Not going to happen

2/15

Cold again. Deacon James and I decide to split the duty today. He does the front and I do 86th Street. Wonder why it’s always worse, if the crosstown street is like a canyon for the wind. As I sweep, I’m thinking about the people in Egypt, the women, sweeping Tahrir Square after the departure of Mubarak.  How that simple act defined dignity, ownership of the process. Just like every day I do this, I feel that much more connected to this place. Like it would be that much harder to give up. Someone calls to talk about a wedding. The weight of accumulated projects, lack of progress feels heavy, as is my concern that our friends don’t start to burn out. This feels like midwinter. Midwinter. 

2/16

I leave Housing Court to come and take care of the church.  I take off my collar to do the sweeping.Then I’ll have go back. Realized quickly this morning that this, court,  would become my day. Went there, clergy collar and all, to support a member. He’s been in this apartment for 22 years. Disability payments from his brain injury pick up part of the rent, roommates picked up the rest. Then the roommates disappeared, months unpaid.  The landlord allowed the back rent to accumulate to build a case for eviction. So the apartment could be freed from rent stabilization and rise to market rate. 

We Americans are proud of our court system, the “rule of law,” as we call it. Cornerstone of democracy, we believe. But everytime I come here, I see again how at the bottom level, it is as my member calls it, kafkaesque. The line to pass through security downstairs. My metal overcoat buttons get me a closer inspection. The line waiting to get into each room. The disproportionate number of poor people and people of color in every courtroom. Court appointed attorneys wandering though the room calling out names of clients they’ve never met, stacks of case file folders in their arms. Waiting to make an appearance. Court officers enforcing the no hat, no cell phone rules. Late arriving judge with no robe. 

The attorney for the landlord calls us out into the hall. Searches through his stack of files.  We’ve got no attorney. The social worker argues well. Maybe a deal can be made. The attorney calls the landlord. He shakes his head. “Not going to happen,” he says. We’re going to have to come back in the afternoon. The social worker asks me what it might be like working 8 hours a day to put people out of their homes. 

Back in the courtroom an 89 year old man with a walker, an attendant and a thick eastern european accent is arguing with the judge. The judge is occasionally sympathetic, more often annoyed and condescending. The old man, like all of us, has an internal sense of what justice should be. “I know what you want,” says the judge. Then like the attorney before him, says,"not going to happen.” The old man argues some  more. Then gives up. “You do to me like the Nazis did,” he says, defeated. It was like he had dropped an f-bomb.

I race back downtown to get there before the 2 o’clock start up time. It’s more like 2:45 before it resumes and 4pm before our case is called. The judge starts out thinking its a simple case of  unpaid rent, nothing else relevant. The social worker begins to explain the complexity. All the efforts we have made. The judge asks who I am. I explain that I’m the pastor. He allows me to remain in front of the bench. She explains the effects of short term memory loss. How a move to a new neighborhood could be problematic, if not dangerous. She offers a solution. The judge looks at the attorney. The attorney shrugs. “Not going to happen,” the judge says. The social worker requests an evaluation by Adult Protective Services. The judge mulls this over. “You’re in a bad situation,” he says. “You’ve got no attorney, but your social worker has done a yeoman’s job. Your pastor has come down to be with you all day. That speaks well as to what kind of person you are. OK, we’ll get a APS report. Come back on March 23rd.”

Leaving the courtroom, the APS man approaches. Arms overflowing with file folders. Rich African accent. Takes quick notes. “OK, OK” he says. Tells us he’ll set up the evaluation. Motions us away.

Outside the courtroom, my member says, “I stopped taking it personally long ago.” We talk about Frankl. About how we can’t always change what happens to us but we can choose how we respond. How we understand its meaning. “ I know it’s hard because you experience it personally,” I say.  “Yes, but I don’t let it define who I am,” he says. We leave the court, ready to take the train back to the upper west side. 

