Category Archives: Neighborhood

F&$%ing Ironic!

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Alanis Morissette’s got nuthin’ on me. She wants to talk about irony? A traffic jam when you’re already late? Not so ironic unless you happen to be a city planner. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife? Maybe if you just cleaned out your kitchen and threw away all your knives. Meeting the man of your dreams and then meeting his wife? Nope, not so ironic unless you happen to have just had your spouse cheat on you. Yeah, Alanis didn’t really get irony. But I think I’m starting to get it.

Oh the irony. Let me see if I can’t capture it a bit…

We’ve started a movement marked by the phrase “we’re inviting people to die to self in order to live for their neighbor” and now in a great ironical twist we are seeing the emergence of this movement in our neighborhood in the midst of literal death. Jess and I have lived our lives (at least the last five to six years) to this end, learning, growing, and pushing ourselves toward this way of life only to see (potentially) it happen without us.* We’ve attempted to see an experimental community that is willing to love in radical ways, willing to respond to the needs of those around them in sacrificial ways which demands first a posture of hospitality and listening, we’ve always accidentally been on the front edge of innovating and thinking through new ideas and realities…and now…ironically, we find ourselves once again guinea pigs to our own experiments. Ironically we’re not the ones being able to love others but are instead are being overwhelmed with love, with people responding in creative ways, and with people trying to figure out how in the hell you show hospitality to a family whose only commodity is their precious time. Oh the irony of it all! I could go on…the list gets quite long…but ironically I prefer shorter blogs.

This is just too effing ironic isn’t it?! I mean, come on! Alanis, you’ve got more skills than I, but you didn’t really get the whole irony thing. Let me take a stab…

And isn’t it ironic…don’t you think

It’s like getting cancer when you’ve got no family history

It’s starting a movement about metaphorical death then you end up dying

It’s the idea of inviting others to love your neighbor only to be loved yourself

Who would’ve thought…it figures

Like my previous blog post attempts to capture, what’s emerging in our neighborhood is amazing and beautiful (and I didn’t even write or share about what is happening amongst the amazing co-conspirators who are shaping the Grassroots Conspiracy movement!) But seriously…it is incredibly ironic…painfully ironic…humorously ironic…annoyingly ironic…oh the irony.

 

* Again, don’t get too caught up in the freedom in talking about death. I prefer to speak as if death is the reality (because medically it is) while keeping hope that Jesus will bring an alternative reality. Also while Jess will still be a part in whatever ways she wants or is able, it will nevermore be ‘us’ insomuch as we’ve been partners in most everything we do.

It’s Not About the Money

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It’s not about the money–it’s about the story being told. As with everything since May of last year when I was diagnosed with a tumor in my spine it has always been about a fascinating and wild story that is unfolding from moment to moment.

Today we were overwhelmed by our neighbors again. Three Main Street staples (Vancouver Pizza Co., Compass Church, and Yogurt Time) graciously opened up their doors to gather people together and fund raise to help care for our family. I, in the meantime, hid in my home because I was not feeling good, because I was tired, and because my son was sick. Every Sunday we host the Arnada Community meal where anywhere from fifteen to forty people from the hood come over for lunch–so as the fundraiser was happening many of our community meal folk got their slice and just brought it on down. It was so good to be with them, to be with my people, and to have the freedom to do so in a less-than-healthy and functioning fashion. In the end, however, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to go down to Main street to say hello and to get a little froyo action…and, again, we were overwhelmed by the love and support of our neighbors! There’s no good words to say it but y’all are amazing.

