If anyone regularly interacts with homeless folks, or is personally interested in learning about various legal issues as related to the homeless, here's a resource I just found out about.
This is what the blog owner says:
"I'm a full-time law librarian and a part-time lawyer representing the homeless. I've started a blog at http://www.homelesslaw.info/ to provide basic legal research leads for independent homeless legal researchers (i.e. homeless people who have to do their own legal research in libraries because they might not otherwise know their rights). The blog is formatted as a series of questions and answers that might arise in a day in the life of a homeless person."
Check it out!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Food for Thought Catering
One of the second year Servant Partners interns has co-created this really cool justice and youth development centered catering company: Food for Thought Catering.
Check it out, and if you know anyone who orders catering in the L.A. area, particularly in Pasadena and the East side, pass this on! :)
Check it out, and if you know anyone who orders catering in the L.A. area, particularly in Pasadena and the East side, pass this on! :)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
More links
A couple of interesting articles I ran across, both originally from the Los Angeles Times.
One is on intergenerational care centers.
The other is a doctor's thoughts on homelessness and its social and medical costs to both homeless individuals and to the wider society. This is the quote that struck me the most:
One is on intergenerational care centers.
The other is a doctor's thoughts on homelessness and its social and medical costs to both homeless individuals and to the wider society. This is the quote that struck me the most:
"If a disease emerged that struck hundreds of thousands of people and killed its victims at an average age of 48, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would jump to attention and commit enormous resources to curing it. The National Institutes of Health would grant millions of dollars for research. Scientists who developed effective treatments would rightly be celebrated.
A disease like this does exist: homelessness. Its cure is widely available and even cost-saving. Studies show that one homeless person can cost a community hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in medical and legal expenses."
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Reflections on the Job Search
It was hard to get out of bed today. Not because of sleep deprivation, but the thought of facing another day of job hunting and being without a permanent job felt so discouraging that I wanted to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep for a month or so until I could wake up with a job. I lay there and tried to think about things to motivate me to face the day. Pecan granola cereal. Dinner with the Pasadena guys tonight. Jesus, please be my joy, I kept thinking. Please be my joy.
Friday a week ago I was really discouraged by the job hunt. I'd been complaining about it a lot that week, and it wasn't a helpful external processing, but rather a general bitter complaining that left me feeling like somehow I was dishonoring God in the way I was talking about it, but I continued anyway. After I got off work at 1:30 pm on Friday, I got off the bus in Old Town and stopped in at a church I'd seen that had a sign outside saying that it was open for prayer. The old building was quiet inside, and I slipped into one of the pews and put my head on my hands.
I was angry and frustrated. Angry at God that he was supposed to be my provider and that I still didn't have a job. Frustrated and feeling guilty with myself for not putting enough effort and time into applying or pursuing leads--feeling like if I'd just achieve a certain level of diligence in the job search, I'd get a job, and that since I didn't have a job yet, clearly I wasn't working hard enough. I was confused whether to blame God, blame myself or both. And I felt guilty for blaming God when I knew I had abundant signs of his faithfulness and provision--like the temp job I have now where my boss and coworkers are amazing and are willing to keep me on while I search and also let me have all the time off I need for interviews and the like. All I could do was sit there in that pew and cry out to God all of my frustration and fear and hurt.
I didn't see any shining lights come down from heaven, but as I was sitting there, a couple passages in the book of Luke that we had recently studied together as an intern class came to mind, so I pulled my Bible out and found them. The first was Luke 11:9-13, where Jesus talks about how if you ask, you will receive, and how if human parents know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more so does God the Father. The second passage was Luke 12: 22-34. "Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!...your Father knows that you need [these things]. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.'"
As I read, what stood out to me more than anything else was how I have trouble trusting God. Trouble believing that I will experience God's gifts to me as good. Trouble believing that God will provide to me what I perceive I need. Trouble trusting, I suppose, in the the goodness and faithfulness of God. I read those promises of Jesus wondering if I really believed in them, if I could claim them in faith in my prayers. I left the church knowing that God had heard me and revealed those things in my heart to me, but still wrestling with all of the emotional baggage I'd brought in.
The next morning, I opened the Bible to the book of Psalms, which I've been reading over breakfast, and my eyes fell on Psalm 16 (italics mine):
Faith. Hope. Joy. Come, Lord Jesus come, I am desperate for you.
Friday a week ago I was really discouraged by the job hunt. I'd been complaining about it a lot that week, and it wasn't a helpful external processing, but rather a general bitter complaining that left me feeling like somehow I was dishonoring God in the way I was talking about it, but I continued anyway. After I got off work at 1:30 pm on Friday, I got off the bus in Old Town and stopped in at a church I'd seen that had a sign outside saying that it was open for prayer. The old building was quiet inside, and I slipped into one of the pews and put my head on my hands.
I was angry and frustrated. Angry at God that he was supposed to be my provider and that I still didn't have a job. Frustrated and feeling guilty with myself for not putting enough effort and time into applying or pursuing leads--feeling like if I'd just achieve a certain level of diligence in the job search, I'd get a job, and that since I didn't have a job yet, clearly I wasn't working hard enough. I was confused whether to blame God, blame myself or both. And I felt guilty for blaming God when I knew I had abundant signs of his faithfulness and provision--like the temp job I have now where my boss and coworkers are amazing and are willing to keep me on while I search and also let me have all the time off I need for interviews and the like. All I could do was sit there in that pew and cry out to God all of my frustration and fear and hurt.
I didn't see any shining lights come down from heaven, but as I was sitting there, a couple passages in the book of Luke that we had recently studied together as an intern class came to mind, so I pulled my Bible out and found them. The first was Luke 11:9-13, where Jesus talks about how if you ask, you will receive, and how if human parents know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more so does God the Father. The second passage was Luke 12: 22-34. "Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!...your Father knows that you need [these things]. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.'"
As I read, what stood out to me more than anything else was how I have trouble trusting God. Trouble believing that I will experience God's gifts to me as good. Trouble believing that God will provide to me what I perceive I need. Trouble trusting, I suppose, in the the goodness and faithfulness of God. I read those promises of Jesus wondering if I really believed in them, if I could claim them in faith in my prayers. I left the church knowing that God had heard me and revealed those things in my heart to me, but still wrestling with all of the emotional baggage I'd brought in.
The next morning, I opened the Bible to the book of Psalms, which I've been reading over breakfast, and my eyes fell on Psalm 16 (italics mine):
Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.Do I believe that the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places? That apart from God I have no good thing, but with God he makes known to me the path of life?
I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing."
I say of the godly who are in the land, "They are the noble people in whom is all my delight."
Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour our their sacrifices of blood or take up their names on my lips.
Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundaries lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Faith. Hope. Joy. Come, Lord Jesus come, I am desperate for you.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
No values?
"They have no values." That was my coworker's judgement of "illegals" as I talked to her in the kitchen this morning. The racism in her statement took my breath away while I searched quickly for how to respond.
The context for her comment was a conversation about violence in American society and troubled youth. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. Neither of us wants to see youth being shot on a regular basis in L.A., as is currently the case. But my first reaction is to say we should invest more federal, state, and private resources--and invest those resources more wisely--in schools, in violence prevention programs, and in community assistance for youth and low-income families. Her perspective was that it came down to illegal immigrants with no values. Ouch.
Now, any good anthropology student can tell you that there is no such thing as a collection of people with no values. People's and societies' values can be extremely different, but everyone has values. I was reading an article about gang members in the paper and the policeman who was giving a quote said that although gang members break the laws of the broader society, they will remain staunchly true to the values and rules set up within the gang. He seemed to think this was weird. It's not weird at all, not anymore than that white middle-class Americans are true to different values and ways of expressing those values than middle-class Japanese--just think about the question of individuality/family-society obligation. Perhaps one could say that the broader American society has some problems with values when we can callously label immigrants as the reason why we have problems while at the same time abusing them through unjust labor practices and attempting to deny them basic human rights such as access to health care.
Aside from the falsehood of the statement, however, what really breaks my heart is the way that racism is so deeply embedded that it comes out in a comment like that in a kitchen conversation between two well-meaning people. I debated even posting her comment, but I think it's important to honestly see how prevalent racism is. I am coming to love the Latina junior high girls I work with, and at least half if not more of their families are illegal, and let me just tell you that they are far from being people with no values!
The context for her comment was a conversation about violence in American society and troubled youth. I suppose it's a matter of perspective. Neither of us wants to see youth being shot on a regular basis in L.A., as is currently the case. But my first reaction is to say we should invest more federal, state, and private resources--and invest those resources more wisely--in schools, in violence prevention programs, and in community assistance for youth and low-income families. Her perspective was that it came down to illegal immigrants with no values. Ouch.
Now, any good anthropology student can tell you that there is no such thing as a collection of people with no values. People's and societies' values can be extremely different, but everyone has values. I was reading an article about gang members in the paper and the policeman who was giving a quote said that although gang members break the laws of the broader society, they will remain staunchly true to the values and rules set up within the gang. He seemed to think this was weird. It's not weird at all, not anymore than that white middle-class Americans are true to different values and ways of expressing those values than middle-class Japanese--just think about the question of individuality/family-society obligation. Perhaps one could say that the broader American society has some problems with values when we can callously label immigrants as the reason why we have problems while at the same time abusing them through unjust labor practices and attempting to deny them basic human rights such as access to health care.
Aside from the falsehood of the statement, however, what really breaks my heart is the way that racism is so deeply embedded that it comes out in a comment like that in a kitchen conversation between two well-meaning people. I debated even posting her comment, but I think it's important to honestly see how prevalent racism is. I am coming to love the Latina junior high girls I work with, and at least half if not more of their families are illegal, and let me just tell you that they are far from being people with no values!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Barack Obama on Race in America
Some excellent reflections on race in America from Barack Obama, spoken recently at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Personally, I think the speech is far too positive about America and Israel, in light of all the horrific abuses those two countries have committed against people within and outside of their borders (I'm not anti-American or anti-Israel, I'm just speaking the truth), but I know that you can't get elected President by talking about America in less than glorious terms. Anyway, other than that point, his speech is great and I'd strongly encourage taking a moment to read it.
or watch!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo
or watch!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Church as Surprise
What does it mean to be the church? To be a messy conglomeration of such very different people trying to follow God?
I think I've always reacted against the line of thought that says Christians should cluster together in a little bubble and only listen to "Christian" music, read "Christian" books, be friends with "Christian" people, etc. And I don't think most folks who think like this are trying to be isolationist, but rather trying to keep up their values in a world that quite plainly is rather crazy. And of course, most of us accumulate our closest friends based on shared values, hobbies, experiences, etc. But you know, I grew up in a setting where more than 99% of people didn't share my beliefs in God, most of my friends didn't believe in Jesus, I listened to popular music (I am mostly proud of this except for when I think of certain disgustingly trivial and sappy songs!), and I STILL love Jesus, in fact, I think I love him even more! Discovering the American christian culture bubble in the States really freaked me out, and if I hadn't previously discovered Jesus outside of that, I think I might have fled the other way.
And the more I actually read what Jesus said, the more I become convinced that to remain in a bubble is distinctly unchristian behavior. Jesus spent most of his time with low-class fishermen, healing sick and dead people who were considered "unclean," talking to women and adulterers and the poor...the list goes on. In fact, most of his messages to the religious elite of the time were "woe to you!"
David Bosch writes, "I believe that the church discovers her true nature only as she moves from one human world to another, when she crosses frontiers, whether these are geographical, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or sociological. The same discovery applies to the individual believer" (A Spirituality of the Road). Bosch's quote really gave me some food for thought when I read it. I haven't been very good at this at all points in my life. I love interacting with people from different places and different perspectives, and being a missionary kid has meant that most situations in Thailand and the States have been cross-cultural for me in some way, but it's often easiest to press into deep relationships with people who are somewhat similar to me. This really challenges me to practice and learn to be a person who establishes relationships across religious, cultural, ethnic, class, and other borders, not just for a season, but as a consistent practice for a lifetime.
The beautiful thing about crossing boundaries is that we learn more about God and his character as we follow Jesus' example in border-crossing and as we soak in the richness of Christian thought from countries around the world. Relying on predominately western upper middle class white male theologians to interpret the Bible alone doesn't allow us to understand God as fully as also listening to how Christians in Asia or South America read the Word, and how people living in the slums of Manila understand the promises of God.
To close, a great quote about missiology (the study of missions) from theologian Ivan Illich:
"Missiology studies the growth of the Church into new peoples, the birth of the Church beyond its social boundaries, beyond the linguistic barriers within which she feels at home; beyond the poetical images in which she taught her children. The Church is led to marvel about the ever new images in which her venerable knowledge can become meaningful for the first time...missiology therefore is the study of the Church as surprise."
I think I've always reacted against the line of thought that says Christians should cluster together in a little bubble and only listen to "Christian" music, read "Christian" books, be friends with "Christian" people, etc. And I don't think most folks who think like this are trying to be isolationist, but rather trying to keep up their values in a world that quite plainly is rather crazy. And of course, most of us accumulate our closest friends based on shared values, hobbies, experiences, etc. But you know, I grew up in a setting where more than 99% of people didn't share my beliefs in God, most of my friends didn't believe in Jesus, I listened to popular music (I am mostly proud of this except for when I think of certain disgustingly trivial and sappy songs!), and I STILL love Jesus, in fact, I think I love him even more! Discovering the American christian culture bubble in the States really freaked me out, and if I hadn't previously discovered Jesus outside of that, I think I might have fled the other way.
And the more I actually read what Jesus said, the more I become convinced that to remain in a bubble is distinctly unchristian behavior. Jesus spent most of his time with low-class fishermen, healing sick and dead people who were considered "unclean," talking to women and adulterers and the poor...the list goes on. In fact, most of his messages to the religious elite of the time were "woe to you!"
David Bosch writes, "I believe that the church discovers her true nature only as she moves from one human world to another, when she crosses frontiers, whether these are geographical, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or sociological. The same discovery applies to the individual believer" (A Spirituality of the Road). Bosch's quote really gave me some food for thought when I read it. I haven't been very good at this at all points in my life. I love interacting with people from different places and different perspectives, and being a missionary kid has meant that most situations in Thailand and the States have been cross-cultural for me in some way, but it's often easiest to press into deep relationships with people who are somewhat similar to me. This really challenges me to practice and learn to be a person who establishes relationships across religious, cultural, ethnic, class, and other borders, not just for a season, but as a consistent practice for a lifetime.
The beautiful thing about crossing boundaries is that we learn more about God and his character as we follow Jesus' example in border-crossing and as we soak in the richness of Christian thought from countries around the world. Relying on predominately western upper middle class white male theologians to interpret the Bible alone doesn't allow us to understand God as fully as also listening to how Christians in Asia or South America read the Word, and how people living in the slums of Manila understand the promises of God.
To close, a great quote about missiology (the study of missions) from theologian Ivan Illich:
"Missiology studies the growth of the Church into new peoples, the birth of the Church beyond its social boundaries, beyond the linguistic barriers within which she feels at home; beyond the poetical images in which she taught her children. The Church is led to marvel about the ever new images in which her venerable knowledge can become meaningful for the first time...missiology therefore is the study of the Church as surprise."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)