Valentine's Day: Boiler. Pigeons. Roof.

2/14

Valentine’s Day.  After services yesterday, we gathered on the steps  to make a Valentine’s Day picture to post and say we love our church.Warm and sunny. Almost 50. Until the sun  goes down and the wind picks up. John calls late in the day. He’s with the Woodshed Theatre Collective at the church. There’s more water damage. So I head there. Sure enough, in the northwest corner, more plaster has fallen and there’s a growing puddle on the sanctuary floor. There had been a pile of plaster there before that had been swept up during our clean up day. But it’s clear that the heavy snow that has been on the roof is starting  to melt. This can only get worse. Can we use the money at the Landmarks Conservancy for this? Boiler. Pigeons. Roof.

Choose life

2/13

We  are slow gathering today.  A visitor has arrived looking for a service. She regularly sings at Lafayette Avenue Church in  Brooklyn, a vital church where my friend David Dyson (another Pittsburgh guy) is pastor. She’s got a Sunday off and is out to see what’s  in her neighborhood. I know that Jim and Holly are over at Jan Hus today to hear Janie Spahr, one of the early leaders of the More Light movement that grew from West-Park across the country and across denominations.  Oh, and Janie began her ministry as an urban pastor in Pittsburgh. (See a pattern here?)  

I grow increasingly anxious that this might be that day, the day I fear more than any other when no one will show up.  When a bank of lights go out and I can’t seem to find the right circuit breaker, I’m about ready to give up. But the lights come on, the people come and we’re ready for worship.  

Andre chants the psalm in his improvised  jazz style and  we respond. The scriptures are read. 

There’s much to talk about.  it’s been quite a week. An inspiring moment in Egypt. In eighteen days, a dictator overthrown. The people did it. No one else. Not the military, not the US, the people...Although we don’t know what comes next, the way in which this revolution was fought and won gives hope for Egypt’s future and inspiration for people everywhere.

Voting continued in Presbyteries this week to reverse the part of our Book of Order that effectively has been used to exclude  lgbt  people from ordination at every  level of our ecclesiastical life. For the first time ever the  yes votes  are in the majority. Only by 5, 34-29, and there are still 110 to go, but it is a promising  moment, a hopeful moment. I ask the congregation that if any one has Presbyterian friends in other parts of the country that haven’t voted yet, now’s the time to call. I point to the rainbow flag hanging from the balcony. Remind the congregation of our legacy. This time the struggle can be won. 

This week my friend David Bos. of Louisville died. He had been a founder of  the Community Ministries and Neigborhood Organizations and later Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation national networks. He was a true pioneer in ecumenical community ministry. And he almost singlehandedly led the denomination into support for single payer healthcare leading to a series of workshops all across the country to increase understanding and support for just healthcare. And David was a friend of ours. Every time he came to New York City he would worship with us,through good times and bad. Last fall he was with us to give us support in our new project. He will be missed.

The framework for what I have to say is the quote from Deuteronomy 30:  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. It come from the almost the end of Torah..The children of Israel are standing at the edge of the promised land. It’s as if after 40 years, God is asking them one more time, are you ready? Really ready?

Choose life. This quote was a motto of the nuclear freeze movement back in the 80’s. I pointed to the two balconies  and remembered how the 1982 march against nuclear proliferation was planned right here, within these walls. And over  a million people marched in New York City in support of the Second UN Special Session on Nuclear Disarmament.

The passage can be dangerous. On the one hand, it can be misread can as a  prosperity gospel. All that equating life/prosperity, death/adversity. It’s all about following other gods. We do that all the time. I told them of my conversation with the mad prophet on the street last week. How all sins flow out of that first one.