Ok, back to what I was going to say…

Yes, we heard rumors that people gave generously and that lots of pizza and yogurt were purchased…but it’s not about the money! It can’t be. It’s not a good enough story for it to just be about that. The story has grown larger than that. Time and time again the medical bills have been paid. Somehow or another our regular bills and our medical bills get taken care of because we are a part of such a loving, compassionate, and generous community of people. So I can honestly say that I’m not worried about the money. Don’t get me wrong, the money is important and it is a great story and it is a part of the story and I should be using commas in this sentence. But my story the story that is unfolding through us in our neighborhood is larger than this! Let me see if I can explain it a bit…

The Grassroots Conspiracy movement is defined by experimentally living into a handful of rhythms that we think are transformational for the individual, the family, and the neighborhood. One of these rhythms can be summarized by saying that we try to engage within three circles of activity: inclusive community, worshipful life, and being a blessing.*

Blessing and Responsiveness

Being a blessing can be seen when we mow our neighbors yard, when we volunteer at the soup kitchen, when we scrub graffiti off the local shops walls, when we care for single moms, etc. But being a blessing is not actually about activity–it is all about responsiveness. It is about responding to those around you, which requires listening, which requires showing hospitality, which requires creating space in your life, which requires a posture of openness to others. We can fill our schedule with doing nice things, with volunteerism (which is a good thing), with activity. But this doesn’t mean that we’re truly being a blessing. Responsiveness is all about the other person whereas activity can often become about me. The opportunity to respond rarely happens when we want it to, it happens in the middle of life, in the middle of chaos. Activity happens on my own terms, within my planned schedule, and in a context that I’ve chosen. Responsiveness demands that we’re willing to stop what we’re doing to be present for someone or something else. Being responsive kind of sucks. It’s hard. It requires much.

It’s Happening

It’s my belief that we are seeing a movement of responsiveness develop in our downtown neighborhoods. It gets me excited more than you know. I think that what we witnessed today was a community of people who responded quickly, without much fan fare, without much warning, and without much pushiness to a felt need that they observed. It’s not about the money that was fund raised (though we are incredibly grateful in more ways that I can express!!), no, it’s about the developing story of responsiveness that is being told. We, and our neighbors, are learning to be a blessing to others. We are learning to respond to needs when they arise. That’s pretty frickin’ amazing, pretty frickin’ beautiful, and it makes me want to sob like a little baby. Those who follow the ways of Jesus refer to this as gospel living. Jesus referred to this kind of stuff as the kingdom of God breaking into the world. Some just say that we’re learning to be nice. Whatever verbiage you use, the idea is that these moments remind us of how we are intended to live, of who we are intended to be, of what life together is supposed to be like. We get glimpses of it in these kind of Sunday afternoon moments, but in general we live in anticipation of how things should, could, and will one day be!

I personally live in a painful tension. On one side I’m pissed that potentially I won’t be around to see this movement develop. This is what I’ve lived my life for and to think that it could emerge without me makes me incredibly jealous! I want to watch! I want to participate! I want to be a part! While on the other hand, however, I have an incredible sense of peace (and I even feel a bit bad) because while y’all are seeking to live into a reality that will never fully and completely be realized this side of eternity** I will be basking in it fully. I’ll be done waiting, I’ll be done living in anticipation, I’ll be living it up as God originally planned.***

So it’s not about the money–it’s about a new story that is being told. A story that is marked by a way of life that seeks to bless others as we live close enough with them to hear their needs and respond appropriately. It requires much and it might not last, but it’s moments like today where our imaginations no longer need to dream but where we are actually able to see and experience what life together can be like. That’s something to be excited about.

 

* I won’t ever try to pretend that most everything good is stolen from someone else! We’ve borrowed and adapted this from a book called Tangible Kingdom. Good stuff.

** This blog’s too long already to attempt to flesh out this idea further. The idea here is that the world is broken and messed up (hard to argue with that) but that at different moments we get glimpses of life as God intended for it to be: loving relationships, selfless sacrifice, choosing peace over violence, etc. Those things (and we could list off so many more) are not the norm but Christians believe that when God restores all things to his original purpose and intended beauty those things will become the norm. Until then we keep trying to “usher in” life as it one day will be while knowing that it won’t be a full reality until God does his ultimate restoration thing.

*** I could be way off here. I’m not going to be foolish enough to claim that I’m fully aware of what life after death is going to be like immediately. You may be more aware than I. But I do think that whatever happens post death for me it’s going to be some sort of equivalent to sipping mai tai’s by the beach with a body that doesn’t suck.

