Turmoil to Creation

2006 Snohomish River flood

On a rainy autumn day a couple of us visited the neighborhood of an apartment complex in the valley. It has a reputation for its poverty, drugs and gang activity. I know a few of this community’s residents.

I knocked on the door of a family, looking for a young man I had not seen in months. He had been in and out of addiction, and on my mind for some time. There was no answer. We walked around the block, praying. As we came around a corner a woman’s car stopped and she pulled over. She frustratedly tried to start it, and repeated to no avail. “Pedro!” she yelled out of her window. “Pedro!”

“Hey, do you need a hand?” I asked.

“Go up the stairs and knock on the door on the right, and tell Pedro I need his help!” she shouted in reply.

I did so. A shirtless man opened the door. “There’s no Pedro here” he said after I relayed the story, to the sound of the woman’s curses and false car starts from below.

When I returned to the street the woman was upset that I had come back without Pedro. “No, he’s there! Tell them I live there. Pedro!”

Hearing the scene, the man and a woman came down from the apartment, and an argument erupted between them and the lady in the car, over Pedro’s status in the apartment. The whole time her car was in the road, blocking the driveway.

“Can we give you a push?” I offered. The argument continued while we guided the car to the curb. A look of revelation came over the man’s face. “Do you mean the Mexican guy?” the man asked.

“Yes! Pedro!”

“Oh yeah, she does live there” said the other young woman. “You mean the guy who just moved in?” The car was in park. Tension was high between everyone. Then another man walked around the corner of the building. “Pedro!” shouted the woman with the car. He smiled calmly, and walked up to her car. It was clear we couldn’t be of any more use, so we went on our way.

In a strange way I felt we had been invited into the chaos of these people’s lives, however briefly. The whole scene was hilarious and confusing. I realized I knew very little of this life of chaos and struggle. I continued to pray often for this community beloved by Jesus.

Later I was leading the Bible study on our Wednesday night church gathering, called Together. We were starting at the beginning – Genesis 1. “Now the earth was formless and empty,darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (verse 2, ESV). My favorite (and one of my only) Hebrew phrases is tohu wa bohu, like helter skelter, translated here as formless and empty and used elsewhere in the Bible to describe cities destroyed in battle. This was a chaotic darkness. Out of this God begins by speaking, creating light, and separating it from darkness. Then more separating, of sky and sea, of sea and land. By the end of the third day it is no longer formless, but remains empty. Then God speaks and fills this creation with lights, fish and birds, all kinds of creatures and humans. It was “very good.”

Finally, work finished, God rests on the seventh day. I shared what I had discovered in researching the text, that this language is paralleled later in the narrative of the construction of the tabernacle, which is given form, then filled, and then when the work is done, God’s presence enters. From this chaos, God brought form, filled it and rested in it.

Now I think of the places where there is no order, no boundaries, where there is emptiness and confusion. I think of a woman, the mother of three whose husband is incarcerated and has no income or family support. I think of many families who work on farms over the summer and fall, who may be without work until flower season begins in the spring. I think of the isolated, those stuck in addiction and inaction, those caught in cycles of violence as perpetrators and victims. As in creation, I believe this is still where God loves to move. Though we pray and work for that end, for God’s kingdom on Earth as in Heaven, the turmoil seems to prevail. It is my prayer that the Lord create and fill these places with his life.

Experiment

(This is a late post, my update from the end of September).

We were coming to the end of a jail Bible study, reading through the story of Jesus turning water into wine, his first miracle in the gospel of John. Someone read aloud the concluding verse: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him” (2:11)

“I have a question!” interjected a young Chicano man in the seat next to me. “Do we have to believe this? How do we know they didn’t just bring in wine from somewhere? Why does it always say Jesus did miracles?”

“That’s a good question” I said. I thought of something I have heard Bob (TN’s co-founder) say on a similar topic. I mentioned that John was saying that Jesus was the one and only son “at the Father’s side” who makes him known. He walked with him and was writing about seeing his glory.

“So, if I say I have the best weed in the Northwest, how would you know if it was true?”

“Man, I gotta try it!”

