God at work over a meal!

Reflection by Peter Wieranga, Belmont Grad

First of all I would like to point out that ENCM had the best development mindset I have seen in a non-profit out of all of the social ventures I have worked for.  There have been few that are socially conscious and that go beyond the idea of merely helping without weighing the actually community benefits.  There are may people with good hearts in Nashville and Chicago (both cities I have had contact with), and many incredible Christians, but many see service as needs assessment.  This approach, as emphasized in When Helping Hurts, can continue systematic oppression without realizing it.  All who wish to help need to understand the ramifications of their helping.  Often people neglect to realize that helping can actually accentuate the problems rather then bring about healing.

            ENCM has the desire to break from this mold and rely on the community for change from the inside out.  Ryan, something you told me stuck with me, “We look to work ourselves out of a job.”  That is truly a special response.  It is important to be sustainable to a degree, so those who look to have ENCM as a safe place to use their talents to benefit the community can do so, but it is important to look to a future where ENCM is not needed.  This is our mandate from Christ.  From working there for a year, all those who spend their time and work there have this vision.  It is apparent that assets based change is the long-term goal even with how people in the community work jobs they are good and passionate about.  Again this is a special thing.

            All this being said, you know that ENCM has a ways to go.  Currently, while community members primarily work the building, I would like to see more people from the community having incentive to work in the gardens as well.  There are glimpses of this in certain gardens, and community members are apt to help with certain needs, but I believe it would be beneficial for ownership and leadership to be primarily entrusted to those in the community (especially those receiving services). 

            From what you were telling me a month ago you were looking to distance further from providing food boxes, which I believe to be a good step.  You know better then I that food boxes are a band aid rather then a cure.  Jesus does tell us to feed the hungry, but there are ways to go about this change that do not support oppressive means.  The gardens will be key in this, primarily getting people involved in its work.  How to cook the vegetables will also be key, which I heard rumors of providing cooking classes. 

            I believe ENCM is transitioning well.  One thing also to be considered is the damage that could occur if you transitioned too quickly.  Because ENCM has been food provider for so long, it is important to remember that people do rely on the mission as it is, whether that is good or not.  People are still hungry in the community, and we cannot leave them flat.  Patience will need to be key, and small changes are the approach needed to make a transition successful for the community and the coop.

Another Moment of Inspiration

Over the past couple of months we have launched a small and very promising partnership with The Contributor—our local Nashville street newspaper. Well, Anita, a formerly homeless neighbor who has been gardening with us, learning to cook better at our community lunches, and partnering with us at the East Nashville Farmers Market, spilled all of her papers on our food pantry floor. Stooped over and picking them up—her vision blocked by her wide-brimmed hat—she said she saw the “hand of Jesus” come into view. A young volunteer had stooped down right behind her, not ever having met each other, and started picking up her papers. The “hand of Jesus” for Anita, as she said later, meant that the work of the divine reached right on into the muck of her life and helped out. This day, she said, it was in the form of a little brown hand of middle schooler.

At the Co-op we hope to encourage and participate in the hand of the divine reaching into neighbor’s lives to help out.

Moments of Inspiration

I was greeted at the front door of the Co-op today with mounds of fresh produce. 70 lbs to be exacts, of mostly lettuce and other greens that were just harvested. 70 lbs of lettuce, folks, is quite a site. Two interns were ready to start the day. Our kitchen was already warming up for our Wednesday community lunch. Cans were moving, people were buzzing, tea was steeping, and people from every walk of life were gathered waiting for an opening word. (We have a centering time before we open each day). I asked if anyone had a good word—something insightful, something inspiring or even challenging—to which Linda answered, “We can do this! I mean when we want to make our bodies and spirits strong and healthy, when we want to get into shape or change our habits, we have to envision ourselves saying ‘I DID IT’, we have to know that it will get done and we will say ‘I DID IT’.” Linda is doing it! She just started an East Nashville Walking Group for neighbors of the Co-op to exercise in an affirming environment. Linda--my neighbor--is doing it!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Lately I've been increasingly aware of my faults. To some degree, that's because I've had a few encounters where they've been drawn out of me and hung up for the world around to see. Those are never fun times. More often then not, those moments of exploitation lead me to frustration rather than redemption, but I guess that's the case with most people. Why the human race is so content to exploit each others weaknesses is something I will never quite figure out...

But there have been other instances where my faults have been brought to the surface with love and direction. Such has been the case at ENCM lately. In the past few years that I have been volunteering my time and service I have garnered more responsibilities during my work. Truth be told, I have a really hard time being organized and ordered. My world tends to be some sort of abstract painting, messy and colorful and very rarely planned. This works really well for a single 32 year old without a care in the world, but not so much for that same person in me that finds myself in the position of baring the cares of others. The more I read about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus the more I see that most of the point of all of this is to face others, let them in and bare their burdens with them, and share yours...

That being said, I found myself, very often, over my head in the work that I wanted to do at ENCM. I would miss meetings, feel overwhelmed with tasks that should be simple, and very often hide away from my responsibilities because I really didn't know how to manage them. Now, it would be easy to exploit that weakness. It would be easy to just cut me loose and ignore my sincere concern for others that could be well hidden behind my disorganized ways. It would be easy to judge me or categorize me or loose sight of my strengths because my weaknesses were so glaringly obvious.

Thankfully, a non-profit like ENCM relies so heavily on God's grace that the very nature of the organization and those that find themselves working there is to hand that grace out to those of us that are lead to their doors, for whatever reason.

I say all of this to say that ENCM is in a new stage of growth. Thanks to the leadership of our board we have now organized ourselves into committees, with a board member at the helm of each committee. The creation of these committees, although maybe not a direct reaction to my organizational issues, has been a way that I have found it possible to actually accomplish the things I know I can be a part of at ENCM. These committees are a way of organizing volunteers, planning events, rallying fundraising attempts, working on the buildings and creating a board culture that is in direct service through the organization. This gentle way, whether indirect or not, of helping me organize myself and accept the help of a bigger body with strengths to match my weaknesses has enabled our organization to move forward with a decent amount of order and progress that will be measurable in the coming months. And I am loving the chance to thrive in spite of my weaknesses!

Creating a structure to support the weak may not be sexy, it may not be capitalistic or appealing, but it is gracious and it's inspired me to work on the things that I'm bad at, knowing I have a group of people willing to partner with me to move forward and achieve something far bigger than ourselves. This is what gives me the hope of Christ as it's shown through real Christian community.

Bound by need

I just recently returned from a trip to Haiti. I was part of a team that helped to build a church in a small community in Jacmel. It was a really intense trip. I saw a lot of brokenness, both literal and figurative. The need in that country is so profoundly immense that without a paint brush or hammer in hand I would have felt so overwhelmingly helpless. But armed with some sort of sustainable task made facing that need a bit more manageable. Even still, my dirty hands and sweaty back did little to fill the hollow spot in my heart that seemed to grow each day and with each mound of rubble that I saw. There was just so much destruction. I just don't know how these people will move forward from this.

In reflecting from all that I've seen I've been thinking about human need. I didn't want to return from Haiti with only a lesson that would apply to my time there. I wanted to be able to take all that I had learned and realize that the lessons transcend a place or a moment. It transcends that because human need is every where. There is very visible and tangible need in Haiti. In fact every time we drove from our campus to go out into the city we passed one of the thousands of tent cities that had the words "we need help" spray painted on a sheet at the entrance of the camp. And of course they needed help, they were living in tents surrounded by rubble. This is human need that is right in front of my face. But the truth is we are all functioning members of a very needy body of people. The human race is wrecked, broken, needy. We all need help.

The culture shock in returning to the states seemed to be more intense then when I arrived in Haiti. As I look around I don't see rubble. No, I don't see rubble or signs that say "we need help" made from dirty sheets. But I still see human need. I just see a people hell bent on disguising their need; hiding it behind houses or clean clothes or make-up, mini-vans and perfect family photos. If we admit we need help, if we admit we are needy, then we admit we are week and that this whole idea of the self-sustained, American dream could just be a kind-of lie.

I fall into this. I don't want to admit that being 32 and single is hard sometimes and that there are days I just want to feel like I'm a part of something. If I admit that then I would have to count on others to bring me into their families and into their homes and that's uncomfortable because it gets messy and you have to worry about boundaries and what if they get sick of me and...

The truth is we are a needy people. We come to the cross broken. Each one of us. And we serve a God that became human and broke bread and shared wine with us and died and then lived. And when we admit that we need a space at that table it frees us up to save a seat for those around us; to admit that need and accept the grace and love given to us from Jesus gives us the will, the freedom and the grace to extend such lavish love on others, despite, or even because of their deep need. We save them a seat at the table because it's at that table that our needs are met. It's at that table that we are welcomed into a family whose head is a Savior that quite literally journeys through life with us, that quite literally shares his blood and his body with us because he so deeply loves us.

Today, all I see in my head is that worn sheet with the words "we need help" and I pray that I look for that sheet in the lives of those around me and I pray that I see it, even when it's hidden and that my life is a literal offering of that bread, that wine, a seat at the Lord's table. I'm not there, but it's not for lack of need around me.

Last night was my first night back to the Emmaus worship service where we share a meal with a lot of our friends that I've met through ENCM. There's something about sitting across the table and sharing a meal with all kinds of people from all walks of life that reminds me of how we run to the table of the Lord, needy and we sit and we share with each other from a source that never runs dry. Thanks be to God and to those willing to save me a seat at God's table.

Survival of the broken

When I was a kid my family and I would go to Hershey Park at least once a year. It's an amazing amusement park with roller coasters, shows and tours of the chocolate factory. When I was really small I used to wish so bad I was big enough to ride the roller coasters. One coaster in particular called The Super Duper Looper seemed like the best adventure a little kid like me could ever have. Once I got big enough to ride that thing, I gathered all the courage my 10 year old body could and rode that roller coaster as many times as they would let me. It was the thrill of my life, that and the free chocolate at the end of the factory tours...

Once, when I was in college, going through my mom's old clothes in the attic, looking for something cool and vintage, I found a black t-shirt with that roller coaster on it and the words "I survived the Super Duper Looper". I wore that t-shirt until it had holes all through it. In fact, it was after college that with much sentimental anguish I finally threw the shirt away because it was just unwearable. Still there was some sort of 10 year old pride in me that surfaced when I wore that shirt. I survived the fear of the mounting roller coaster. Yeah, I did it, I rode it and I'm alive to tell the story.

Fast forward to May, 2010 and all over Facebook I see verbiage and pictures that add up to similar survival language. "I survived the Nashville flood of 2010". When most of the city has been under water, there's some kind of identity to be found in surviving. For some reason, and it seems as though it's always this way, we are more defined by what we struggle to overcome. It's in the struggle of things that we find ourselves. AND it's in that struggle that we learn what real love is as those around us sacrifice what they have to join in our suffering. I've seen so many pictures already of people sandbagging, cleaning out debris, using their boats to get to people who were stuck, spending their day yanking out old crumbling dry wall and helping their friends go through the damage. I've heard stories of strangers showing up at houses of people they they don't even know that they just heard may need an extra hand. Churches have gathered task forces and Hands On Nashville's website crashed from the volunteer response.

When I watch people gather to help, when I see my fellow Nashvillians bend to join the suffering of those who have lost everything, I have to say, I see Jesus. And whether or not these people even believe in Jesus, they are acting like him. How can that be? I think it has something to do with God's divine potential being in all things. Jesus own life suggest that holiness is found in the bearing of one another's burdens.

I know I talk about the shared life a lot on this blog, and I hope it doesn't get old. BUT...I am captivated by this concept. I am captivated by a God willing to share in our suffering, willing to suffer and struggle. I don't understand that. When I see someone struggling, it's painful just to watch, let alone suffer with them. But it's the survival of the broken that tends to reflect a God bigger than our pain, and bigger because he shares our pain and overcomes it.

I'm beginning to see that the boundaries of friendship are less defined by our differences and the ways that we screw it up and more defined by our willingness to share life together, the way that Jesus shares his life with us. What this means is that we have the power, the love, to reach out and befriend all kinds of suffering folks and that when we suffer, we are not alone. And in some way, we become a whole messy group of people defined by how we struggled through together and how even when we die we survive and live on. Thanks be to God.