For me, what brought this passage to concrete reality was  9-11.. When we served there as a congregation and toured those smoldering acres of death and destruction in a Stygian landscape. I realized that this is the basic choice we must make life? or death?  My clergy group last Wednesday had debated, can we really choose? Traditional reformed theology would argue that even our capacity to choose is  a function of grace...and yet.....As I’ve reread Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, I realize again the importance of our choices. So for others, I’ll grant grace and not judge, for myself, my community, it will be the power and capacity to make choices. 

For we do make choices. We chose not to sell. We chose to remain here. We chose to come back heat or no heat. And we choose to be here every Sunday. It’s about choosing life. The classic Hebrew toast? L’haim. How do we cheer in Spanish? Viva....live.

That’s the context in which I look at the Gospel, Matthew 5: 21-37. It’s a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount. This year, because of our long Epiphany season, it’s the longest longest stretch we ever have with the Sermon on the Mount..(Pastor Drummond at West End told us of a friend that preached on it for a whole year.) It’s about a community in 70 CE trying to figure out how to live after fall of the Temple. And I’m convinced that for Jesus, it was part of his project to make the  Jubilee real. (Jubilee in the Torah every 7 times 7 plus 1 years ..50...to forgive all debts, restore everyone to community and begin again.)

I remind them that Jesus is speaking to disciples, people who have already made a commitment. Jesus looks at tradition, then ups the ante. For him, the Law is all about the heart of the matter.

Want to talk about murder? Even anger harms. I’ve seen in communities how  anger can be used to  intimidate, to push the other around. It’s  also good to admit that sometimes anger is exactly the appropriate response.  And we need to acknowledge it, own it, or it can devour us. The issue is not denying it or even controlling it, but learning to actively manage it.

The need for reconciliation? Especially  before communion? Can you imagine what that might be like? If you had to leave the table and go be reconciled with someone before sharing in the eucharist? Hope and I were all day in a Presbytery “reconciliation” process yesterday. It’s hard work. Necessary, but hard. 

Talk about divorce?  In Jesus’ day, this was an issue about community, (divorce still impacts our community life today) and justice. The issue at stake  here is economic justice, so that women would not abandoned, driven to the margins. 

This is all in the context of Jesus’ use of  hyperbole. This is an answer to those who say they take the Bible literally. (But there are reports that some actually  do do this.) Why only right eye?  The right arm? Do we assume that if the left causes you to sin it’s ok? 

As for lust in the heart, it’s about objectification. Remember Jimmy Carter? How this admission affected him? Still, I’m going to come down on the side of choice again. It does make a difference. Like anger, feeling it is not at issue. What matters is what you do with it. 

We know how the world is. What Jesus gives us is a vision of something better.....a vision we can work towards. 

Finally, we need to let our yes be yes and our no be no....whose word can  be counted on. And both what we say yes to and what we say no to are important. And sometimes we have to say no to get to yes. And in all these choices, it’s about choosing life.

Marsha reminds people of the need to give, to get 100% members giving to show our commitment to our own life, and to meet our challenge grant. And we make plans for the afternoon IAF Assembly. 

Andre leads us in a version of kum ba ya that brings the song out of the world of cynical reference and back to its powerful South African roots. It rises from the bottom up.

As usual, when  the doors are open, after services there are  visitors who want to see the church.  So I do my best enthusiastic tour guide . I’m still amazed by the  number who say they’ve lived here all these years and never been inside. Opening that front door is a basic necessity. When  they ask where the money will come from, I say politicians who’ve made  promises. Com   nunity groups that have made promises And people just like you.

Time to lock up and head home.

                                               ****

Later that afternoon, I swing by the church in my van. Marsha and Deacon James are waiting for me on the steps. We’ll swing by 78th and pick up Arcadia and Hope and be  off to East New York for the Assembly.  We’ll go to St. Paul's Baptist, the church made famous by Johnny Ray Youngblood in Upon this Rock, where the Nehemiah Houses were born. Where faith based community organizing turned a neighborhood around. We’ll join with over a thousand others to hear Senator Schumer and Congressperson Weiner promise  to join us in the fight to preserve Social Security as it is and improve the  system's responsiveness. And new schools’ Chancellor Kathy Black promise to meet with us within two weeks to further our agenda for more just public education. And on the way home, we’ll talk about how we could get our own council member to a greater level of public accountability. It all begins with relationships. 

