I wonder what he's receiving

8/11 


 One of those work Saturdays. Martin, Nayeli and I start talking about the whole process and strategy behind development, grant writing, etc. Jamie joins us and we get back to negotiating out a longer term relationship between West-Park and Noche. We're getting close. 

 Outside, the Prophet seems to have fallen asleep on the steps.He's wearing his conical hat and a long batik dress, like an African shaman.  I rouse him, he looks startled and  and immediately bows and goes into prayer. I come back later and he is standing out on the sidewalk, face towards the sun, alternately bringing his hands together in prayer and then opening his arms wide as if to receive a blessing.  I wonder what he is receiving. What it feels like. Seems to be soaking in the sun as it plays over his face. 

 Steven stops in to talk about the music we've scheduled for tomorrow, methodically working through every song. We spend a little time talking about social media and his proposal to move us forward. 

Later, Sarah comes in. She's gone to Boston to retrieve my bound dissertation after many months from her business partner, Mark. She sees Teddy and they exchange a big hug. She's also glad to meet Teddy's son for the first time.  There's a lot to catch up on. I also introduce her to Martin as the person responsible for the branding identity of the church and the Center. She knows Noche well and is impressed to find Soledad dancing in our Session room. We head to the B for conversation. Get her opinions on how things are developing. She may also have another theater group, one that she had wanted to bring in as part of our 100+ campaign, that still feels drawn to West-Park. We talk of weddings. Marketing. And her upcoming trip to Thailand. It's good for me that she still wants to feel connected. 

 Later, coming home after a movie, I find Edward asleep on the steps. Cross my fingers. Hope all will be well in the morning. 

Like is this seasonal?

8/10

Edward is sprawled out in the steps. An empty 40 by his side. Edward, man, you got to go. He looks at me, pulls himself up, walks away. The place is a mess. I call Teddy. He’s picking up some things for Martin at Home Depot. And it’s someone else’s turn to clean. Storm clouds brewing. 

Allegra comes in. It’s the last day of her internship at the Interfaith Center. She’s planning a program for other Princeton students in the fall. To explore religious diversity. And what in various traditions inspires faithful to service for others. And wants to involve the students in service when they come. 

We talk about the difference between service and advocacy and various types of organizing. Why I’m partial to community based organizing. Ideological driven campaigns define others’ reality. Charity programs of compassion do for. Even advocacy intends to speak for. I like the Freirian model where people are to become the subjects of their own history. Making, articulating their own destiny. Building community with others.

Talking to Allegra, I realize that my principles are rooted in theological assumptions. Can I define them? How would they be different for Jews? Muslims? Hindus or Buddhists? How do we carve out space to work together?  And I talk again how interfaith is a way of life, a way of being. And we’re still working on defining that. How it works out in concrete terms. And where do you draw lines? What about Falun Gong? Scientology? Unification Church? On what basis? It gets too complicated. In the end, what I want to do is work with my neighbors. Maybe that’s where it begins. We’re working on an agenda, a working itinerary for her group when  they come. I’ve got more than a few ideas. I look forward to their coming. 

The rain has started to fall. Heavy and hard. I check the steps again. Teddy’s son Ted has been cleaning things up. Then I see it.  The shit. The newspapers. And my heart sinks. Is this like seasonal? Like every August, Edward returns and I have to deal with this again? Teddy comes out with buckets of water, pine sol. He’s taken care of everything but the wasted newspapers. Bob, he says, the rain can take care of the rest. Oh the paper? I’ll come back for that. Just had lunch. I’m gonna lose it. 

‘S OK. You’ve done enough. Get me the rubber gloves. And I do my part. And like Teddy, almost lose it. Like an annual ritual. Even with the help I’ve got now, this is where urban ministry begins. Amazing how many of my colleagues responded to my Facebook post about this last year. 

One of the other neighborhood characters, an old white guy with glasses and a wide eyed vacant stare walks up and begins to sit down. Uh, that’s not such a good idea, Teddy says, not there, and he moves on.

Later in the day, I see Edward sprawled out across the street in the CVS doorway. Charlotte by his side. She’s looking fairly together. New black glasses. Charlotte, I say, you’ve got to do something about Edward. He’s in bad shape. 

He’ll be findin’a place soon, you’ll see...she says. 

That’s not it Charlotte, I’m worried. He’s in pretty bad shape....she looks at me nods.  Marty’s nearby, waiting out the storm. Marty, I say,howya doin? But he just looks at me with that look of terror and noncomprehension. Obviously in one of his episodes. Teddy had the same experience with him yesterday.  