I realized I was going in a risky direction. I stopped for a second, and asked for God’s direction. Something came to mind. “Let’s try an experiment.” I invited whomever wanted to join me to hold out heir hands and give God permission to use our hands for five minutes. We put our hands on parts of our body where there was pain and I led us in a prayer.

I looked up in silence. Some men were looking around, others with eyes shut praying. No one said anything. I began to doubt whether this was the right approach. Was this putting the Lord your God to the test or tasting and seeing God is good? Did I set it up to make it seem like if nothing happened that none of what we were reading was real?

“Is anyone experiencing any difference?” I asked. Nothing.

I prayed aloud for some other things, safer things. For families, and God’s presence with the men during the week. Intangible. Safe.

I looked up and one middle-aged man had his hands on his back, and an unusual look on his face. “I feel something. My pain is way less than it was before. And I feel really hot.” Sweat had appeared on his head. He explained that for ten days he had been unable to sleep because of the intense back pain. I asked how bad the pain was, and he said it was normally a 7 out of 10. Now it was 2. Some relief, but not completely healed. “My head feels so hot!” he said again.

We moved on and prayed for some other things before we heard the click of the door and the guard called the men back to their pod.

The next week I was back in county. When this particular pod came in, I recognized the man from the week before. I asked him how he was.

“Good! The pain is completely gone” he said, smiling.

“Have you been able to sleep?”

“Yeah. I’ve been sleeping all the time now that I can. And I’ve been reading this all the time” he said, lifting up his Bible.

A man next to him laughed nervously. “That’s the power of positive thinking. That’s all that is. The power of positive thinking.”

“Well It has me convinced” the man said, still smiling.

The other man laughed nervously again, and shook his head. He continued laughing to himself for most of the Bible study. Two very different reactions.

Several days later I stopped to talk with Julio on the sidewalk outside the Tierra Nueva building. Someone who looked familiar approached the door.

“Hey man!” I said, walking up to shake his hand. “Remind me your name again.”

“I’m Eddy, the guy with the back.”

He looked different out of his red jail uniform. “Yeah, how are you doing?”

“It’s been all good since that day in jail. When do you guys have services here? I have to go out to work on a car in Sedro now. Hopefully I can come by before I leave town.”

We talked a little and he went his way, standing tall.

Hell and trees

Photo by Flickr user USFS Region 5

It was a year ago that I first walked into the small room between two automatic steel doors. “This is the last glimpse some people get of the outside world” Bob, the Tierra Nueva co-founder, once remarked. Every couple weeks now we walk through the scanner, register and check in at various points on our way through the foreboding walls into the middle of the Washington State Reformatory, to the multi-faith chapel.

Instead of the main chapel room, this time we were redirected to a little side classroom, where the Jewish, Adventist and Wicca items are kept. Eight Latino inmates joined Bob and I for a couple hours. We spoke mostly in Spanish. We are currently the only Spanish language ministry in the prison. We have seen some faces come and go as they have been released or transferred to other facilities in the last year. A few of the original men we met last July are still around, and will be, for years to come.

This week I ran across an article by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, called “Go To Hell! God’s Gracious Word to American Christians.” He writes:

Unbeknownst to most Americans, our justice system changed radically in the late 20th century. Like most countries in the modern West, roughly one in a thousand Americans were in prison in the early 70s. Today, we incarcerate 1 in 107 Americans. Over 7 million adults are currently in jails, in prison, or on probation. More than 65 million US citizens now have a criminal record, while another 11 million undocumented people live outside the the law, subject to seizure and deportation…

Strange as it may seem, God is saying to the church in America, “Go to hell.”

“When I was in prison,” Jesus said in Matthew 25, “you visited me.” We find Jesus in prison because prison is where Jesus has established residence here on earth. We don’t visit to take Jesus to inmates. We follow Jesus into the hell of America’s prison because this is the way God has revealed for us to receive the gift of resurrection life.

The statistics are harrowing. The individual stories can be heartbreaking. Prison is the place where the rejected ones are sent and forgotten. This is where Jesus says he can be found.

On this visit, I led a Bible study on Psalm 1, the blessed man who is planted like a tree by living water. We read this in parallel with Jesus’s words in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

As we talked about the idea of abiding in Jesus, one of the younger men who has been coming for a few months expressed his frustration. “I have trouble staying with it, man. This is easy when we are together reading the Bible. It’s hard when I’m back at my house (cell).”

