You Are Not Alone

"I'd sing Hallelujah if I could recall what it means and just who I am praising..."

These are lyrics to a song I can't get out of my head. The song is haunting and sad and hopeful and this line is sung over and over again.

I connect with these words. In some ways I'm sad to admit this. And in some ways I'm free in admitting this. Whenever I'm faced with pain, or sadness or injustice or brokenness, I find myself right back in the hollows if this song, my visions of God challenged by the hurt and chaos I see around me. At ENCM, I often feel ill equipped to do more than sweep up the pieces of the broken lives I'm confronted with, then bandage up the small scrapes I get in return. Very rarely do I get to the place where I can put these pieces back together, and even now I'm not so sure that's even why I'm there.

About a year ago, I sat down at Ministry of Hope and introduced myself to a man I'd never met. I asked him how he was doing, to which he promptly replied that it didn't matter how he was doing. He proceeded to tell me the story of how he was sexually abused as a child and how his parents were killed by his abuser.

I'd sing Hallelujah if I could recall what it means and just who I am praising...

Later I befriended a lady battling mental illness. She never talks much about her past, but she loves just hanging out with me, and in our casual time together, somethings about her past will mistakenly slip out, as if she were simply asking me to pass the butter. Like the time she told me she wouldn't get on an elevator with me because elevators have scared ever since her father would lock her and her siblings in the basement for days at a time.

I'd sing Hallelujah if I could recall what it means and just who I am praising...

Then there's the man, that just days ago died on the streets of Nashville from exposure to the cold. He quite literally froze to death.

I'd sing Hallelujah if I could recall what it means and just who I am praising...

These stories have the power to stop me, mid stride of my comfortably etched out existence. And because I know these people, they aren't just stories on an after school special, or the movie of the week, and my heart actually aches and my stomach turns under their weight. All too often, my circumstances are what lay the foundation of who God is, and what his character is. And when I say things like, "you're never alone" what it means is, if you're sad or if you've had a bad day, God is there to help you. The problem with this is that my experiences are not big enough, or hard enough to create a God that is brave enough to deal with the pains of this world. I can not, in the same voice, say to the man freezing on the streets of Nashville, "you're never alone."

So when I hear these stories, I'm newly challenged to allow who God is to shape my experiences, rather than my experiences to somehow shape who I think God is. And when I hear these stories, I check my shallow ideas of God at the door and ask Him to help me see Him as he really is. And I ask him the hard questions, like where exactly was He when that man lay freezing to death on the streets, or when that woman and her sisters cry at the bottom of the basement stairs wondering if they'd ever get out.

Then, all of the sudden, to say "you are not alone" means I have to believe in a God that suffers. And instead of characterizing God based on whether or not I get a Christmas bonus, I begin to see his character as it's revealed in something as harsh as a baby, being born in a dirty stable because there was no where else for his mother to deliver him. A baby that was weak, and small and needy and dependent. Or a common man enduring shame he did not deserve, dying a death no man deserves to die, or rather all men but him deserve to die. To believe in this God is a hard thing, but it honestly means you are not alone. You're not alone because Jesus came and visited us here, because he wore our broken flesh and lived our life and died our death.

I'm not saying that you have to have these terrible stories in order to believe in God. What I'm saying is that the God we serve is not absent in these stories just because we are too afraid to read them, or to face them or suffer with those who suffer through them. And that if we are brave enough to wonder where God is in all of this, and to ask him where He is and to suffer with those who are broken, we find a God much deeper, much more vast, much bigger than the God molded and shaped by our circumstances. We find a God who can help mold and shape our circumstances, whatever they are, because he endures them with us.

So I do sing Hallelujah and Advent helps me remember what it means and who I am praising. And I can even praise Him while I sweep up the brokenness and bandage the cuts and weep and scream and embrace and love, hopefully the very same way He did and does today.

Grace and Peace

And Merry, Merry Christmas,

Melissa

Things Linda Teaches Me About Jesus: John 10:37-38

This is the closest shot we could get of Linda Finnegan, our volunteer extraordinaire, master of all things food bank related. Why? Well, she never stops. Our Co-op Cafe, which is simply an effort on Wednesday mornings starting at 7am to offer coffee shop casualness without the steep cost, for volunteers, neighbors, and friends, is the only time we can get Linda to actually sit still for a few minutes. As a matter of fact, I literally had to make a pact with her: before she gets to situating the food bank on Wednesday morning, she has to sit for a minimum of 5 minutes just to, well, sit and be still. She agreed, and if we're lucky we can squeak 10 or 15 minutes out of her. The point, though, is that she doesn't stop moving. She doesn't stop tidying her space. She doesn't stop doing exactly what she wouldn't stop doing for this picture: packing boxes in the East Nashville Cooperative Ministry, Main Street site food bank.

In John 10, specifically the narrative just before the titled verses, Jesus is at the same time displaying his mastery of the Hebrew Scriptures, refuting the claims of blasphemy, and putting a twist on the adage "you are what you eat": he says, instead, "You are what you do!" Specifically, in this case recorded by John, "I am what I do!" I like to think that Jesus, unlike most of us, did exactly what his convictions dictated. Or differently said: there was no disparity between what he believed, felt, and followed through on! Imagine living this kind of coherency, consistency. What peace we would have with ourselves, with those we encounter, with our Creator.

Linda shows me how this looks (notice I didn't say, "Linda teaches me how to do this," both because "teaching" has a verbal connotation and she has little time to talk, and, really, I don't do what I'm learning very well). So, Linda shows me how this looks, how Jesus taught and lived WHO he was. She's busy. She's busy because she comes to he Co-op to give back to the community and help folks that remind her of herself when she and her children were struggling. She's convicted that giving back the kind of help that she could have so desperately used years ago is how she can thank God for her current blessings. So what does she do? Well, she does the works of the Father--believe the works, so that you understand and believe the Father is in her (v. 38).

I hope I can learn to busy myself with the God that is in me, and my works show who I really am.

I'm sitting at my desk, drinking a dangerously good cup of coffee (by dangerous I mean so good I could be addicted) and thinking of the whirlwind that has been the last few weeks/months at ENCM. Every corner I turn at the co-op leads me to another adventure in either relationships or responsibility, making my life at the very least exciting, and most often deeply rewarding. I've said it about a million times, but I'm always amazed at how revealing the simplest moments are. How a trade of smiles or a handshake can make you feel like you just crossed a border of what is allowed or expected into the territory of dangerous, scary, exciting and amazing shared life.

Several months ago I had a crazy idea pop into my head. What if we planned a huge benefit concert? What if we threw a big artistic party with performers and musicians and artists and food and ferris wheels and clowns and okay, maybe not the clowns, but what if we told one amazing story in an event and people came and they were moved and donated a million dollars? Wouldn't that be AMAZING! These are the times that my ideas become brightly colored helium balloons soaring in sky to heights unmanageable and inside the balloon is a super hero that saves the world.

The problem with sharing my enormous ideas with Ryan, director of a non-profit, is that those ideas inspire him and excite him and then he says YES, go do it! Usually, I throw my ideas out so that someone else will be inspired to take them and run with it. I'm always content to own the idea, but a lot more leery of trying to make it happen. I get away with that by calling myself the idea person and surrounding myself with the movers and shakers that make the ideas happen. Unfortunately, Ryan is so overworked that he shines the mirror of my ideas right back at me and then does something terrible.... expects me to make them happen.

So, with the feeling that maybe I should have kept my idea to myself, I started doing what all people with great ideas do at first... organize meetings with smart people. This allows you to share your idea and get feedback that may inform your next step. And for me, this big idea was going to have to be a step by step sort of thing. I transformed my big picture superhero idea into something slightly more manageable. And then I really did surround myself with smart people like Jeremy Lee and Jonathan Moore to help me get one step further, then one more step further. Than I did the unthinkable, I asked my best friend to be the main performer the night of the event... deplorable, I know. I'm realizing that the longer you work at a non-profit, the more comfortable you become calling in favors and asking for help.

So, fast forward to a few months later (longer than a few months because I procrastinate when I don't know what to do) and here we are, a week away from an event that somehow, with the help of my friends, is planned and happening and I'm about as nervous about it as one person can get. Standing By: A Benefit For East Nashville Cooperative Ministry will be at Nashville's historic Belcourt Theatre on October 28th at 8pm. The event is being sponsored by all kinds of local organizations and we have 3 local acts playing and even a local taco truck serving tacos for dinner before hand. And I've even had a bunch of people say that they are coming. I have no idea what to expect. I just hope that we get a lot of people in one room so we can accurately tell the story of the crazy things that God does with a bunch of slightly incapable but willing people.

The lessons are still piling up faster than I can share them. This time I learn that if your courageous enough to follow through with a crazy idea, and ask for help in the process, one step turns into ten steps then fifty and somehow things get done and then you feel courageous and like God somehow did an amazing thing with your small hands and your tiny brain. He turned a few fish and a loaf of bread into a benefit concert. How does he do that? I don't know, but being caught in the middle of those kinds of miracles is like stepping out of your house on the first cold day of fall without a jacket on. You're taken by surprise by the way the cold feels on your skin, the way you can see your breathe, somehow acknowledging that you are in fact breathing in and out, that you are in fact alive, awake.

The Shared Life

When I was a kid, my parents had both sides of our family over for Christmas dinner. It was somewhat chaotic to have all those people under one roof. Between my brother and me and all my cousins and kids of my parents friends that would gather to celebrate with us, we would have about 10 or 12 kids, all playing together under one roof. I quickly learned that to give my Christmas toys the fighting chance to survive the year until next Christmas, I had to hide them away from my cousins. I was quick to take my most favorite Christmas presents to my room, stash them away in my dresser, under my bed, in the closet so that they wouldn't be destroyed in their shiny newness. I was always so torn between wanting to share with them all the new stuff I got, and wanting all the new stuff to stay in tact for the times I was playing with them by myself.

Sharing is such a child's lesson. A lot of my friends are parents and it's not uncommon to hear them pull their kids aside and tell them to share what they have, split their treat with their sibling, give one of their quarters to the offering plate. It's so contrary to human nature. I've heard my friends have to tell their kids to share, several times in one outing, but I've never heard a parent tell their child that they share too much.

I wish that, for as much as it was drilled into my brain as a kid, sharing was a more natural thing for me as an adult. It's still hard work to even remember to share what I have, and an even harder task to surrender when I remember that sharing is good, and right. Thanks to my parents, sharing my stuff isn't as big of a deal, although still hard at times. Sharing my life, now that's another story.

The shared life is one thing in the Gospel that is the most captivating and the most convicting all at the same time. To forfeit your life, your comfort, your things, your emotions, your safety is a confounding, ridiculous notion. Isn't there something that's just mine? Can't I have one thing all to myself? If I share my life, how will it last the year without breaking?

It's hard to open my life to the possibility of depletion. Sharing in someone's need without having the answer on how to fix or fill the need is like walking backwards blindfolded. If I can't fix it, how can I bare the brokenness? I can give a smile, but can I bare to love enough to shed a tear? I can give a meal, but can I be so bold as to share my fears? I can give a ride, but do I have the strength to walk with you? I can sit next to you in church on Sunday, but can I have coffee with you on Tuesday night?

This is where I'm at. I'm all too often convinced in my own ability to fill myself up with the courage, the strength, the benevolence to give. And when I run dry, I want to run away. I want to run away from the problems of others. I want to run away because I don't have any more to give and I am terrified of the responsibility of making this all work out right. Because if it doesn't work, people go hungry, they stay alone, they stay broken.

The story of the Gospel is the story of a God who shared His very life with His own creation. When I think of meeting a need, I tend to wonder what I can do to fix it while staying comfortable in my own day to day existence. How can I help without really getting involved... Not God though. He actually wore the skin of the broken humanity, confined himself, by his love, to our bodies, to our world, to our emotions, our pain, our suffering.

The shared life is, at times a needy life. It seems to always be a life that is poured out, that's given. It's full of compassion, which means to suffer with. It means whether or not I have an answer, I will climb into your suffering and join you there. This scares me. But this compels me. I pray that this changes me and makes me move and see the world differently.

Friend, Neighbor, Chef

Osborne "Bugz" Waters

He brings together every commitment we have at the Co-op, someone from whom I am learning so much. Osborne will be our one of our teaching chefs when we formally provide cooking classes to the community, both because he pleases the Southern palate and because he creatively uses fresh ingredients from the garden, donated ingredients from neighbors, and non-perishables from the food bank. So he's capable of teaching delicious-cooking-on-a-budget; He's equally capable of teaching us how to give of our lives for our neighbors. Osborne heals with his presence--with good food and extending genuine affirmation. Oh how I hope that one mark of Christians is that we heal people with our presence. Oh how I pray this is East Nashville's experience of the Co-op. Osborne is helping us learn how to do this better.

Saving Lives

I had a friend say the other day: "Pastor, you know, you're doin' a good thing here, givin' people food and all, you know, feedin' people and all, but y'all might be saving peoples' lives too." Interpret it as you will--that lives are being saved from hunger, lives are being changed through the experience of acknowledgement and friendship, lives are being eternally saved through preaching of the gospel and the reading of scripture--but sometimes words are our verbally clumsy way of expressing a more articulate body language. To avoid tripping over myself, then, I'll quickly say what I saw him telling me. He looked at me confidently, though his shoulders were slouched, as one might be just before a confession--courageous but defeated. When we engaged each other, my hand touching his hand, and made eye contact, he stood a bit taller, as though this connection validated his feelings. His face lit up, and he said (as I interpret): "The food was good, but this whole experience has given me new life." Food as fuel that sustains life, keeps our engine going? No. Food and table as a medium by which we give and receive life together, tell truth into each others lives, be mutual, be friends, be the gospel? Yes. We're saving lives because God is present in us at the table. And the food just so happens to be good.
Ryan

I got friends in low places

Being 31 and single presents me with all kinds of challenges. Friendships become harder to maintain as those your close to get married, start families. There are times when it seems like you've made permanent residence in no-mans-land. I'm always so tempted to re-evaluate and compartmentalize my relationships. I wonder if I should make more single friends. Shouldn't I spend time with the people in life that are where I'm at? It's so much easier to maintain friendships with people that have the same schedule, lifestyle, finances as me. I don't have to work as hard when I can surround myself with people that can just do what I want to do...

This morning I went to a breakfast honoring Mrs. Juanita McCoy. She's devoted so much of her life working at ENCM, helping the community of East Nashville. I haven't gotten to know her as well as some of the other volunteers, but the times that I have met her have been blessed and the things I hear of her service are noble, to say the least. Her footsteps seem more than worthy to be followed. And now she's retiring. So... a bunch of us all got together to cook, eat and fellowship and to say, as humble as possible, thank you. There were all kinds of people in the room. Many were older than me, some where younger, some were married, some were single, some had kids, some did not. Some where white and some where black and some were from California and some where from right here in Nashville. All this diversity, in one meagre room, celebrating a life spilled out.

This got me thinking about my thoughts on the kinds of relationships I peruse. I think I'm asking the wrong questions. Do I need a community with more single friends, more friends my age, more friends that are like me... wrong questions. It's important to have a community that you have stuff in common with, but if I've learned anything in my time so far at ENCM, if there's one common theme that threads itself through my stories so far, it's that God is very pleased to take what I think I need, place it on it's head and redefine it all together, especially in regards to community and relationships. The lessons I've learned over and over again have been that when you open yourself up to the other, to the different, you see God work in ways you've never seen before.

So maybe the question is how do I open myself to all kinds of relationships, and how do I see the ones that have so much potential but are framed by the differences that most people allow to keep them from deep relationships? How do I let God direct my path in such a way that my friends, and my community exist of so many different kinds of people that I'm constantly learning and teaching new things? And most of all, how can I be an active participant in that kind of community?

Mrs. Juanita influenced all kinds of people, not just the ones that looked like her and had the same life experience as her. That doesn't happen by compartmentalizing and categorizing people. It's done by being open to some pretty amazing, diverse relationships, given by an amazingly creative God. And what I'm learning is that it starts in giving. It starts in being poured out. That is so hard. I don't want to be poured out because I'm afraid of being empty. That's the truth. I'm afraid of being empty. Me of little faith... Thank God for saints that go before us, living a life wide open for us to learn from. And thank God for his faithfulness.

Every Sunday evening I get to church a little early to help set up for Emmaus fellowship. To the casual passer-by it looks nothing like a church service. There's no choir, no pews, no hymnals. There isn't really a pulpit, no one is wearing a suit. The smell of body odor replaces the typical newly bathed and perfumed congregants in a typical church service. There isn't one person standing in the front while everyone sits watching him wax religious.

That's not to say that Emmaus Fellowship isn't a church service. It is church.

You know how Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed? I wonder why he chose something so small. If you threw that mustard seed into a jar full of other seeds, you would have to look really hard, and really close to find it. At Emmaus I'm learning to look past all the things I used to think classified God's work or His moving and I'm realizing that He moves in small ways and seemingly insignificant ways and he turns a meal with homeless and working poor people into a church service.

So last night after we ate, we sang a few songs, some were impromptu, then Ryan got up to read Scripture and start our time of prayer. Our friend TomKat was leaving, probably because he was done eating. He hadn't yet realize that we were offering more than a full stomach at Emmaus...so Ryan reminded him we were going to read Scripture and pray and invited him to come and sit. He did and sat right in front of Ryan. Ryan read the scripture about how Jesus says he's the bread of life and if you feast on him you will never go hungry. Then we started to pray...

At Emmaus we start by praying for our service and ministry, then we move onto praying for our communities, then we pray for ourselves. After that we take and offering and then have dessert. During the second stanza of prayer, TomKat prayed out loud. Then he ended his prayer with the most sincere "I love you, Jesus" that I've heard in a while. He then began to cry and confessed to all of us that that was the first time he's ever prayed. He's probably in his 60s.

WOW. I've been to a lot of church services with amazing music and dynamic preaching. I've heard the most eloquent and beautiful prayers. I've seen the sun shine through the most beautiful stained glass windows. And all of those things are wonderful, but they are easily turned into the seeds in the jar that I expect, the big ones I notice, and sometimes the ones that are hiding the mustard seeds. In some way, last night I felt like I was all wrapped up in a mustard seed kingdom.

Grace and Peace,

Melis

God is good all the time...

It's Monday morning. I almost always need a little more time to wake up, a little more coffee in my cup and few seconds to get my brain around the start of a new work week. This morning was no different as far as the time and the coffee go, but my brain can not be swayed from it's current trail of thought. I went to bed thinking about God's goodness and I woke up in the same thought, as if I'd laid it on my pillow when I drifted off to sleep and picked it up as soon as my eyes opened. 

It's not that I ever consciously doubt God's goodness. I'm not that bold. But I'm sure I doubt it when I worry about something, or when I hold tight, stifling those things in life that are meant to grow and move and change. In those moments of held control, I doubt that God can handle my fears or that there could be more for me around the corner of the place I sit so comfortably. That kind of doubt seems to be a constant struggle for me. And here's the thing, whenever I get there, my purchased plot at the bottom of despair, God shines a light of goodness so bright, I have very little choice but to follow it, leaving behind my sorrow and moving into the promise that is His love. And the funny part is that His goodness never quite shows up the way I think it would, and never the way I plot that it should in my limited imagination.

Such was the case this weekend. Friday night, I couldn't shake a feeling of unrest. Something just felt off or sad and I couldn't seem to find the contentment I was seeking. I prayed myself to sleep and in that subconscious state of prayer that mingles with sleep and has you saying all kinds of crazy things to God, Wesley Sanders popped into my brain. And for some reason I figured that I had to go visit Wesley and that thought seemed almost like a solution, an answer to my sleepy prayers.

Wesley is the man that Ryan blogged about a few weeks ago, the man on our video. Wesley is one of the few folks I've met at ENCM that I've developed a true friendship with. Wesley has been in a rehab program for alcoholism for the last 2 months. I haven't visited him. I've had every intention of doing it. I've even printed out a picture to bring to him for his room. But what is that saying about good intentions?

Saturday morning I woke up with no memory of my prayer the night before (these are the downfalls of praying yourself to sleep). I didn't go to see Wesley. That night, the same kind of restlessness, sadness in my prayers and the same kind of solution. Wesley popped into my brain again and I thought I had to go see him. I knew Sunday would prove impossible, but I made a point to be awake enough in my brain to make a promise to myself or maybe to God to go see Wesley on Monday. 

I had a full day planned on Sunday. Aside from the normal church service I attend at 9, and the 1pm Emmaus service, I had a baby shower to help host and the new Emmaus service/meal at 5:30. After morning church, I  went to lunch with a friend I hadn't seen in so long and headed back for the last 1pm Emmaus service.

I was late and in a rush. When I got to the church, I walked in and was stopped, mid-stride. I blinked. The man standing with Ryan looked a lot like Wesley Sanders, but so different too. The man standing next to Ryan was clean shaven with tightly cropped hair. He had glasses. His clothes were clean, almost crisp on his slimmer body. He looked clean and bright-eyed. This was Wesley, but the truest version of the man I know. This was the real Wesley that I caught redemptive glances of on a random sober encounter with him. This was the Wesley I knew, yet the Wesley I had yet to meet. 

He hugged me. I was so genuinely excited to see him. I looked him over once, twice. I almost made him turn for me to really see him. I told him I was so proud of him, standing in front of me. I told him I was sorry for not visiting him. He told me that he had come by various places a time or two, trying to find me, to see me, to show me that he was gone but not for good, and that he was getting better. I hugged him. 

We walked together into the service and sat next to each other. I couldn't believe he was there. In my prayers last night, right next to me today. At Emmaus Fellowship we are diligent about our prayer time. We make sure that we take time to allow the congregation to pray aloud for our ministry, for our communities, for our families and for ourselves. When we got to the part where we pray for our communities, for each other, Wesley grabbed my hand in both of his hands and he prayed for me. Wesley Sanders prayed for me. He prayed that God would be with "his little friend." The trail of tears started to pour from my face. In that moment I realized something. Going to see Wesley wasn't the answer to my prayer, my restlessness, my sadness. My seeing him, bringing him encouragement wasn't something I had to do. I needed Wesley Sanders to pray for me. This time, he was there to offer hope, redemption and grace to me. 

In that moment, being prayed over by a man that under other circumstances may not even have been my friend I knew God's goodness in an all new way. The give and TAKE of a relationship made me realize that I am receiving as much as I am giving in all of this. 

Wesley Sanders is praying for me. God is good all the time, all the time God is good.

My friend Ed

It's been a couple weeks since I've blogged. Needless to say, it's not for lack of content, but time that I've not been as quick to tell you of things going on at ENCM. Thankfully though, Ryan was able to give you all an update on our friend Wesley. One of the most amazing things about any relationship is to watch how people grow and change. It's no different at ENCM. To see our friends, and ourselves, change and grow has an eternal effect.

It's in that same vein that I give you a report on my friend Ed Clark. I met Ed at our Emmaus Fellowship service on Sunday mornings. He's one of the sweetest guys I know and and he's one of the most consistent members of our little rag-tag congregation. A few weeks ago, Ed agreed to sing in one of our Sunday morning services. I had no idea what to expect. Ed picked up a borrowed guitar, pulled out a sheet of lyrics he'd been working on and proceeded to sing a song he wrote about getting High on the Holy Ghost. The words seemed all too personal and spoke of addiction and a marginalized life. Then, right in the middle of the song the bridge opened up and Ed began singing the names of God. He knows more of the names of God than I do and he sang them out with the same confidence of a small child calling out for the safety and affirmation of a parent. It was one of the most beautiful things. I just couldn't get over how good he was. And the rest of the congregants were cheering him on and clapping. The song was about redemption. And about praising the God who can save you from the most desperate of situations, and then about recognizing Him when he does.

A few days later I saw Ed in our Wednesday evening college and young adult service at NFCN where I attend church. He started coming pretty regularly on Wednesday evenings. This particular Wednesday he pulled me aside and told me that he had something to show me. He proceeded to pull out a certificate of completion for a career counseling program he went to at the Salvation Army. He told me it's a program that will help him with job training, and essentially teach him how to keep a job and hopefully, eventually, help him find a job that suites his new and improved resume. He was so proud of himself. And I was proud of him.

I remembered that one Wednesday morning over coffee, Ed had told me that he struggled with alcoholism and that he had tried and failed a number of times in different rehab facilities. He also told me that he hadn't been drinking lately because he'd been in God's word. And now, here's a certificate of completion. Completion... He started and finished the program. He saw it through until the end without alcohol getting in the way. 

So, a certificate from the Salvation Army isn't the most quantifiable of ways to show the effects that ENCM is having on the community, but it means a lot to Ed and it means a lot to me to be able to see the process of redemption in him. And in it all, God is changing me too. I come thinking I have some measure of help to offer Ed, and I do, but I leave realizing that he has so much to offer me as well, that God uses him in my life to teach me about love and redemption as much as he uses me in Ed's life to cheer him on and offer a consistent friendship with someone who believes in his worth.

Grace & peace, 

Melissa

Wesley's Eyes

Somewhere along the line Christians got it wrong (sort of). Many are uncomfortable with the ol’ adage “to accept God into your heart” for arguably good reason. I am less concerned with whether there is a theological battle to be fought than just generally convinced of its physiological inaccuracy. Here’s what I mean: We've missed that God lives in our eyes! I witnessed it the other day.

I saw him today for the first time in at least a month. One of my good friends, Wesley, has been in recovery, and I’ve missed him like you miss a high school friend that got a great scholarship to go to college…on the other side of the country. I thought I missed his bellowing laugh the most—yeah, the one that defies typical barriers like walls, windows, and distance. From up to a 100 meters Wesley's laugh reaches you with that curious combination of hilarity and nuisance. I thought perhaps I missed his stories the most—yeah, the endless stories of navigating the streets after dark, avoiding weapons, embracing liquor, and losing even the memory of comfortable sleep. I thought I missed his hand shake I received every morning before we would sit and share pre-ground, flavorless coffee—yeah, the size and texture of those hands confirmed his barely-believable stories of a hard life on the farm. But it was none of these as much as it was his eyes that I missed.

When I saw him the other day I realized I missed his eyes because in those charcoal, almost purple pearls, I saw Wesley’s whole life—the one he lived and the unveiling of the one to come. In his eyes, he was an honest friend, broken by the streets, cursed by his addictions. In his eyes, the hardship of age and insecurity met with youth. [You know, if you look into someone’s eyes with enough intention, at any age, they become an innocent child, as if their bodies lost the fight of time but their eyes somehow succeeded. Perhaps it’s God’s presence there that preserves our last ounce of innocence and love, even after our bodies have surrendered to this world.] But above everything, when I looked into my friends eyes, I saw God dawning a new day. They spoke of sobriety and hope. They told his story of renewed confidence and self-respect. And they shouted of grace.

For the first time Welsey saw an optometrist. “I didn’t know how bad my sight was,” he told me, “Now I can actually see!” God is in those old eyes, and I was lucky enough to be a witness the other day—even behind those thick-rimmed glasses.

-Ryan

One Love...

So this weekend was a crazy one for me. Crazy in that moments to myself came few and far between and crazy because, once again, I was taken by surprise on a simple, ordinary day.

This weekend Ryan and I were asked to join the WELCA (Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) group at Memorial Lutheran church for lunch and an ENCM presentation. When I arrived, my friend Judy introduced me to some great women, most of whom seemed to be senior citizens (though not all). Ryan showed the video and gave a great presentation, helping the women to connect with the stories of Wesley and Robert. After that, I talked a bit about my perspective then sang a few worship songs.

BUT, my favorite part of the day was when my friend Julie led the group in singing. She sang before Ryan did his presentation. She sang a couple of her own songs, to which she printed out lyrics and had the group sing along. THEN, the best thing happened! Her last song was Bob Marley's song One Love. She had lyrics for the group to sing along on the chorus. You should have seen it. A group of women, most of them senior citizens, and I think almost all of them where Caucasian, and they were all singing, rather loudly, One Love by Bob Marley. The words "Let's get together and feel alright, give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel alright" rang out of the church like a clear bell of redemption. After the initial shock of the moment wore off, I couldn't help but to sing along. 

Can you imagine if we really were able to begin to blur some of these divisions that separate our human race? Can you imagine what it would look like if we came to a table where our only expectation was to be open to genuine relationship with whoever showed up at the same table. I can't even grasp it, but I think a bunch of senior citizen, white women singing Bob Marley is a GREAT place to start...

"Give thanks and praise to the Lord..."

Grace & Peace, 

Melissa

Welcome to My Orange Sky

It was Wednesday morning, 7:30 AM and I was racing through downtown traffic in the nearly metropolitan city of Nashville, TN. I don't normally have anywhere important to be so early in the morning, but Wednesday mornings have taken on new meaning for me. Last week was the first Wednesday that my friends Ryan, Nick and I started opening up the doors at ENCM at 7am to serve coffee and pastries in the neighborhood of East Nashville and I was running late on this 2nd Wednesday morning.

But, let me back up, because if you aren't around me on a regular basis, you may have no idea what ENCM is. East Nashville Cooperative Ministry is a small, barely noticeable ministry in East Nashville, set up to be sort of a hub for all the local churches in East Nashville to come together to make a difference in their local community. As it stands now, we spend a lot of time dreaming up ideas on how to fight the ever growing problem of food insecurity in the area. There are a lot of homeless and working poor families that have little to no means of providing good, healthy food for themselves and their families. 

Last year, around about spring time, I started helping out at the co-op, as it is affectionately called. The more time I spent with Ryan the director (and previously mentioned friend), I began to capture the relational basis for this particular ministry and I became enthusiastic, to say the least, at helping. Eventually, as the year progressed, I started helping with their marketing, then was voted on to the board, joined the events team...and, well, you get the idea. 

So back to Wednesday. When I arrived at the co-op, Ryan already had our donated beans ground and brewing in our donated coffee pots with our donated mugs set out. We are extremely reliant on the good nature of those around us. I had no real expectations for this Wednesday gathering. In fact, the previous Wednesday, our first attempt at this free, make-shift coffee house, we only had one guy from the neighborhood come for coffee, but I didn't care. I could feel the potential for relationship brewing right along side the good coffee. I knew that if I came and created space to get to know the neighbors, and free coffee, people would come. It's these attempts at relationships that keeps me coming back to the co-op. We're learning that broken relationships are as big of a contributor to poverty as a lack of money. People need friends. They need people to tell them that they are valued and that their stories are worth the telling.

Nick shuffled through the door right after me, and we sat and drank coffee. Eventually, Ray Ray (our first week patron) came in along with a man who called himself cowboy. They sat and shared coffee and pastries with us as we talked, asked questions and laughed. A little later a man named Sam came in. He sat, seeming a bit dazed. He's new to the streets of Nashville. He's 30, same age as me, and is here to be with family. As we talked I learned he's from Colorado originally. He's soft spoken and has a handsome face, all be-it a bit worn. He seemed more comforted as the easy conversation continued. 8:45 came all too soon and it was time to pack up. Our other guests left, but Sam followed me into the kitchen. As I began to wash the dishes from the morning, he grabbed a towel and offered to dry them. I accepted the help, thinking it may be his attempt at pro-longing the conversation, the sense of belonging. As the dishes were done, I realized I was late to work and had to leave rather quickly. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I noticed that Sam had moved on from drying dishes to mopping the floor, moving his conversation from me to Ryan. I couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to stay as long as he could, and I hoped it was because he felt like he was making friends. 

My heart was warmed as I drove away. My expectations had been exceeded. Once again, God used something as insignificant as donated coffee and time to remind me that he loves all of his creation and that if we can wait a second, make a little room in our lives, he will show his face through our relationships with others. And when we are brave enough to make friends with people that are different from us, we see him all the more. 

Alexi Murdoch has a song called Orange Sky. We used it for a documentary that we filmed for the co-op. The words are, "I had a dream that I stood beneath an orange sky, with my brother and my sister standing by." This blog is a place for me to share the amazing things that God is doing beneath my orange sky in a small neighborhood here in Nashville. The stories are simple and all-together plain. And that's what will make them wonderful. So, feel free to read and share. 

Grace and peace,

Melis