 

Why I am a bad neighbor

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Before I write this I must at the very least include a giant asterisk that clarifies the reality that due to my health I am unable to engage as fully as I would like or as I feel like I should. As I have said before, there are many factors that eat up my time and energy. Chronic back pain steals hours and days of my time. My chemo regimen also eats up about 10-13 days a month of usefulness. Appointments with oncologists, radiologist, brain surgeons, and naturopaths eat up another significant portion of time. Getting regular MRI’s, CT scans, getting my INR checked (my blood thickness related to my previous clotting and embolism issues), etc. also take up a large portion of time. And then there’s the emotional element of not knowing how much time I literally have and therefore the desire to spend more time with my family and less time with…with you…and my neighbors. So this blog was written more out of the dichotomy between desire and reality than anything else, between what I want to do and what I can do, between what I know i should do and what my body allows me to do. What a mess life can be!

I find being a neighbor hard. Seriously difficult.

I love showing hospitality, we have people in our home all the time. Inviting people into our house is something that both brings us joy and, for the most part, comes pretty easily for us (not quite as true for my son as it is for the rest of the family). I also love running into neighborhood people at the cafe, while walking down main street, etc. but when it comes to actually seeing and knowing those neighbors who live on my street…I’m pretty pathetic. I’m sure it depends on where you live and what type of people live on your block, but what I’m finding is that it takes much more intentionality to actually meet and get to know my immediate neighbors. And I just have not done the work! It is intimidating to me and sounds like a lot of work to find excuses to go to a neighbors door (one who I have not met yet). I’m not against doing that, and I have done so on different occasions, but when it comes down to my actual activity I seem to always find something else to occupy my time. The reality is that I’m just not that great of a neighbor.

We talk about neighborhood a lot in our life and work. In Grassroots Conspiracy neighborhood language is pervasive and important. And I do know hundreds of people in my downtown neighborhoods…but on my actual street…I’m pretty pathetic. I am. We had a new set of people move in a few months ago and did we bring ’em cookies? Nope. We have a few elderly women that live on each end of the street and have I ever tried to be available to them? Nope. There are homes on our street where I couldn’t even tell you how many people live there let alone their names…let alone say that I’ve had them over for dinner…let alone say that I’ve brought them some bundt cake.

The reality is that it just takes more work. I’d rather go sit in a cafe and meet people as they enter or exit because it is easier.* It’s not as if I dont know what to do nor is it that I’ve never been willing to do it. No, I’ve written a bit about it in the past and our family has done some intentional things in the past in order to meet those who live on our block (from putting our garden in the front yard to going door to door we’ve done different things at different times), but when it comes down to it I just find it incredibly hard.

Again I want to justify my actions a little bit. We knew more of our neighbors in our last house. We moved here in October and I got sick in May. So there has never been a real solid time where we’ve been free to invest as fully as we’d like. But regardless of my health I still have the same set of desires, the same expectations (though these expectations are not fair to myself or my wife), and the same level of awareness of what I’m not doing (or not able to do). Regardless of my health I am able to recognize that being a good neighbor can be just plain ol’ hard. It requires a different set of rhythms to ones life…rhythms that may be more difficult for you–they’re more difficult for me for certain.

I hope that you’re able to find space in your life to be present and available to those on your block. I think it’d change your life (though I’d go out on a limb and say that it’d probably make it harder in many ways…relationship always does that!). I think it’d be worth it. And I think I’d like to learn from you.

I hope that I’m able to find space in my life to be present and available to those on my block…but until then I’ll probably continue to park myself at the cafe around the corner.

 

* I’m not trying to downplay the value of going to a public space as a means to get to know people. I can’t imagine ever giving this up as a valuable practice. Rather this is a blog where I’m doing some general griping and simultaneously criticizing myself… apparently even some of the good things I may do…not sure this is the best way to go about writing this blog…but it is what it is right?