I cross back over. Arcadia has come in with granddaughter Victoria, the bubble girl from the wedding just back from Orlando with stories of Sea World. 

I need to get to my wedding, a Chinese-Spanish affair at the Central Park Boathouse. The rain has stopped. Later I’ll join Teddy and Ted and Martin’s daughter at Flor de Mayo, one of the Upper West Side’s last remaining once ubiquitous comidas chinas y criollas restaurantes. We'll  share some food. Some sangria. The kids will take off, after Teddy’s fatherly admonitions. We walk back to the church together. The steps are quiet now. 

A Julia de Burgos

8/9

Conversations with Martin. He’s developing  some new works. He’s taken poetry and stories from refugees through a UN program and is developing flamenco dances to express the stories. He’s interested in doing similar work with stories of homeless people. I need to check with Marc and the Interfaith Assembly, but then I remember Julia de Burgos. Puerto Rican Nationalist, feminist, poet. Prominent. Well known. Travelling to Cuba. Then returning to New York City doing menial jobs. Possibly bipolar and/or alcoholic depressive. Disappeared into the streets. And found dead in Spanish Harlem in 1953 at age 39, from pneumonia, unnamed, unknown . Buried in a pauper’s grave in potter’s field on Hart Island. People who cared never gave up and eventually found her and returned her to Carolina, Puerto Rico. And I remember Leonard Bernstein’s powerful, passionate setting of her poem to herself, A Julia de Burgos. And yes, no one ever sang it like Lauren. She embodied it. Martin has to hear this. It’s almost flamenco itself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwZRUdwReLw ) Only wish I had it by Lauren.

Julia de Burgos

Auld Lang Syne

8/8

Come to the church after leading my Wednesday morning study group. Still recovering from a day when I felt like I’d had enough.

Now that we’ve got Martin and Noche in the house, the goal is to find a way to make it a  more permanent relationship. Emails going back and forth with Jamie. His people coming in for a late afternoon sit down.

Enjoy sitting in the backyard writing awhile. Jamie’s daughter Bella helping go through old files in our ongoing effort to clear out what’s no longer necessary.

It’s getting close to time to head to my Interfaith Assembly meeting. Jeremy is in the sanctuary. He’s got some mikes set up and has two singers, a man and a woman named Nicole. He calls me over. Turns out he’s doing music for a movie. I ask what it is. He’s not sure but it’s by Lionsgate studios. They need a recording of Auld Lang Syne. Do I want to join in? Sure, why not. 

We put on headphones. Hear his Let it be’esque piano intro then start to sing. Over and over we record the old New Year’s Eve song. We change positions. Sometimes singing harmony, sometimes just melody. Maybe a very high harmony by Nicole, I throw in a bass. Jeremy joins in too. Listening through the headphones, I’m intrigued as Jeremy lays layer upon layer turning us into a chorus, a New Year’s Eve party, not too rowdy or out of control. Trying to create a product they’ll use. Later that night, he sends me a copy of the recording. Yes, I can hear my voice in there.

As usual, we’re trying to keep the Assembly alive. I head crosstown to Jan Hus to make a presentation to the We Humanists AA group. I enter quietly. And am touched and moved to hear the stories of my old friend Ada, their founder. Of lives saved. The freedom to live and let live. The sense of radical acceptance. (Sigh. Again, the church could learn from AA....) In all that I do on her behalf, I try to stay faithful to who Ada was. 

Back at West-Park, the Session meets. The money situation is, as always, grim. We hope to hear from our potential partner by Friday. Time is running short. I don’t want to be forced to give in before I absolutely have to.

Enough crazy, enough addiction

8/7

Spend most of the day with P____ in Housing Court.  Dante's circles of hell. Hour by hour my anger rises. The sheriff delivered the eviction  notice yesterday even though the hearing was scheduled for today. The landlord's attorney and a young real estate woman are trying to establish the fair market value of the apartment P_____has lived in for 38 years.  Seems there's little the judge can do. P____'s attorney is fighting valiantly.  I feel the rage rising. Keep wondering if I should rise up and just speak out. Channel Nathan. At the last hearing, the attorney began by saying Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.   

While we're there, I hear an old Chinese woman from Chinatown, every bit as lost as P_____, on the verge of being evicted in a Chinatown gentrifcation hustle. A middle aged heavyset black woman keeps calling out for Jesus. Do you see what's going on here? the attorney says to me. They're out for every vulnerable person in a stabilized apartment. it's an all out assault. He manages to extend the hearing into October. But now, can he get a stay on the eviction? P_____still doesn't comprehend what is going on.  Keeps talking about lasers and cameras and....and God's will will be done. And I want to say, No, P______, no it won't. In the end, maybe. But we're not going to see it. This is NOT God's will. 

So I get back to the church, worn out by rage and a feeling of helplessness. This makes no sense. And I find Edward sprawled out on the steps. Flies buzzing about. An open 40 at his side. Edward, come on man, you know the rules. you can't be here during the day.  I'm sympathetic man,  but you can't be here.  

He rouses. OK, OK, I'm going. But doesn't move. Look , I say, I'm going for coffee. When I get back, be moving, OK?

And I go next door to Barney Greengrass for iced coffee. I'm a dollar short. Next time, OK? says the counter guy and I nod. 

I come back out and see Edward, standing up, wavering back and forth,  his penis out spraying the steps with urine. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I shout, somehow managing not to drop my coffee. He stares at me, continuing.

I call 911.  Come up on the steps with him. Teddy has heard me shouting and has come out to join me. 

Why you yellin at me?

YOU'RE  PISSING ON MY STEPS!

No I'm not....I spilled my beer...

EDWARD I JUST SAW YOU!

Nah, nah, look if somethin came outta me, wasn't intentional, right?

I CARE FOR YOU EDWARD BUT YOU CAN'T PISS ON MY STEPS!

Teddy says, Look man, you can't be doin this. You just told me how much you appreciate this man.  This is disrespectful, got it?

OK,OK, I'm goin....

As he heads to the corner, he sees the cop car. Teddy points out the newspaper sticking out the back of his jeans. Dude's in bad shape, man.

Edward turns around , heads the other direction.  The car pulls over. The female officer opens her window. You called us?  

I say, yeah, and tell her what happened. She looks up Amsterdam, sees Edward turning the corner. I know him., she says. Edward, I say. He's a got a girlfriend  around the corner, she says. Charlotte, I say.  OK, I'll talk to him.

And they make their way north.

Teddy can see I'm shaking. Never heard you yell like that before, Bob. 

It's the day, I say. 

Teddy says, you did good. You called him out but didn't dis him. I respect that. 

Inside, I tell Danielle. She's upset. Jonah is waiting to speak to me. He comes in. Teddy comes in to say he found him wondering through the building again. I told you that part's off limits, OK? Don't play me....

I'm not playin' you, Jonah says.

I tell Teddy it's OK. I listen to Jonah's story. RL looks in, asks me to join him and his attorney at the Gate. I listen more to Jonah. On a journey to discover the meaning of life. Had to leave home. The energy of this place drew him in, there must be an answer here, a place to stay?

I want to say, Dude, not today. Wrong day. Wrong time. But I say, you're about 2-3 months too late for Occupy Wall Street. You would have fit right in. But not now. It's late. if you want to come back tomorrow, I'll listen to you play. But not now.

I'm done. I'm remembering my five day struggle cleaning shit off the steps every day last summer. Not going back there.  I've had enough of crazy. I've had enough of addiction.  Just let me talk to three normal people.  Just three....

I walk down the street to meet RL. Calm down. Later, I pass the church on my way to meet Jamie at the B. Teddy's outside. We talk, All is calm. For now. 

Bullfighting, business and Bible study

8/6

Martin and Teddy are taking a break in the studio. Martin is talking about business. It’s like bull fighting, he says. When the bull is charging straight ahead, he feels in control, indestructible. He is! But if you get him spinning around, he gets all confused. Then you draw him in real close to you, and you take the estoque and you put it in and there! you have him. 

I say, Martin, I think you just told me how you negotiate. 

He says, NO, no, I don’t negotiate....Teddy on the other hand, he’s a natural...

That’s right, Teddy agrees, I am. 

I take a break to go home before Bible Study. Tonight we’re still in the Mark 6. I go back and say that when the crowds back home were criticizing him, not only did they question his paternity, but they are accusing Jesus of abandoning his mother economically. As for the mission of the Twelve, it’s like a guerrilla group establishing  safe houses. Except, that as they gain welcome, they are to stay. And they are never to commandeer food or anything from anyone.  

The John the Baptist/Herod story seems to come out of nowhere. Who does Herod think Jesus is? John the Baptist come again. That is, his movement kept going by Jesus.