All the pieces to the puzzle are there

2/12

I’ve just about finished  and am back inside the church when Deacon James pops his head in. “Hey, you’re taking my job away,” he says with a smile. “Well, someone’s got to do it,” I say back, smiling too. I notice he’s wearing a  Steeler stocking cap. “Well at least you’ve got the right team,” I say. “They made it to the  Superbowl, still a good season,” he says. When I go to open the door for Bernardo and Jennifer from El Taller, I see James is out front, working on the edges.

El Taller is a Latin American cultural and education center further north on Broadway in what was once an “automat” restaurant. They share the building with Casa Puebla, a Mexican consulate for that state located here because  of the number of Poblanos that have moved into the neighborhood. (Doubling the number of  Catholics in the last ten years. Pastor  Heidi Neumark of Trinity Lutheran  has  also  done great outreach and somehow combined Mexican immigrants with runaway lgbt youth and others for a vibrant congregation.)

Bernardo is a large bear of a man with a husky Argentine accent. He’s the founder. Jennifer is an artist but also handles the business end of Taller. Several years ago, we did a concert series with El Taller that ran almost a year, every Friday and Saturday night. The best of contemporary Latin American music from Afro-Peruvian pop to Argentine fado to Puerto Rican punk to classic latin big band and Gipsy King style flamenco all filled the walls of West-Park with sound.Jennifer had staged an art exhibit in the balcony.  We took back control of the theatre to do this programming. We turned the stage into a space with small tables with tea light  candles and a wine bar. Some of the acts did very well, some not so well. Part of the issue was advertising. Another part? Not sure. The momentum, the synergy, we had hoped to create hadn’t happened. But this  series was another inspiration for the vision of The Centre we are working to create.

As we tour the building, they feel good to be back in it again. Bernardo shakes his head at the beauty of the acoustics. “You know,” he says, “the sound here is perfect. Rich and warm. You don’t find that everywhere. There are no more big studios in Manhattan. They’ve all gone to Jersey. You could do a whole recording business here. Even live concert recordings. Two groups actually did live concert recordings here and another singer did an album with the help of Reginaldo,” (Regi was my former Associate Pastor. He had done major work on the whole series.) “it could be great.” 

We walk through the building and over and over again they’re excited by the size, the beauty of  the space. Like other artists who’ve been through water damaged Mc Alpin Hall, Jennifer says, “I’d use it just as is.” We finish the tour, sit down to talk.

“Have you thought about going green?” asks Jennifer. And I smile. Talk about Amanda’s connection with the City’ s new head of sustainability. How he was here for an event in December. Our meeting with the City’s Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, author of Green Deen, a Muslim approach to the environment. How we’ve dreamed of this as a model green urban redevelopment project. And of the urban green special high school at Brandeis down the street.  The partnership possibilities. And Jennifer talks about their vision. Complete with drawings of what an urban space could  be. Photovoltaic panels, hydroponic possibilities. There are architects ready to volunteer to do this as a model. The issue is they don’t control their space. 

By the time we’ve finished talking about transformational work with immigrants , creative approaches to working with AIDS, Freirian-style  language education I know our visions match. Like other creative ventures, El Taller too has struggled with money. Especially in this economy. But they’ve also survived for 32 years. 

Deacon James pops in again. “While you’re busy talking I’ve been busy doing the 86th Street side.” “Good,” I say, “it’s been getting a little trashy. Someone had to do it.” I really enjoy that we do this together. “See you in church on Sunday,” he says.

Bernardo, Jennifer and I agree to meet two weeks from now for further discussions. This conversation reminds  me why I get excited. And anxious. All the pieces to the puzzle are there, lying on the floor. The issue is putting them all together. In time.

It's all math

2/10

As I’m sweeping, I see a man walk up the steps and look into the church. He comes back down and approaches. Lean, rangy. Short, gray hair and neat beard. Plaid shirt buttoned at the neck. And that wild mad prophet look in his eyes. “They serve meals in there?”  he says.

“No, we’ve been closed. No heat...there’s food down the street, at the Methodist church.” 

“What kind of church is this?”

“Presbyterian”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, Protestant.”

“That’s the devil’s work, all that division, dividing Christ like that.”

(I’m almost ready to agree with him.)

“It’s all about the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before you, it’s all false pride, I’m right, you’re wrong, it’s all in scripture, I keep right here, close to my heart,” he taps his chest, “it’s the only thing I have left, they can’t take away. Every sin, every sin, comes from that first one. From Adam on down. Trying to be like God, know right from wrong. False pride, my friend, false pride.”

I’d like to tell him that I once preached a sermon on that, how all the commandments follow from the first, all sins a form of idolatry. But I can tell I’m not going to get a word in edgewise. 

And then he’ s off.  Quoting Peter Stoner (‘How ‘bout that name?” he says.) in Science Speaks, with a forward by “famous scientist” H. Harold Hartzler and inevitably to Josh Mc Dowell’s More than a Carpenter.  The 60 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. The odds of one man fulfilling all these being 1 in 10 to the 157th power. The state of Texas covered knee deep in silver dollars, a blindfolded man finding one marked silver dollar. “It’s all mathmatics, my friend. All math. The only true science. The rest is opinion. If you haven’t read Mc Dowell, you don’t know nothin’.” I’m receiving a five minute rapid fire seminar on the evidentiary evangelical literalist apologetic.

“Every word true, my friend,” he taps his chest, “it’s all math.” He’s talking faster and faster, now off onto becoming a sovereigned citizen. “It’s a fact. Like diplomatic immunity. You can do anything you want. Except murder or treason. Anyone can do it. But if you do, they’ll conspire against you. Oppress you. Come out to get you...” I’m trying to imagine him in a dialogue with George. He’s leaning right into my face.

“Excuse me,” another voice says. “Can you tell me the way to St.Luke’s hospital?” I’m thankful for the interruption. I begin to tell him how to get there from here. The Prophet says, “All right then, my friend. I’ll be on my way. Next time. You’ll see, it’s all math.” And he’s on his way.

“Sorry for the interruption,” the second man says, “but maybe I saved you.” I consider the irony of that statement and repeat my directions to St. Luke’s.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mark Koenig, our national Presbyterian UN person at the corner on his cell phone. The buzz in my pocket says he’s calling me. I greet him. Take him inside for a tour of the church. Then take him next door to Barney Greengrass for coffee and conversation.

Mark shares my Pittsburgh roots. Years of experience in international peace causes. I share with him our vision for the Centre. A place where we can explore these issues. Bring people together for exploration, collaboration. How we could work together. He’s getting ready for the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. He’s taken by the vision, what it could be. That’s the issue, moving from what it could be to actually being. Before those who can see the vision get worn out.

Later, John and I meet to prepare for our meeting with Susan from Housing Works. And our neighbor Susan. Financial issues have arisen. The economics are hard right  now. Still, the project seems right. And we need this kind of anchor to have any chance at all of making it work. We pass through a difficult moment. Then agree to meet to continue to come up with a proposal that might work. John is working hard on the numbers. It’s all math.

A Herculean task

2/9

Today is so cold, bits of trash soaked in this week’s rain are frozen solid to the sidewalk.  I decide to move my office down 86th to Starbuck’s for awhile.