One of the older men with a long sentence spoke up. “It doesn’t happen all at once. If I want to be a swimmer, I have to get wet. Poco a poquito you can grow. Trust in God. It’s something God gives to us. I didn’t ever think I would be where I am today, going to church and walking with God. There are a lot of pressures we feel that keep us out. Now I don’t worry what people are going to say. We have to be steady like trees. It doesn’t happen in a day. I’m not going to become a professional soccer player playing a game once a month. You have to focus on your spiritual development. It takes time. You’re in a time of training.”

“Eso.” The young man nodded. That’s it.

I marveled. He had essentially summarized the message of an NT Wright book I have been reading about the formation of character in discipleship, called After You Believe. Only this man’s exhortation had a weight to it, of years of struggle and change, in the middle of prison. Now he was being a pastor and encourager to the others.

Prison can be a harsh place for a soul. The transition out is also very sensitive. Many men I have met in the last couple years in jail and prison have been resolved to stay clean and work for their future when they get out. Many of them end up back in the same relationships and patterns. Will alone is not enough. A community of support is needed. It is no guarantee, but it is something.

Today a man will be released from prison with whom Tierra Nueva has had a long relationship. There has been great effort and planning that has gone into his transition. Pray with us for him and for the many others who come out of jail and prison.

Our work sometimes feels a little like helping trees grow in hell. But I find that Jesus is already at work. He invites us to come see him there, in hell, in prison, to the rejected ones.

The Snares of Death

 

“Church!” shouted a guard into the open door of the jail pod. I greeted the red-uniformed men as they walked in and sat in a circle of chairs. We opened in prayer, for court cases, families and for men leaving to get out or being transferred to prison.

I am in the habit of bringing my guitar to jail to lead a song. We have found that often the music goes far deeper than the Bible study. I remembered a song I had been working on, based on one of the Psalms of lament. I mentioned that many of the Psalms were songs and prayers written by men in hiding and in desperation, complaints to God. There were nods and sighs as I sang some of the lines (all from Psalm 142) “No one is concerned for me… rescue me from my pursuers… set me free from my chains.” The last line, in the Psalm, literally says “bring me out of prison” (v. 7). This is a jail Psalm.

Instead of going to what I had planned in Colossians, I felt it would be good to look at this Psalm. Only I had forgotten which one it was, so we read Psalm 116.

I asked someone to read verse 1 and 2. The writer mentions that God “inclined his ear to me.” “Inclined” isn’t a common word in the jail, so we talked about the image of God leaning in to listen. We continued on to verse 3: “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.”

This writer, I mentioned, experienced traps of death all around him. “Do you think there are snares of death around today?”

“Oh yeah.” Answers flooded in: Drugs. Addictions. Violence. Temptations. Debt. Fake friends. Revenge. Police. Money. Sex. Pornography. Power.

“Skagit [county],” one man said. “I feel snared when I’m in Skagit, I have to get out.”

Another man mentioned relationships. “I know probably 20 people who are in here because of toxic relationships,” he said, “including me.” A younger man with a gang background piped up: “I feel like we set up our own traps.”

Someone mentioned how they ended up back in jail on a small technicality. This caught my attention. I asked, “Do you think there are snares in the legal system?”

“Oh yeah! It’s hella messed up,” one said. “It’s a broken system.” There were nods of agreement. “We are treated like animals in here, like we are numbers, like cattle” said another. “Or like pigeons that are tagged” one man said, showing his bracelet with his name and number.

We looked back at the verse, reading about the “pangs of Sheol,” or the grips of the grave. Someone mentioned that he felt gripped by negativity. The psalmist “suffered distress and anguish.” “Is this how the world is now?” I asked. Laughing sarcastically, one man said “No way. Everything’s great…. If it were, we wouldn’t be here.”

We continued through a few more verses, where the writer calls on the Lord for help, and experiences tangible results: “when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you” (v. 6-7).

We moved to pray for God’s help and rescue in the world full of snares. I received the gift of a little extra time with the last pod, one that has been on lockdown for a few months, confined only to their cells for 23 hours a day. This time they were out.

I walked around the circle and prayed briefly for each man, for Jesus’ help from the many snares. Then we sat in silence for a little while. I had a strong sense of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us. The man to my right said, after a couple minutes, “Do you have another song?”

I played a couple more before the click of the opening door, and the guard brought the men back behind the heavy doors.

For all the oppressed

 

Sitting near back of a tiny courtroom on the twentieth floor of a downtown Seattle tower, I prayed. This was immigration court. “Fernando,” a husband and father of three children sat before the judge, listening to interpreter in his headphones, awaiting the words that would seal his fate. As an undocumented worker with some felony charges in front of this cold court, things did not look hopeful.

At Tierra Nueva we have seen “legal miracles” before, surprise acts of mercy on the behalf of prosecutors and judges. One man from a gang background was almost certainly going to be deported because of his record. Surprisingly he was spared deportation. Now he is a volunteer chaplain with our Tierra Nueva team in juvenile detention.

This was not to be one of those times. After verbally processing his case, the judge gave the sentence: voluntary departure. Get out or be deported.

Some of my colleagues at Tierra Nueva use the story of Lazarus to parallel the stories of the lives of the people we accompany. Jesus raises the man to life, but tells the people to roll away the stone.

There are some enormous stones.

I know men with criminal records who face what is essentially legal discrimination, barred from many opportunities of employment because of their past, weighed down by debts and legal fees. Or Mixtec and Triqui families forced because of economic hardship to cross a dangerous border into an unfamiliar and unfriendly country, stuck in agricultural jobs with degrading working conditions. (On this topic, see a write-up I did of Seth Holmes’ book, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies here).

Sadly, I am coming to believe that this society treats many of its undesirables by denying them a place. This is not merely institutional; this has more to do with our hearts and our actions than our laws.

Last weekend I went to hear one of my favorite authors, Marilynne Robinson, speak in Vancouver, BC. Her topic was the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who tirelessly resisted the racism and injustice of the Nazi regime and the consent and compromise of the church. “No society is at any time immune to moral catastrophe” she said, speaking about the rise of coldness and predation toward the poor in contemporary American society, a social Darwinism where “losers lose.”

Someone asked about the common perception that we are powerless to make any change. “This is not true” she said. “It’s the irony of our moment – that people feel helpless but we are equipped to be effective more than anyone else in history.”

When the opportunity came for questions, I asked what we can do in the face of this coldness to the poor. “We have to talk about it!” she responded. “Ask ‘Do you realize how ugly this is? Would you grind the face of the poor?'”

With these words and stories in mind, I opened my Bible one morning to Psalm 103. I read “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (v. 6).

It is my prayer that the institutional and legal stones would be moved, the laws and impersonal bureaucracies that stifle and push against those on the bottom. I am no longer afraid to work toward this end. And yet, just laws will be meaningless without the presence of love and justice in our hearts and communities, without the presence of Jesus with us. This long work of speaking truth and seeking true justice must be part of my mission. Because I believe in a Gospel where losers win. But I can’t do this alone.

Friends, pray for us, and pray for the ones who are stuck behind immovable stones. “For nothing is impossible with God.”

Peace!

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes – book review

Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, by Seth Holmes, PhD, MD, University of California Press, 2013.

I recently read Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes, about the lives of migrant farmworkers on the West Coast. Holmes chronicles his experience accompanying families from working in the berry fields in Skagit Valley to vineyards in California, to towns in Oaxaca and across the border, with attention to stories of hardship, sickness, systematic injustice and violence.

Holmes has a unique perspective as an anthropologist and medical doctor (his title reads PhD, MD). Thus the book delves equally into societal and cultural structures and norms and issues of medical care and the healthcare system. The resulting stories are sad, and some are stories of people I know.

Holmes begins with firsthand accounts of his journeys with a Triqui (indigenous Mexican) family. He lives and works in the Skagit Valley, travels with the family in their van to California at the end of the berry season, living homeless for a few days, and staying in an overcrowded apartment. Through connections in their Oaxacan hometown, he joins a dangerous expedition to cross the border into Arizona, where the group is caught, arrested and detained, and he with them. To understand what he, a tall white man, was doing alongside the Triqui families, one man said “he wants to see how the people suffer.”

These stories are interspersed with perceptive social and medical commentary. “Traditional studies of migration,” Holmes states,

“focus on the motivations for an individual to choose to migrate. These motivations are often categorized as ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors… Such a view assumes a rationally acting individual, maximizing her self-interest and having control over her destiny through choice…. However, my Triqui companions experience their labor migration as anything but voluntary. Rather, they have told me repeatedly that they are forced to migrate in order for themselves and their families to survive. At one pint during our trek across the border desert, [a Triqui man] told me, ‘There is no other option left for us.’ ”

pp. 17-18

A worker in a berry field

Later, Holmes highlights stories of frustration for farmworkers navigating  the medical system. Sick and injured from strenuous labor, workers would find that doctors and medical professionals would not listen or treat the problems in a way that was at all effective. At times no interpreters were present, or only interpreters in Spanish and Mixtec where men and women spoke Triqui. Other times answers were ignored because of medical records on file that seemed to contradict what the men and women said to the medical professionals. These visits usually ended in the return to grueling farmweork and an untreated problem, leaving many saying “Los medicos no saben nada”  – doctor’s don’t know anything.

I was struck by Holmes startling synthesis of endemic racism in the US and Mexico toward Triqui farmworkers, mistreated and most often ignored. Even though I have come to know some of these very families, at several points the reading caused me to stop and examine my own attitudes, and ways I might unconsciously justify marginalization, or simply ignore suffering as too difficult to look at.

Because this book falls in a unique interdisciplinary niche, I found some of the academic language inaccessible, particularly in the portions about the medical system. However, I do believe this would be a very beneficial read for medical professionals, about the insufficient and marginalizing “clinical gaze” toward migrant farmworkers.

Something is very wrong in our world, and in our community. This leaves me looking for what the Old Testament prophets call “righteousness and justice” in our valley, in Washington State, and the US and Mexico. I am also drawn to take the time to listen to the farmworkers here. May we not forget them any longer.

What is your name?

 

I put my guitar down on the table in the jail’s multipurpose room after a song, and pass around a few copies of the New Testament to the men circled around, looking up after a prayer. “So,” I begin quietly, “do you ever experience things that keep you from where you want to go, or from what’s good, or from the places of life?”

“Yeah, these walls” one man says, with a wry smile.”Being told you’re not good enough” offers another. Others mention negativity and bad decisions. A young heavily tattooed gang member says “Being judged by what’s on the cover.” The men retell stories of experiencing judgement in the legal system and their disappointments with public defenders. “It’s like you’re guilty until proven innocent.”

I invite the men to read a story of a man who met Jesus. We begin in Luke 8:27-29:

When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

As we read through these verses slowly, we talk about what this man’s life was like. I point out how the demon would take control of him.

“I feel like that” a man interjects. He tells a story of falling down a slope of losing control, and hating what he is doing, until he ends up in jail. There are nods of agreement.

Another man says “I have that tattooed on me.” He shows us the tattoo on his arm that reads “the devil made me do it.” “It’s like when you know it’s wrong,” he explains, “but you just keep doing it and you hate it.”

We discuss all of the things this man in the story had against him, demon-possessed, socially isolated, punished by the community, and living in a place of death. There are many nods, as men relate with different aspects of his bondage.

We read on to see what happens with Jesus on the scene. “Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Legion,’ he replied, because many demons had gone into him” (verse 30). I bring up the possibility that Jesus is speaking directly to the man, not to the demons, but that his identity was confused with the demons; it was differentiate himself from his problem. “It could have been like a street name” I say.

“Yeah, I’ve got mine right here,” says a man, lifting his shirt to show the name Wicked tattooed across his abdomen.

We also note that he demons turn quickly to begging with Jesus’ arrival. Jesus casts the demons out, causing a huge spectacle and reaction. The man is completely transformed. “When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid” (v. 35). When he begs to go with Jesus, who is leaving at the request of the people, he sends him instead back to his people: “Return home and tell how much God has done for you” (v. 39).

We again list through the ways this man was in bondage, and the contrast that with his condition, in his right mind, sitting with Jesus, freed, in relationship and given a mission. We finish in prayer for Jesus’ freeing presence with us, and for families of the men, when the thick red doors click open. “Church is over,” calls a guard.

I see a lot of hope of this story, for a man harmed by demonic evil, inflicting himself and punished by society. I think about the “impossible cases,” the ones for whom no one has hope. These are the ones Jesus approaches, saying “what is your name?” and bringing freedom. Pray with us for the same transformation with those we accompany behind bars and in our community.

Peace!

Recovery, Relationship and Relapse

This month at Tierra Nueva has been very busy for me. Last month we began our Wednesday night church gathering, Together. With coordinating Together, I continue to spend time with men in the jail and prison and families in the homes and neighborhoods of Skagit Valley. With so many ministry times I am learning that I have to be vigilant in prayer and always ready with a message of some sort from scripture. I have been told a Christian must always be ready to preach, pray or die. I at least always have to be ready to pray and lead a Bible study. Many of these times of ministry have been very beautiful, as I have been learning to be alert to the unexpected movements of the Holy Spirit.

In daily reality, there are also many failures and disappointments along the way. There are the awkward Bible studies and ministry times, but the biggest disappointments come from people I come to know and love who leave.

In the last couple months several men who have been a part of our programs and community have left. They have isolated themselves, relapsed into drugs or re-offended. Those in recovery are in a very tender and vulnerable place. An unexpected event can send someone to seek comfort in an old destructive lifestyle.

I am very thankful for the ones who have stay and grow. I have told Julio and Teddy’s stories in previous updates. There are real victories, men and women who have overcome addiction, gangs and crime and are a part of our community or other churches. Some are leaders now, reaching out to others who are vulnerable, in gangs and addiction.

But right now I am thinking about the ones who are gone. They are not just ideas or faces. Some of them are friends now. There is a personal risk involved in this ministry, when I open myself to people who may quickly disappear one day. These men are often in my prayers and on my mind. I remember Jesus’ parable of the shepherd that leaves 99 sheep in the fold to search for the one who wandered away. Pray that God gives us the love, wisdom and courage to find these ones.

Peace!

Together

Our Tierra Nueva faith community serves as the fold where we gather with many of the people we meet in the neighborhood, in jail, from the recovery community, Tierra Nueva staff and others. On Sundays we meet for worship, preaching, prayer and communion, ending with a soup dinner together in our old bank building in downtown Burlington.

I have been a part of the church leadership team since I was invited last year. In meeting we have all felt the need for our community to grow together, with roots and strength as we follow Jesus in the Skagit Valley. Other than some recovery meetings and a gang ministry Bible study, there was no forum for us to meet apart from Sunday. We threw around a lot of ideas, but sat to pray and listen together one day. It was clear to us that it was time to start a second church service time that could be community-oriented, prayerful and flexible. After some prayer, a couple of us independently felt we should call the time “Together.” I was selected to coordinate this time as we began.

We began the last Wednesday of January, chairs in a circle, and worshiped, prayed and responded to a Bible study together. We are able to take time and pray for one another, explore our response to what we read and hear.

On our first night, “Love one another” was a repeated phrase we read together in 1 John 4. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11-12). Not wanting to move too quickly, we explored the same theme this week. We broke into small groups, looking closely at what God does and what we do in this passage, alongside Ephesians 2:1-10.

We are taking this invitation to heart, to love the ones in front of us. We cannot see God, but we can see each other.

Some very profound encounters happen out in the jails, in homes and on the streets. But some real deepening and discipleship is happening as we come together from many backgrounds around one Jesus. Please pray for our church community as we grow together.

Poverty according to inmates

Last night I led Bible studies with men in the Skagit County jail. Before beginning a study on the beatitudes, I started with a question. “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘poor’? What comes to mind?”

These were their responses:

• Struggle
• Unloved
• Suffering
• Living in jail
• No hope
• Alone
• No accomplishment
• Living the the hole
• Not very much money
• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of family
• Empty
• Hungry
• Barely getting by
• Can’t make their own decisions
• Trapped, stuck

As the media and Washington politicians are in conversation and debate about the best response to poverty in America, I want to remember what these men said. Poverty is multidimensional, relational, material, emotional and spiritual. Most of these answers don’t have to do with money, but they describe the experience and emotions of people in poverty. I want to sit with this and unpack some of these as I think and act about poverty in my community.

Here’s the song going through my head right now: