Heart to Heart

6/6

Back from a morning in court over a Department of Buildings violation. Won’t try to think about who might have instigated that and why. And the New York City Labor Religion Coalition breakfast. Head spinning with thoughts as to how that might become more central to our life. Most workers belong to a community of faith. And most communities of faith have workers in the congregation. We need to make this not about issues but relationships. Help to support and sustain people in  their lives. And exegete their daily lives and struggles. And have our advocacy grow out of that. I remember the church across from the steel mill in Duisberg, Germany. Their every Monday night political worship, where the steel workers came to reflect on their lives and work.

Martin and  Stephen. The discussions continue.  

Sounds of Ethel coming down from McAlpin. Wish they were still right above me. 

Cara is busy helping me with the sweeping. We found the long handled dust pan. Celebrate any victory.

Over on Broadway I see Sean at a phone booth. Hope he’s making a connection. Finding a place.

Day’s coming to an end . Ralph from Ethel coming down from locking up their instruments for the day. Tell him I miss them upstairs. He tells me that they like McAlpin. Good to rehearse surrounded by art. We talk about Berik’s work. How the Private Theatre  that did their own adaption of Strindberg’s Playing With Fire last summer used Berik’s work for their teaser video.

Berik's work. Russian genre?

 Ralph talks about how this falls into a certain Russian genre and I recall that though a Kazakh, Berik shows in Moscow one or two times a year. Ralph’s favorite is one with  Peter Pan feel.

Ralph's favorite

Dzieci has arrived. Turning down the lights for their weekly meeting.

I’m on my way to Williamsburg to see Alive Wire’s Jeremy and Scott in their own productions in the SOAK Festival at the Leimay performance space the CAVE, down by the water.

But as I step onto 86th Street, I see Isis. She greets me, we hug. These says, no heart to heart, and I’m amazed. Alive all these years and I never noticed the hug that brings you heart to heart. As I”m pondering this, I hear a voice.

Hey, do I get one too? And it’s Katherine, my long time colleague and Center collaborator. Yes you do, Kathrine. Yes you do. But I  can’t remember if it was heart to heart. 

Berik's ballerina

The missing, the empty place doesn’t go away

6/5

Things outside, on the steps, have definitely deteriorated since Sergeant Keith went AWOL. I struggle with the sweeping, cursing the missing dustpan. As I search the building for it, I notice more and more places of regression. And feel depressed. An dit’s up to me to clean up whee Sean was. A black rubber gloves day for the blasted cardboard and jeans. Enough.

At least the soothing sounds of Ethel are filtering down from Mc Alpin. 

Nate’s friends Chris and Kelly Ann arrive. I give them the full tour. They are creating their own business in Seattle for musical events, so I tell them the whole Red Bull story.  And show them all our performing spaces, Chris taking photos everywhere. He’s especially taken by some of the acrylic work in Berik’s current exhibition. 

It’s Nate’s idea that we eat at Barney Greengrass so I take the in and give them the tour, including all the celebrity photos. And Chris orders some of the paper thin, melt in your mouth sturgeon while Kelly orders my favorite, the pastrami salmon. (They’re living inSeattle, they know salmon...)

While I was giving them the tour, I noticed that Beard Papa had parked himself in the chapel and was playing the piano.  Hmmm not supposed to be in this building...later Martin will tell me he escorted him out. 

Stephen brings Judy W in. She’d noticed the door open and came in. Back in the day, My predecessor Bob Davidson’s day, in fact, she ran an AIDS program here at West- Park. I told her how Bob had died of a broken heart, losing his wife then his vision after a career of groundbreaking witness. 

RL comes in, looking wan after a bad day of heat and sun. 

A couple from San Francisco who loves old churches comes in and I give them my usual tour. And yes, there is still a church here. 

During our strategy session yesterday, Jeremy G of Alive Wire Theatre looked in. He and Danielle have been talking about new project. He had been completely shocked to hear about Teddy.

here is the exchange f e-mails between Danielle and Jeremy:

Hi Jeremy,

It was lovely to see you again yesterday. I just reminded Bob about our meeting on Monday and told him a little about our conversation. He looked at the festival brochure and would really like to see your piece tomorrow, if possible.

I've also been wanting to send you some of Bob's blog posts around Teddy's death since we talked. It is hard to accept that a person with so much personality can cease to be in the present. Maybe these things will help as you think about all this. Here is a post about the day he died, the clip of his interview with the filmmaker and a post about his memorial service. 

On a happier note, break a leg tomorrow! Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week.

Danielle, 

Thank you for your note and particularly for sending the links. I'd actually found the blog post last night -- it was tough to read; Bob is a very good writer. It was strong. I actually sent it to the You Will Make A Difference team along with the word of Teddy's passing and received some sweet notes from them. It's amazing how someone with whom one spends as little time as I did with Teddy can feel so touched by those moments of interaction, isn't it? I learned a lot from him.

Jeremy

The missing, the empty place doen’t go away. 

Chicken and rice from the halal truck

6/4

All day long the beautiful sounds of Ethel filling the sanctuary. (http://www.ethelcentral.org/)

Martin and Stephen. Numbers. Ideas. If you work at it long enough, does it come together?

Robert drops in wearing his blazer and tie. One of our St. Agnes volunteers from last semester. Looking for a recommendation. I ask where he’s going to go to school now that the diocese is closing St. Agnes. It’s sad. Catholic school was always there, in poor neighborhoods, as well as better off, to provide an affordable alternative to ghetto schools or the $40-50,000 a year private schools of the upper class. But they’re disappearing year by year even as the immigrant population that could benefit from them continues to grow. (Catholics in our neighborhood doubled in the last census -- most of them Latino)

A phone call from an attorney derails our day. Many bureaucratic loopholes, state and church, before we can accomplish the much needed sale of our manse. It’s a legal and political labyrinth. We gather Marsha, Stephen, Nancy to develop a strategy to work our way through  successfully.  It’s the net under the tightrope. (And what I need to get a new place to live.) It all begins wit a church meeting this Sunday. Our days will be filled until then preparing reports and resolutions. We each have our assignments.

The man in the wheel chair is back. Stephen and I go to talk to him. He’s had an accident. Asks for time. And for something to drink. Of course, Red Bull again.

I’m going to meet a friend for  movie. I remind him that he promised he would be leaving. Don’t you have a place to stay? Didn’t the people who got you the wheel chair get you a place to stay?  He shakes his head vehemently. I am not going to a shelter. No. It’s no place for a wheel chair. They knock you off, steal your stuff. I am not going to a shelter. 

Stephen  and I go back in. It’s sad. But he can’t be there hour after hour. Danielle will try to connect with Reachout.

Back after my second viewing of Frances Ha. ( It’s a beautiful black and white movie about young adults in New York City.)

The man in the wheel chair is still there.  I say, You told me you’d be gone...

.But it’s night time, please until tomorrow. 

Man, you can’t stay here 24 hours. Not here. We’ll work with you. My name is Bob. What’s yours?

He looks at me, surprised. I thought you knew me, Sean.

Oh no. Damn, Now I get it. Thought it was strange to have two men with no feet around. Sean who Teddy saved. Got to the hospital. To rehab. To a chair and I thought prostheses. And housing. He was so together. But now....barely recognizable. What happened? My heart aches.

Sean....

Look, I’m hungry. Could you get me some food?  

What do you want?

Chicken and rice.

OK.

So I go down to the halal truck and get him a dinner. Bring it back. The morning, OK, Sean?

OK. Thanks. 

Stephen and Cara are headed out. Work and dance classes done. 

See you tomorrow. Peace. 

I tell Los Rodriguez to help Sean out in the morning before they leave.  They nod. 

The early morning quiet

6/3

Al and the contractors arrive and are ready to move room by room through the building trying to assess what exactly it will cost to bring the building all up to legal code.  All part of trying to find the solution, create the solution. 

Stephen comes in and we’re ready to figure out what all needs to happen this week.

Cara is back excited about the next round of classes with Soli and Noche. 

The Prophet walks in. Dressed, looking almost normal. Danielle and I look up from our meeting. It’s the Prophet, she says. Hello Geoffrey, I say. He touchesTh his fingers to his forehead, bows his head slightly and goes into the sanctuary to pray or meditate, whatever worship is his. A while later, he walks back out, nods and leaves. 

The pressures, the circle of uncertainties are beginning to wear. Need one thing, just one to fall into place.

Late at night, Nate and two friends from Seattle arrive. We’ll borrow some chairs and a table from the church to make the apartment  that is no longer ours functional for the week they will be here. Its hard for Nate, since it no longer feels like his home. But we’ll make it work.

Come back to return my keys. Finish my writing. Check out the steps. Walk home in the early morning quiet,a cool, post shower breeze is blowing. A new week begun. 

Put some more water on it: Thoughts on authority and prayer

6/2

The steps are a mess. I’ve got to do it by myself. The long handled dustbin is missing. Open the doors to the dark sanctuary. I hate doing this by myself. As my folks arrive, we make the circle again.

We review the concert,  complete with pictures,  with Don, the last one to make such an amazing transformation of the sanctuary. And I share my latest homeless statistics with my friends. The 55000 in the shelter system, the 23000 children. And that it would take Habitat 5500 years to build enough houses to take car of the homeless of the world.  

What's in front of us today is question of authority.....With a look at prayer as well. 

We begin with one of my favorite stories, 1 Kings 18:m20-21(22-29). Elijah and the priests of Baal in the days of Ahab. Seems like almost everyone as gone over to the worshipping of Baal. Including King Ahab. Elijah feels like he’s the last prophet standing. Time for drastic action.

I love the way he plays it. The contest is to see who’s God will send fire down to consume the sacrifice. After doing their wailing best, including lashing and cutting themselves, while having to endure nonstop trash talk from Elijah, nothing. Nothing happens. 

Elijah comes at it like an NBA all star in a dunk contest. Or a David Blaine. He soaks his altar with water. Three times. More water, more water..and.put some more water on it, he says. And God sends down fire to the altar. 

One of those Our god is red hot, your god ain't doodely squat moments.

With Paul, we’re dealing with authority as well. (Galatians 1; 1-12).  There is no other, no other gospel, he says.  We think of Paul as the great rule maker, because that’show he’s used today. (Ask the lgbtq community. Women...) But what he’s really about is freedom. Did you notice what happened on May 22nd? Pope Francis said all who do good are in-- The Vatican had to , as my friend RL would say, tap dance around that one. Like, well, they must know Jesus in their hearts, even if they don’t know it. Those who seek to use Paul to restrict people, not set them free, miss that for Paul, the Gospel is the PERSON of Jesus, not any systematic doctrine.

Luke (7: 1-10) is dealing with the same issues. There is the faith of centurion...one of the negative collection of occupiers. Who do so in service of the empire. He is a man of authority. And recognizes in Jesus another man of authority. For the centurion, Jesus doesn’t have to come,in person, just his word is enough. (An in the end, it doesn’t even take his word...)

As for prayer, my colleagues wanted to know, Can we pray like Elijah? Could  we pray with that much confidence in a contest  between our God and modern day Baal worship?... Could we go to Times Square?

And then What do we pray for? Elijah wanted God to show God’s self. The Centurion wanted his slave, who had performed honorably, to be healed. What do we pray for? I remember my years at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Where they have Expect a Miracle written on the basketball court. My friend Dewey. Born with a withered leg. How his fellow students circled him in prayer for his leg to become whole how they blame dis faith for making their prayers not to be answered. How old man Oral himself had to tell them to lay off. You have to be careful not to go there. 

And I know you have to be able to visualize it for it to be possible. As Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves says, only presenting images of misery disempowers people. If we want people to fight for a better world, we have to create images of beauty so that they can imagine it. 

The Psalms tell us to be explicit and totally honest in our  prayers. emotionally honest . 

But in the end, Gethsemane is the model. Let this cup pass, my God let it pass...but in the end, Not my will, but yours

Complete honesty,  complete acceptance, complete courage....

It is not easy.....

We spend some time around the circle talking about our own experiences. With prayer. Then Leila and Pat assist me in the serving of communion.

After worship, the session meets to plan next week’s annual meeting. Jamie updates us on our ongoing real estate issues. Even with so much unsettled, we need to move ahead.

It’s late afternoon. Edward Green has appeared again. Edward, you have to go. Again the sullen resistance. Sorry, you’re just not welcome here. A young African-American woman is observing this. Looking askance at our exchange, accusingly at me. How could she know the back story? Our history?

And ironically, inside, Sanctuary NYC is ready for the next of their Hear it Out! series. Every two weeks our friend Pernell Walker is bringing us the est of emerging African-American playwriting with topics that cover the complex  holistic breadth of living black in the US today. 

Today’s offering, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, by Kevin R. Free, begins with a popular singer going home to sing at a Marriage Equality benefit and spins out from there. It’s one of the hidden gems of West-Park,this series. 

Don’t stay for the Q and A. Need to get to SPSA for our night at the homeless shelter. The guests look forward each month for the first Sunday night. West-Park night.  Because of Kate and her gourmet meals prepared with loving care. Tonight it’s shrimp and skirt steak and root vegetables and....no one else does this...only Kate...the food, the conversation, an extension of our communion.

Pondering the limits of Unqualified Acceptance

6/1

                                                        From a distance

In the office trying to get prepared for Sunday and the going seems slow. Movie break. Frances Ha. (Good. I know most of those people in the movie...ie, the characters, not the actua  people except for Charlotte D'Ambroise)

After watching the Pens go down to the Bruins, I’m back working on my sermon. Marc’s here late. Together we listen to my recording from Thursday  of Julie Gold singing From a Distance, which has nearly become  tradition at our annual Interfaith Assembly convocation and vigil. Song always takes me back to Desert storm, the first Iraq war. Other conversation about music, equipment recording. ( Marc had done the city’s Memorial day event in Riverside Park.)But mainly I learned more about his work creating precision high quality hand crafted cables. 

Getting late. As I start up Amsterdam, los Rodirguez have just arrived. Where  is Keith? The sergeant appears to be AWOL or perhaps MIA. If we see him, we’ll tell him you’re asking about him. Thanks, I say. Then I see Edward Green. Sound asleep. Look, I say, I’m not waking him up but he is not welcome here. I’ve had to clean up his crap at least ten times and I’m  not doing it again. He’s got to be up first thing and take all his stuff with him. 

Walking up the street, I’m pondering the limits of  unconditional acceptance. And I feel sadness. It’s now June.

The day began on the steps of City Hall

5/31

I ride the subway back uptown with my colleague Alistair.

What do we want? Housing.When do we want it? Now

We’ve been on the steps of city hall following last night’s sleepover in City Hall Park, in a sense a ritual act (in the sense that Bill Tripp has educating us about) commemorating and celebrating the occupation 25 years ago. City Hall Park....and the steps of City Hall....transformed into ritual space. 

We were there to join the emerging coalition calling for a new housing policy for New York City that could preserve a space for the middle class here.The Coalition to End Homelessness Now. Part of that coalition is Habitat for Humanity, known for their hands on approach, rebuilding houses one at a time....Thankfully Habitat’s Matt Dunbar is open enough to say that at the current rate it would take 5500 years for Habitat to build enough houses. Yes, 5500 years, Policy change is needed. And so they created the Hammer  and Pen campaign including a long scroll to collect signatures of citizens demanding policy change. Today we will roll those scrolls down the steps of City Hall and ask mayoral candidates to sign

Rolling out the scroll

on. We will learn that today there are over 55000 in the city’s shelter system including 23000 children.

Long time sympathetic council member Sal Abanese,who was there 25 years ago to talk with the homeless occupation, is first to sign. Followed by Republican George Mc Donald has  spent his entire public  career seeking legitimate solutions in a classic Republican (think Eisenhower) way. Then finally council speaker Christine Quinn. Who after she signs, draws all the press attention. She is of course, the presumed front runner. She should be the progressive’s favorite with the real potential to be the city’ first woman, not to mention lesbian mayor. But just below the surface, she is a classic New York City Irish take no prisoners politician. She will do what she needs to do to get what she wants.

I spot our own council member Gale Brewer, now running for Manhattan Borough President. Clearly a friend of Homeless Activists. And get her invited to sign as well. I wish I were wearing my collar. Dressed as a normal person, I’m just a body. Alistair, who spent the night bit went home for his collar,  and I agree, it was a good event....

Back at West-Park, Stephen tells me there is the smell of death in the sanctuary. He’s right. And that fills me with dread. When Danielle arrives, we’ll both don masks and enter the pigeon tower, the forbidden zone, to investigate. God knows, I’d love to just send her by herself, but I can’t allow that. So we go together. And find nothing. So we’ll investigate the whole sanctuary. And then together sweep the steps. And I’ll take care of dumping the decomposing dead mouse. (This is true urban ministry.)

He assessment was that the storm soaked the pigeon guan and the sun baked to foulness. We throw open the windows and burn scented candles all day.

Stephen will be tied up in meetings with Martin for hours seeking the elusive solution. 

A man from a theatre company come wanting to check out space. Seems his production takes place while most of the audience is sleeping...OK, then....

I hear a noise and find Edward Green on the steps with a ton of cardboard. Edward, you have to go. I say. You can’t be here. He eyes me, angrily, OK,  you made your point. I’m going. Taking my stuff with me. 

I come back later. He’s still there. Still glowering. I already told you I’m going. I already have a father, he’s older than you. (Maybe, maybe not...)

Edward is still on a wanted poster at Capital Hall. And persona non grata here. He’s the living challenge to my policy of unqualified acceptance. (But not the only one...)

In the sanctuary, a  woman is quietly praying...

Stephen comes in after his  hours of conversation. The dream is still alive. Still possible....but.....

My friend John Scotland arrives from Brigantine, New Jersey. Fighting his own battle with a Presbytery to keep his soup kitchen alive. His laughter speaks of cynicism, reality, determination and faith. But tonight’s agenda will only include his Red Sox vs. our Yankees at Yankee Stadium.(Another ritual space...) Stephen of course, shares his Red Sox tattoo. The first time I hear Boston sucks, I know that we are moving past the marathon attacks.....

Later, after the Yankees hold on to win, I’ll return. Stephen is staffing the Collegiate School alumni event. After I explain to someone that it’s a legitimate party, not some after hours affair, it's time to head home.

                                                                      * * * * 

I wish my #OWS friends could have read Jiler's Sleeping with the  mayor...25 years ago, the homeless occupiers of City Hall Park, kochville,  tried to create a community of radical acceptance, radical democracy, perhaps even sustainability.  They faced just what #OWS did long ago. And their failures, as well las their successes, were important lessons.