First there’s Jim W. A long time member of the church. He was a loyal follower of my old predecessor Bob Davidson.  Jim worked at the front desk during the ’80’s;  the peak of the explosion of homeless on the streets and the crack epidemic in our neighborhood. He had backed Bob’s plan to leave 86th Street and merge with Rutgers church down at 73rd. Back in ‘94. And when the plan failed to be approved by a 55-45% margin at West-Park after Rutgers had approved it by the same margin, Jim and his wife Carol elected to stay at West-Park instead of joining the exodus of leaders who went to  Rutgers anyways. The struggle had been bitter. And personal.

Jim had been one of the funding members of our Men’s Spirituality and Writing Group which had emerged out of work John Hudson had previously done with our congregation. It continues, in some form, until today. Jim had a way with crisp, dry prose in short stories that read like late ’50’s New Yorker. 

Losing his wife Carol after all those years had been very hard on him. They had kept each other going. She had been an Elder and the most generous of people in every sense. Together they were our congregation’s delegates to the Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness. Given his history with the pro-merger group, he’s been skeptical, to say the least, about our vision of bringing the church back where it is. I felt good about moving him from out and out rejection of our plan as crazy to being able to describe it as a Herculean task and express support for me in that process. 

In fact, the purpose of today’s meeting is to work on a grant to go to his  aunt to secure funding for our boiler project. His effort to do this despite  his deep questions about the project speak to his faithfulness. We spend the time working on  revising the proposal. I’m very thankful  for his stepping forward on this.

While I’m finishing with Jim, Jimmy arrives. He came to worship two weeks ago looking for some place else, but felt “God led him to us.” His face is warm, expressive and open and I’m not surprised he had  a career in the hospitality industry, working in managerial capacities at hotels all over the world, in Egypt, England, Spain and Germany. He’s from an AMEZ background and carries some of that sprit with him, though he sees God as bigger than any of our understanding  and that every house of worship is God's home.  It comes to me that his skills  could be very helpful in our 100th anniversary celebration. He seems to be  excited by the idea.  Later, I think that I need to remember to tell him what an important concept hospitality is in the Bible. 

Finishing up in the church, Hope and I talk. Our pressing the Interim Executive Presbyter on the insurance issue seems to have gotten some attention. He seems ready to help. 

Maybe we made some progress today. But Jim is still right. The church, the Centre, the whole project---it is a Herculean task.   

This stuck place

2/8

The wind feels like a March day in February. As I go to unlock the door, I finger the broken stub of a key that unlocked the gates. I remember that when I went to throw it away, Amanda said, “No, don’t. You  need a reminder of  what it was like to have those gates up, what it felt like when they came down. Keep it with you.” While sweeping the steps, someone tosses an empty orange juice box my way. What’s up with that? Trash accumulating on the 86th Street side. I’m going to have to deal with that, but for now I’ll focus on the big stuff. 

An older woman approaches, “Me perdon, esta usted hispano?” I simply say, “Que necesita mi hermana?” It turns out she’s looking for a particular grocery store. It’s ten blocks to the north. She’s come to ochentayseis  instead of noventayseis. I point her in the right direction. “Gracias, pepito,” she says as she leaves. 

I hear the voice of  one of my members, a single mother. “ Bob,what are you doing with a broom?” “Sweeping, “ I say. “I do this every day, have to keep the place clean.” She needs diapers for her child. It’s a difficult time, jobs hard to come by.  I offer her a personal check, but that won’t work. Western Union only cashes business checks. It will take another visit to get what she needs. Her frustration as she hangs on the edge grows harder.

I meet with Tom and Susan at Popovers, two doors down. The agenda starts with the boiler, getting new estimates, quotes. And continues with trying to break the logjam with the community groups offering assistance in return for promises not to contest landmarking and why we simply can’t do that. They seem to agree, want to help. Now to move the politicians...This stuck place around the boiler has to end for anything to flow freely. It’s slowing momentum. 

I look out the window seeing Deacon Linda on her way to volunteer again. 

The temperature will continue to drop all day long.