Josephus, Jewish historian of the  time,  has Herod kill John because he’s a threat. Mark is more complex. John speaks out against Herod’s marriage to Herodias, who was his brother’s wife. Bur he keeps John around, protects him. It’s Herodias who has the most to lose, which Teddy picks up immediately. 

It’s a birthday party. John R says this is why Jehovah’s witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays. (Bad things can happen?) Who is the crowd? His soldiers, the bureaucrats and leading businessmen. The holy trinity of power and privilege. 

So Salome dances. Herod makes a drunken promise. She asks for John’s head. And even though it grieves him, Herod has it done. As Luisa says, to some, people are expendable.  

Aubrey Beardsley's Salome with John's head

I mention Oscar Wilde’s play where Salome is attracted to John and seeks to have him beheaded when he spurns her. And Aubrey Beardsley’s illustration for Wilde. (I once encountered a woman bar tender in New Orleans who had the whole Beardsley illustration tattooed down her arm. She was impressed that I could identify it.) And Richard Strauss’ opera of  Wilde’s play. (Hearing my then friend Lauren Flanigan sing Salome’s aria to John’s head with the San Francisco Symphony Orchsetra remains  one of the most astounding performances I’ve ever heard. Chills down the spine. Literally.) And now Salome is a regular character on the HBO vampire series True Blood. She has staying power. 

Then we go to Mark’s version of the feeding of the 5000. (Did they come out to protect him, assuming he was taking John’s place?) Here the disciples set the story into motion. Jesus says, You feed them. They say, you want us to spend two hundred denarii for bread? He tactfully does not ask them where they got the money from. He does ask the to see what they have.  Just five loaves and two fishes. (No boy vendor here.) And he divides the people up, starts blessing and distributing  and there’s more than enough. 

He assessed the problem. Took inventory of available resources. Organized the people.The miracle was one of distribution, not production. We have enough.There are enough resources in the world to feed everyone.  It’s a matter of will. 

Teddy recalls the early days of Zucotti Park. There was always enough food. I remember working at Ground Zero after 9-11. How on the first Sunday after our church made 1500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. How did we do that? Where did all the bread, pb and j come from? How some of us cut onions at Boule for the gourmet meals they prepared. Our night serving meals at St. Paul's chapel at Ground Zero, The guys who drive up from Louisiana with a truck load of jambalaya. Which we served all night while they played cajun music.

For the first time, we see that the John story is not a random insertion. We see the careful, intentional literary craft of Mark’s work. The John story is, as John R says, a foreshadowing. It’s a warning to the disciples of where their mission could lead. The feeding of the 5000 is the repudiation of Herod’s world of domination and power and privilege. Of military and money. It’s a new kind of community, a new way of being. An ethic of sharing abundance, not hoarding in scarcity. It all fits together seamlessly.

John R says he gets the sharing. It’s forgiveness that is hard. 

A new guy, Jonah, (though some people call me Shiloh) participated after we found him on the table meditating and doing yoga. We’ll see what his story is.

(Bible Study informed by Ched Meyer, Binding the Strongman)

Thou art the man

8/5

Reflection on 86th Street by Gidon Lowenthall

Steven is practicing the piano as I arrive. Teddy has everything ready. Hope arrives soon after.  It's August. Lots of folks away.  But Anna and Puppy are back.

The story in 2 Samuel (11:26-12:13a) is  one of my favorites. Last week, we had part one, where David sees Bathsheba, takes her, she winds up pregnant and he brings her husband Uriah home to try and create a cover,but being a faithful soldier, Uriah won't sleep in his bed and stays outside so David has him sent to  the frontlines so that he will be killed. This week is part two, the dramatic conclusion.     It's great drama. In the 1951 movie  Gregory Peck played  and Susan Hayward Bathsheba. Who would it be today?

I like this passage because of a sermon I heard my freshman year of college by Ray Swartzbach. Ray was one of the pioneers of Presbyterian urban ministry working in Cincinnati, riot torn Detroit, Cleveland. He decided to give his family a break and spend four years at the College of Wooster in bucolic Wayne County, Ohio. I can still hear his voice thunder as he spoke Nathan's words to David:  Thou art the man. (Sounds so much more dramatic in the King James version.)

In Ray's sermon, Nathan's story of the rich man who had everything taking the little lamb from the poor man who had nothing else was a parable for what the US was doing in  Vietnam. It was the fall of 1967 and opposition to the war had not yet become universal. That sermon kept me in church. Probably one reason why I decided being a minister would be a good job for me.  Years later at Yale, I would hear William Sloane Coffin, Jr. preach a very similar sermon on that text. It's parabolic value remains sadly relevant in  describing how the world we live in works.

Wes Howard-Brook in his recent book, Come Out My People, says that the whole Bible has an ongoing tension between two religions, that of  Empire vs. that of Creation. The people wanted a King, the david story shows what can happen. The tension is clear.

One of my colleagues in my clergy study group saw a connection between this story and the current War on Women where even basic hard won rights arfe being called into question.As the story goes on, Bathsheba is not even named, she becomes the wife of Uriah..And when Nathan says that David's wives will be taken sexually by his enemies, the focus is on the loss of honor by David, not the trauma of the women made victim to sexual violence.

What's also evident here is the sense  of entitlement that comes with position, power and privilege. Taking Bathsheba  would seem reasonable to David.  Just his due.  

Then there is the issue of collateral damage...who else gets hurt in what way? Act and cover up. Joab,  front  who gave the order that sent Uriah to the front was also a victim...I keep thinking of that janitor at Penn State. And all the others who participated in covering up the actions of Jerry Sandusky out of fear for their jobs or just not wanting to embarrass the university for ten years as the innocent victims continued to be preyed upon. 

And then forgiveness and consequences. David will be sustained through all, God will stay with him,  but he has set in motion countless consequences he will have to endure...strife within his family, violence to his wives: shame  and loss of  honor...

David hears Nathan.  He hangs his head, says I have sinned against the Lord. But wait... anyone else? I have always appreciated that in the Jewish High Holy Day sequence, the yearly journey to atonement, you can’t ask God to forgive what you did to someone else...

Our Psalm this morning is read every year on Ash Wednesday, to begin Lent. Was Psalm 51 David's  prayer after hearing Nathan? Against you alone have I sinned only makes sense in that a sin against any human being is a sin against God. To hurt another person is to hurt God. 

It goes on. I will go to court this week with one of our members. She has managed to support herself, keep a job, pay her rent for over thirty years. Signing a paper opened the door for a greed driven landlord to get her rent stabilization removed and begin eviction proceedings. Not only that, they're seeking years worth of the difference between the rent she paid and market rate. PLUS attorney's fees.  She will not only be homeless but financially ruined.  All to further enrich an already rich landlord. The rich man taking the little lamb again. I look at the landlord's attorney and think, how do you sleep at night? Do you not know what you are doing? If only Nathan could appear in court.....

What do we take for ourselves? We begin with  honesty, facing squarely our reality. Then, as in twelve step groups, we must make amends. And then begin again

And then, as in David's story, face the reality that some things broken remain broken...

It begins with speaking the truth in love...(Ephesians 4: 1-16)...having the courage to be open and honest with each other.  It's not easy, believe me, I know. 

We need each other....The word religion in Latin comes from the same root as ligaments. It has the sense  knitting together that which has been broken, fractured...We do that in community....as we seek to be together the body of Christ.

Later, as we begin to gather for communion, a table of inclusion, I reflect on the Olympics. As I read in Sports Illustrated,  The first world record of the Games went to South Korea's Im Dong-hyun, an archer who's legally blind. Natalia Partyka of Poland, a table tennis player with no right hand, joined Oscar Pistorius, the prosthetically fitted "blade runner" from South Africa, as someone who would not be waiting for the Paralympics, thank you very much.

In a gesture of national healing, Japanese athletes arrived in London with medals already in hand-beribboned discs, hewed by children from driftwood left by the 2011 tsunami. The support greeting Megan Rapinoe after her recent announcement that she's gay had the U.S. midfielder playing some of the most exuberant soccer of her career. And no hijab could have concealed the womanhood of Malaysia's Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi, who competed in the 10-meter air rifle while eight months pregnant. I have two hearts, she said after placing 34th of 56, so maybe I am stronger.

Perhaps the church can learn from the example of the Olympics. That is the kind of inclusive community we are seeking to create. That is what we celebrate at this table. Let all who will come be welcome.

We share our bread and cup using the glassware I brought back from the Pittsburgh General Assembly. Symbolically joining our little community with the Presbyterians who had gathered from around the country. 

We gather around the table. Say our Alleluias and Amen. 

Our worship has ended. The service will continue. 

Robert L. Brashearu