. Including violence. 

So who do you work with? And how? 

Paul says: but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. That’s what we’re after...transformation. How?

I love the story of the Hebrew midwives in today’s lesson from Exodus. (1:8-2:10) The examples of Shiprah and Puah how they refused to cooperate with the powers of domination. Refused to take the lives of male children. How they resisted with cleverness and even humor.

The reaity is here we need different people playing different roles....honoring the gifts,the unique gifts that each has ...believing that we can call forth those indivual gifts, insights, wisdom, action into a collective expression of faithfulness.

As Paul says, For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 

Yes, even cheerfulness.

It’s not easy, it’s not clear. And as Reformed Christians, even when we have come together and made a decision, set a strategy, moved forward with passion, we live with the reality that we could be wrong. But that is our call. Now and always.

We pass the plate. Andre sings On Christ the solid rock I stand. And we all sing I’m going to live so God can use me. Say our alleluia! and amen!

Taking a break I see that George has left. James spoke with him two hours yesterday. And Luis today. For me its a tough question. The rule is no sleeping on the steps during the day. But he’s not sleeping. But he’s virtually camping out. Not easy. But gone for now. 

The Session discusses Christian and his Melting Pot Orchestra. The boiler crisis. Letter to Councilmember Brewer. Possible necessity of having to sell things. Of course, some want to sell nothing. Time grows short....

The Dark Lady Players arrive for rehearsal. 

Dark Lady Players in Rehearsal

Gotta be ready when it all comes down

8/19

The feet I see stretching out from the south doorway as I approach the church look familiar. It was only a matter of time.  George has returned. And I feel glad to see him.

George,how are you? He grunts, shrugs. Good to see you. How’s the place, your house? 

He grunts, shrugs again. I’m in court, man.

What’s up?

Whee were you March 14th?

March 14th?

Yeah, March 14th. You don’t know what they did? Cut the motherfuckin subsidies, that’s what they did. My five year contrct’s a two year contract now. They want my black ass out. He’s wearing layers. A poncho. His bifocals duct taped. And he’s got a fine looking cigar. 

I remember hearing about that, can’t remember the details.

That’s what Bloomberg do. They call my subsidy socialism. They call it communism. That’s what they say.

Who can help?

Help? Help? Nobody. Not Cuomo. He’s got aspirations, you understand what I’m sayin? Aspirations. Think he care about niggers? That what you think? Obama? O---- bama? No---bama. ZerO---bama? Man won’t even stand up to those republican retards. Back in the Bush day, money flowed, ok? The money flowed. Then the republican retards took over.  Help? Obama won’t do nothin.  Things were better with Bush.

I meant...

Help? Don’t you see what’s goin on? They talk about guns, you know what I’m sayin? They don’t win, Obama win again, they lose the congress, those people take up the guns. They get that nigger out of the white house one way or the other. It’s all over the world, man. People risin up. Arab spring, man. Arabmotherfuckin spring. That man in Tunisia, he set him self on fire. The people rise up. You got Egypt. Tahrir Square. Do you get it? Even Israel. Motherfuckin Israel. Israel Egypt too. Forget what they do to Palestinians. They used to take care of their own. Socialized medicine. Houses. Jobs. You see last week? Quarter of a million people. Pissed. Started with one woman in a tent. Quarter of a million. People livin in motherfuckin tents. Israel. Don’t you see what’s happenin? It’s all comin down. All comin down. And people think I’m the crazy motherfucker for comin out here, gettin ready. Got to be ready when it all comes down. I’m not the crazy one. Not me. 

I ask about his attorney. A woman. It's a compicated story. Includes stories about landords, hot and cold water problems, mold. (Like tell me) When’s he go back to court? I ask.  

First of next month, he tells me. So you. What about you? Don’t see you runnin. What’s up with you?

I tell him about my herniated disc. How I can barely walk, let alone run.  

You play sports? Football maybe?

Then I remember, senior year high school. Nasty bad sprain, lower lumbar. Right where it hurts now. Like its been lying in wait all these years. Yeah, football, I say.

What you play? Quarterback? 

I laugh. No, guard, linebacker..

You have a different body then? You don’t have the body...

Back in the day, it was different. I played at 160.

Shit, you gotta be twice that now. Least.

How bout you, George, you play?

No. Didn’t have the skills. What you gonna do? 

I tell him a week of steroids, then...

Steroids? Motherfuckin steroids? You crazy? You see what that shit do to JFK? How it change him? 

It’s time for me to move on, go inside. I wish him the best. Stephen tracks me down. We’ve got s plumbing crisis. Last night’s storm brought geysers. It’s taken 4-5 hours to dry out, get ready. I tell him Clint was here. But didn’t get me a quote. Stephen’s anxious. Press coming this week. Can’t afford to shut down. Or lose another night. Lose them once, they’re gone. Plus the bar...I’ll call Danielle, see what we can do. Monday. Monday.

Afer my wedding in the village, I stop in. The last scene is ready to unfold. The audience streams into the sanctuary. Trelkowski runs through. Breaks loose. Runs to the balcony. The scene plays out. The audience applauds. It’s closer. Not all the way there yet. 

I stay. Listen to comments. One compares this show to Punchdrunk’s Macbeth inspired Sleep No More in an old hotel. It’s like they’re trying so hard. It’s constructed. Artifice. This is real. This really is a church.

I go out to the yard . Listen to the conversations. People comparing their experiences. Reconstructing stories. Then at 10, the yard clears. Consideration for neighbors. I feel like weekends, it should stay open later. We’ll see what we can do. 

As I head home, George is still there. A silent sentinel. He’ll be ready.

West-Park 2009
Photo by Matt Weber

Ready, willing and able

8/19

As I open the doors, I surprise an older African-American man I’ve never seen before. He quickly gathers his things, moves his cardboard to the street corner garbage can and heads off. I pick up the other cardboards. Look at the steps. I’m feeling better enough to try cleaning up a bit, though it’s a struggle.

One of the bluesuited Ready, Willing and Able men sees me. RWA is a private sanitation group of formerly homeless men  funded by the Doe Foundation under contract to the city for  simple clean up. Here, use this, he says offering me his long handled dust pan you can use without bending.

I reach for it, then he says, Nah, I’ve been watching you. You gotta bad back. Let me do it. And in less than ten minutes he’s cleaned up all the cigarette butts, stray papers, etc. Thanks so much, I say, thanks. I ask if he’d lke a cup of coffee. He thinks for a moment. Nah, he says, thanks, but no. So I go to Barney’s for my iced coffee. When I get back, he’s finishing up. You have a nice day, he says. Thanks, you too, I really appreciate it. 

John H comes in with his list of ticket requests for Tenant from his own cast and crew members. Looking forward to his own production.

Soon Hope, Marc and Sarah arrive to work on the national campaign we’ve been developing. At one point we get into funding and realtionships. Marc mentions a particlar bank with a very bad history in interntional realtionships  but good support of the lgbtq community. Hope shakes her head, No, no way. If we get connected to them, there are people I’ve worked with for twenty years who’d never speak to me again.  These struggles took place before you were born.

Marc says that he can do it because when he wors with such groups, he never compromises. Hope says that the very relationship is a compromise. There are a lot of issues here. I remembered back to Tulsa when Public Service Company of Oklahoma wanted to build the Black Fox nuclear energy facility. I got arrested in those protests. Then Public Service hired one of my Lutheran pastor colleagues to be their liaison with the religious community. How would we react to him? Did we still want him on the board of our local interfaith ministry? The nuke plant was scrapped, substituted with clean coal. Would we accept the company’s charitable contributions?

We know that supprt of lbtq rights by companies, politicians, even  churches, does not necessarily relate to support for institutional change and dismantling of structures of dominance and power. That there are often conflicts between green values and red values, eg, Whole Foods is great on sustainability but also anti-union while offering their own workers what appears to be legitimate economic participation and also supports micro business globally, Grameen bank style. Identity politics frequently ignores class realities. Global capitalism still runs the show. Sandinista Ortega signs a pact with Liberal Aleman and shopping malls open in Nicaragua while children beg in Managua streets. Cuba licenses golf resorts and solicits international tourism. Communist China is a multinational corporation.

But still...across the globe there is this growing awareness that it doesn’t work. You have no more ideas, the protest sign said. That’s the side we want to be on. A new creation. The beloved community, world wide. Catholic Worker Houses won’t even give tax credits for donations. There’s Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s ... and wise as serpents, gentle as doves, but where are we called to be? These questiosn require discernment. The shape of what we want is clear. The pathway there, not always. No easy conclusion is reached. 

A well dressed young copy machine salesman walks in looking for Danielle. We tell him she’ll be back next week. 

A young man with a beard and a friend are in the sanctuary. I’m in the show, he says. I wanted to show my friend the space. Right, you’re the landlord, I say. He smiles. You know, the real star of the  show is this space. It’s alive, he says. It talks to us. It’s amazing, says his friend. Like Stephen said, I say, it’s part of the cast. I say that when they’re done, I’m going to rent out these rooms Woodshed has created. I could offer him a real landlord gig.

Efram Ruben is the founder of the Riverside Symphony Orchestra. He’s come looking to see if we could be their new venue. Concerns about lighting, restrooms. Some of his members remember performing here with Jens Nygaard and the Jupiter Symphony. I point out Jens’ Beckstein. I walk him through Mc Alpin, some of the Tenant Parisian apartments. He’s in wonder over what he sees. i walk him outside, show him the news articles outside in the window. It would be great to have them here. We'll see what happens. 

Enough for today. 

We will do whatever it takes

8/18

Three cardboard beds to remove this morning. At least the guys are keeping things relatively clean in the morning. Steps are getting scrappier though and  I’m not really up to doing anything about it. 

Clifford the plumber comes to check out the rusted through pipes that let the water pour through into the church. And to do an estimate on repairing a janitor’s sink for Woodshed. And unclogging the drains in the restrooms. We need to get the Landmarks Conservancy in on the big pipes, he’d reported them during his earlier work. 

John H comes in with a locksmith to open our window signs for which we no longer have keys. Of course he wants to get up info about his own Dark Lady  production, but its also time to get all the outdated signs down. By the time he’s done, there are new signs, a sign with information for potential renters and the most recent newspaper articles from the Times and the Spirit on Woodshed and West-Park. We’ve needed this. 

A young woman, Savan,  comes in and asks about the Dark Lady players. She’s on her way to work at Good Enough to Eat where she’s a server and saw the signs. I tell her all about the DLP and also the Woodshed production. And then I give her a mini-tour of a few rooms and ask Jillian for a Woodshed postcard. Her eyes widen as she looks around. I ask her about her name. Persian, from Iran.

Chad comes in. A professional organist. Wants to know if we still function as a church. I tell him our story. He currently plays for a church in Harlem. Wants to play the organ. Tell him it hasn’t been played since Samir died a couple of July’s ago. Not sure what it would  take to get it going again. It has its own story. Austin hybrid. A line of eccentric organists all left their own marks. Big bass pipes found under the sanctuary, never installed. Copper pipes stolen and sold to buy crack during the 80’s. It’s role in a series of music wars during my day. The wheezing note that was stuck. (Keep that, i can use that, said Bill Schimmel, accordionist/keyboardist extraordinaire  during his time here.) I take down his name. Would love to see it come alive again. 

The Woodshed folks are timing Trelkowsky’s costume change, harness rigging and run to his leaping place on the balcony with a stopwatch. Still trying to get the final scene down to the split second. Thirty-nine seconds, I hear someone say. Followed by applause. 

Take a break. Walking down 86th to Starbucks, I run into Sarah Sayeed from The Interfaith Center.  She becomes the third person to recommend Sarnos book on healing back pain. I had no idea it was so common. Just as I had no idea how many live with chornic pain. How hard it is to see through the fog and focus. 

RL brings by a load of plaster for the bathrooms. We’ve got to work out a plan when Danielle returns. And talk about a memorial concert for the P & G’s crowd. Tim has come along to help him. 

Finally Katherine. She’s been working all day on a letter to our city council member, Gale Brewer. The church and the Center Board are quite concerned about the looming crisis with the boiler. We need action, now. And just in case, we start going through our catalogues prepared in advance of the devloment that never  happened. Looking for what we could sell to buy the boiler. The Tiffany chairs? Settee? Antique glass? Silver? We have to be ready to do that. And everything is now stowed under the church. We will do whatever it takes. 

The cast and crew of the Tenant is assembled in the sanctuary. Final director’s notes and instructions before tonight’s performance. 

I head to the yard to sit quietly before heading home. it’s been a long day. 

If you take more than you give, the whole wheel stops

8/17/11

To church after breakfast meeting with Katherine and Eleanor to discuss and plan a falls series on the PBS movie on Forgiveness. 

Waiting for Willie to come and do an estimate on repairing the grate.  John H comes in with two of his Dark Lady artistic people to check out the space for his production of Shakespeare’s Gospel Parodies: A Medieval Mystery Play. After they leave, he stays to discuss our evolving business plan. 

On the steps, Stephen and I review  the progress of the final scene. And  some neighborhood noise complaints. Not a problem for me, but we need their support. An older thin African American man, bearded, with a walking stick approaches. Asks to buy a cigarette. Here, don’t worry about it, is the response. No, no, no he says. I know how much they cost. Take this 50 cents. Money makes the world go round. If you take more than you give, the whole wheel stops. Don’t you forget it. He gives his 50 cents, heads on up the street. 

The well dressed young man with an accent selling office supplies comes in again looking for Danielle. When I tell him  she isn’t there, he heads to the Woodshed office. The Super Soccer people are back, still looking for space. (Ted thinks maybe the gym might work.)

Willie still hasn’t arrived. I have to head to the hospital. I ask the Woodshed folks to lock up after I’ve gone, the doors are hard for me right now. 

After the Center meeting, Hope asks me to check the doors. The inner ones were locked but outer ones open when last she checked. When I stop by, I see all three are occupied, more on the side. Including the wildly tatooed man I’ve seen the last several days, on and off. Middle aged white guy, sometimes wearing only shorts, covered in tats. (More than your average Woodshed twenty/thirtysomethings.) Staring out into space. He looks at me looking at the steps, points around the corner to the 86th Street door thinking I want Woodshed. A colony is growing again. Something must give. 

I have to remind myself, less than three weeks ago last summer  we came back for  a service on the steps, what Amanda called our first step. There's been a lot more since then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnTGLLgyLH8