A day of khairat

Cleannup day: West-Park and NYU Muslim Association

5/21

A beautiful and sunny day. Danielle and I meet to prepare for the clean up day. We’re being joined by the NYU Muslim Student Khairat (benevolence, charity) group. 

Two young men arrive. I introduce them to the church. Get them started. Jon from the Philharmonic arrives. He  notices my New York Black Yankees shirt and hat and we talk Negro League baseball awhile. He gives me a special Rube Foster commemorative stamp. We’re going over the details of his trip to Venezuela that starts tomorrow. To work with El Sistema. My son will be going with him. Juan is there now.  I continue to believe this will be part of what we’re doing. Just not sure how yet. 

More students are arriving. And West-Park members. There’s vacuuming and sweeping. Going through boxes. Moving old mats. Filling bags with garbage. Polishing pews.

I’m outside sweeping when I hear a voice say, Hey do you want some help? It’s Nadia Miann. She’s been following West-Park as part of her doctoral dissertation. The project clearly went ways never imagined at the beginning. It was her idea to organize this day. She and her husband have come to help.

Bob and Nadia

Talk with Marty. Some speculation as to whether the world will end today. That’s all recorded in special, secret books, he says. You have to be invited to read them. But they're not admissable in a court of law he says. Talk of kabbalah. Madonna. You know, she lives across the park. How he’d like a Yankees hat. (I’ll have to remember that.) Saving baseball tickets( cards) when he was a kid. Balsa wood airplane kits. And how Rabbi Hurewitz, from the Bronx, how his son bought a $10 chemistry set and blew up the house. It said no matter how you mix these chemicals it won’t blow up he said. But he found other chemicals, other chemicals. The rabbi, Hurewitz, forgave his son. But he had to pay the super $300. And then Marty is on his way.

John Hudson stops by to congratulate  us on finding an attorney. Now we have  to take the next step on making a business plan. 

I pass by Starbucks and stop to say hi to Amanda and Jane. And of course Amelia. Then off to coach soccer. 

It’s clear I won’t get to see Ludovica’s play today, either. 

Back to the church. We take a picture of the whole crew on the steps. We feel honored to have  been chosen by the Muslim students as today’s project. Just like the Columbia Preservation Alumni last December. A lot has been accomplished. 

The day ends with a gathering to plan Andre’s concert. It’s a circle that didn’t exist before. I look around the circle, family, friends, artists, West-Park folks. I feel more that we can  make this happen. 

From beginning to end. A day of khairat.

The day began and ended with contracts

5/20

Found a lawyer. Contract signed. Church saved. Wolf away from the door. At least for now.

I remember to call and thank Alvin Green from Gray Matters who set this up. For the series of connections that lead back to Mim. That’s how things happen. Relationships. Faxed the contract to attorney Jack Haber. Got the word out. 

Outside, Jim Wadsworth is passing by. We stop and talk. Long time member. One of the founders of our spirituality and poetry group. The cold kept him away. I’d love to bring him back.  

At the end of the day, Stephen from Woodshed comes by. One last time through the contract. It looks like we’ve reached an agreement. We will be welcoming Woodshed’s  immersive theatre experience this summer. 

The day began and ended with contracts. 

Woodshed's Video....scenes of West-Park

When the doors are open

5/19

The sun is out again. On the phone with lawyers and Danielle when Amanda comes in with her five year old daughter Amelia. Deacon James comes in.Hugs all around.  He’s got a touch of pneumonia. I remember the day last summer Amanda and James created this office. Now it is our office. Rochone arrives. Work on the concert. Me on lawyers.

The day they made the office

Danielle takes pictures of the sidewalk for our meeting with the Department of Design and Construction, or the Department of Disaster Control, as Ahmad calls it. Tom comes with us with a stack of photos. Soon Pierre is there too. We negotiate the work to be done. Can’t figure out how to deal with the cost of removing part of the scaffolding so sidewalk beneath can be replaced. We arrive at a plan. I admire Danielle’s toughness. 

Back at the church, we take a close look at the sidewalks.   Best news? I saw a photograph that could potentially change the lawsuit situation. For the better. Could be the key. We’ll see. 

Luis, Lily, others arriving to work on clean out of the session room. What is garbage? What is valuable? What treasure?

Two men come in, one in a clerical collar. They’re from Montreal. One is a Pentecostal preacher. And hearing impaired. Deaf. The other, his friend,  with a sense of humor. They speak French. And sign. Hope, Danielle and I talk with them. About the building. But more the church. 

It’s great to see who comes in when the doors are open.




Westside Spirit story out today.....


http://westsidespirit.com/2011/05/18/battle-for-gay-clergy-started-at-west-park/

Living in the postlude

5/18

It’s been raining all week. An empty package for some kind of Dr. Scholl’s foot product.

It’s the morning after.  An emotionally exhausting roller coaster of a day from believing that the West-Park issue wouldn’t come up at all to another 3 hours of negotiation to having a motion to impose original jurisdiction immediately. Which the AC vigorously opposes. 

So. At the end of the day, well night, we’ve got until Friday midnight to find an attorney. Midnight Friday. Or essentially lose control of the  church. I start the phone calls with Alvin Green immediately.

Left Presbytery emotionally exhausted. Feel strongly the divisions of race, class, culture. Corrupting all we are called to be. Natural. Human. But tragic. One friend speaks of the power of privilege. The sense of bullying. Another speaks of domestic imperialism. Ways of describing what is felt. Big vs small, rich vs poor. White vs people of color. Manhattan vs. the boroughs. All stereotypes. But descriptive of the pain of experience.

We could be so much here. Show the broader church how to live in a global community. A community of ultimate diversity. And inclusion. Where we no longer live in Christendom but in  a postmodern landscape of eclectic spiritual expression and secularism. But we are consumed by our internal machinations, as if nothing else existed around us. It feels like an institution that is already dead. Like we are already living in the postlude.

Sometimes I feel like I’m really done with it. Done with living on the brink. Like I don’t care when I’ll see another Presbyterian. Ever.

But. I remember the event Monday night with Mim. The gala for Storahtelling, the creative combination of actors, music, old forms of story telling, performance art. Their lean years. And now a serious gala at the City Winery. It’s founder, Amichai, had a dream, never wavered. Kept the positive energy moving forward. That’s it. Fear, anxiety does not attract. Keep it moving forward. 

Being now what we want to become.

Work on the building. Larry the electrician back. Another bathroom underway. Fire extinguishers needing to be replaced. Need to get Verizon back for the fire alarm phone line. Smoke detectors. The romance of return is over. Those who said this was impossible, that we had no idea how much this would cost, well, they had a point. But it’s our job to do the impossible.

A deck of Pokemon cards and losing lottery tickets

5/16

A deck of Pokemon cards and losing lottery tickets.

OK. So actually this is the day the photographer arrived to take photos from the Spirit. And remembered the Westy award for our work homeless people. Seems like along time ago. That award.

Danielle and I prepare for the week. But most of my day is spent preparing for our meeting with the Administrative Commission on the future of the church. Stakes are very high. Issues like the law suit loom very large.

Norm comes in to show us what he’s been working on for our archival display. With what we have given him, he has done wonders. Our history and legacy. The present. The future vision.  This will happen. And be good. 

5/17

Only time for a brief pass through the office today. On my way to Presbytery meeting at 475 where first I’ll meet Jane’s brother for lunch. He’s a member of the Board of Presbyterian Welcome. And then an anxious day waiting for issues related to West-Park to come up. 

Fourth Sunday in Easter: Good Shepherd Sunday

5/15

Butts. And an orange.

The doors open. Steps swept. Jim arrives with the bulletins. Rachel. The Santiagos. The church is  arriving. Amy excited to find the Beckstein back again.

We say our opening Alleluias. I point to the rainbow flag hanging from the balcony. Say we’ve more reasons to say Alleluia today.  After 33 years, More Light has finally won.  Friday the Westside Spirit photographer had come to take photos for the story. Me. And the rainbow flag. The rainbow stole Leila had made for me. The photographer remembers coming to photograph me the year I won the Westy award for community leadership,  from the West Side Spirit. (What year was that?)  It’s good to remember that time. Our work with homelessness. But this, this is the end of a long journey.

All week long on the internet there’s been a growing list of saints who fought this fight and died before it was won.  From this church, Bob and Evelyn Davidson. The pastor who pushed for the More Light declaration by the congregation.  Irene Zvonik, who fought on from her wheelchair even as she lost limb after limb. How Janie Spahr flew in for her funeral.  My mentor Rod Martin and his wife Jessie, who I lived with on Riverside Drive in 1982-1983.  Matt English who was to follow me in Tulsa and died all too young from AIDS, abandoned by the Board of Pensions. Our great night at the House of Blues in New Orleans. How they rolled out the red carpet for him. And the guys from Asleep at the Wheel played Miles and miles of Texas for him. The list of names goes on and on. I remember names and faces over 30 years. Brings tears. Help ever, hurt never say the House of Blues. I think of the church. If only. 

So this is Good Shepherd Sunday. Fourth Sunday after Easter. Every year. Why? Maybe because somehow it goes directly to what Resurrection living is all about. 

In the book of Acts, there’s this amazing passage: 

⁴All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 

Does that sound familiar? Remember from each according to the their ability to each according to their need? 

Who was all? Who was any? All we know is that the People were  filled with awe.

It all makes me think of my college friends. How some dropped out and some after graduation went and started a commune in New Mexico.  They were filled  with idealism. Eventually the goat ran away, the well ran dry and everyone was gone. When I finally came out that way, there was nothing left but stories. 

In 1973-4 I worked at the University of Bridgeport. My friend David worked wit the Jewish students there. He and a close circle of friends, his chevra, became a garin, a seed to go Israel and rebuild a kibbutz abandoned during the 1948 war.  At Gezer. When I went to visit him in 1978, he told me that he was living his dream, that it was from each according to the their ability to each according to their need? 

Everyone worked in the fields and shared other work. There was a common dining hall. A store house for everything from ice cream to watches, when you had need. Three cars shared by everyone. A children’s home where all the kids slept at night. If you wanted something special like a tv or stereo, the community would vote. 

Last summer I was back. The children’s home is gone.The common dining hall boarded up. Each family has its own car. Owns their own home. Works in Tel Aviv or somewhere else, the fields leased. What’s left? Well shared ownership of resources, a decision making process, but...

So, Acts...Did it ever really happen? Commentators argue about this. It’s an ideal. A myth. Of course it couldn’t....they say. Well, I’m not sure. 

You know, monasteries were able to make this work. Some brotherhoods, like the Franciscans. Or the German Bruderhof.  And today there are  intentional communities that seek to live this out in spiritually based communities. Our friends at Stony Point are creating  three intentional communities, communities of living faith, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. 

This life style, It was a sign...

They worshipped in the temple, the tall steeple churches. And they broke their bread, lived out their fellowship at home. They did not live separated from the broader community...this corrupt generation.

What we read about  last week, this corrupt generation... where personal acquisition defines a person, property value a church.

For the early church, this was Resurrection living,  the Abundant life....living out the  Good Shepherd life in community...

Earlier we read the 23rd Psalm. 
¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. ²   He makes me lie down in green pastures;
(What does makes mean?)
he leads me beside still waters;^{* 3}   he restores my soul.^*He leads me in right paths^* for his name’s sake. ⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,^*  I fear no evil; 

(what that would feel like...to live just  one day, afraid of nothing. People who are unafraid can’t be intimidated, manipulated.)

for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff—
   they comfort me. 
⁵ You prepare a table before me
  in the presence of my enemies;you anoint my head with oil;

(that’s not about religion or ritual, it’s about sensuality, like Mary wiping Jesus‘ feet with her hair...)
   my cup overflows. 
(like the beer ads where they run out and the guy opens up a cell phone ap to keep the party going..) ⁶ Surely^* goodness and mercy^* shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. 

It’s a demonstration of how we’re supposed to live. I remember  when I went to negotiate on behalf of the denomination with the Middle East Council of Churches. It was in Cyprus. We’d start work at 8 am. Work until noon. Have a good lunch. Siesta from 2 to 4. Then work again until 8 when we’d have dinner in the seaside restaurants. Every time your cup was empty, the cup was filled again.  If a cigarette was pulled out it was lit. No plate ever left without food.  Abundant living.
To dwell in the house of the Lord...forever...
Did you know that in Jesus’ time, the shepherd imagery was already nostalgiac? That everyone, even the farmers, slept in side the city gates? Only the shepherds lived outside. The imagery goes back to  a nostalgiac memory of their nomad days. Of the days of David.  And in a real sense connects Jesus with the margins as well. 
^{What is our sign? What is it about our life that might draw people to us?That would be immediately understandable? Well, next Saturday is supposed to be the end of the world. Judgment day. That would make  next week Left Behind Sunday.  I’ll see you then.}
As I finished my sermon, I saw Ted walk in. He’s here for the open rehearsal of As It is in Heaven. Then Danielle arrives with some business items for the Session. Another bathroom, electricity in the boiler room, they kind of thing.
Ludovica and her producer arrive for the play. I am more than annoyed that I have to be in a meeting instead. Dealing with our future. With worst case scenarios. Ecclesiastical machinations. Need to prepare for a heavy meeting Monday afternoon. Like I said, more than annoyed. 

direct from Mc Alpin Hall

Does anything ever change?

5/13

Spend the morning with John working on budget and business plan issues. Stephen and Teddy (no vintage Ruth era ball cap today) to negotiate our agreement with Woodshed. Still trying  get both Sacred Center and Woodshed in the house.  Even offer to them my own office if it will make  a difference.  We’ll think about each other’s proposed changes. Get back together in a week. See if we can finish it up.

A woman comes in. Claims  to have tripped and fallen on the sidewalk. (Oh no, not again.) Has a black eye. Took me outside to show me the place on the sidewalk where she fell. I explain to her that we’re working with the city on the whole sidewalk issue. She has a a cab waiting. Working on a documentary about her life as a holocaust survivor. Smiles and says maybe she could screen her film here. I explain to her that’s exactly the kind of place we want to be  in the neighborhood.  We will continue the conversation. Leaves in her cab. 

I find two men in the church. Older. Looking around. Look retirement age.  The white haired man goes off on a semi-rant. About landmarking. The size of my congregation. How this building will all come down, you’ll see.  How people don’t fear God anymore. Think God is a friend. 

Danielle has developed two rolls of film she found. I look at the pictures. An amsterdam Avenue Street Festival, years ago. I see the enthusiasm. People who have left over the years, for various reasons. Moved away. Literally. Or just in spirit. Children who are now so much older.  A bit if sadness fills me for a moment.

Introduces me to his partner.  Thinner. Wirier. Glasses. Walks with a limp. A subcontractor. Worker in the trade. Has a lot to say about the roof. About slate. The white haired man speaks of  Catholic churches. Names two priests. I know them both. Have a deep friendship with one of them.  The men have  all kinds of ideas. Want to help. We take their information.  We’ll see.

Danielle and I work for two hours on the Centre website, rewriting copy about the concert series, the artists, organizations involved. It’s better when we’re done. How do we get the paypal account happening? It’s late in the day. I wish the week were over. I miss Grace.

5/14

Saturday morning. Danielle and I there to let in Larry the electrician. Figure out what needs to be done.  And to meet with session members who had met with the Administrative Commission the Monday before. Danielle has found a stack of old books from the 1800's. Old handwritten Session minutes. Records of weddings. Baptisms. Funerals. A mid seventies mission study and report to Presbytery. Concerns about finances. Membership size. The mission study before Bob Davidson. Does anything ever change? Do these cycles just keep repeating themselves?

Marsha and Jim arrive.  Figure out what to say to our session Sunday after church.  Feelings are running high.  Later in the day, between a wedding rehearsal and a wedding, I stop in to pick up my Book of Common Worship. It’s very quiet.