Halloween

We had a nice Halloween party at the Sal were we had some candy, games and food for the kids. Some of them dressed up. Little Brandon, who is two, was wearing a puffy dinosaur costume and fell asleep in my arms. I'm pretty sure it would have made a great Anne Geddes print. I thought about getting candy a few times, but i figured i wouldn't be home from work til 8 or 8:30 so i could just hide in darkness at my house pretending not to be there b/c i sure didn't dare go to the door without candy. Right now we pretty much just have some kidney beans and an Aldi's cake mix and barely anything else b/c we really need to go grocery shopping pronto.

I thought i had fooled all the kids when my doorbell rang at 10 or so and i stealthy snuck to the door to see Q standing there sans any apparent Halloween costume. He was out of breath and told me to hurry to his house b/c his grandmother drank too much and passed out and she wasn't responding. As I got there, the ambulance was ariving and Q wanted me to go to the hospital with them. The paramedics were getting her stuff together and Q grabbed a portion of his abbreviated Halloween haul to tide us over at the hospital. Ambulances give me the creeps and so do hospitals right now, especially since i don't have health insurance currently, but his grandmother seemed like she would be ok, so that was good.

That kid has to be an adult and do so many things for his family and there's a lot of junk that goes on in his house, he doesn't have much time to be a kid at all, and not surprisingly because of all of this, he's failing a few of his classes. We had a good time at the hospital and he was really eager to share his candy with all the people in the waiting room. For some unknown reason he thought that the Peanut Butter M&M's weren't any different than the plain ones, which i found completely preposterous, but gladly benefitted from his ambivalence. The nurses and cleric staff had a bunch of candy to give out and so Q and i profited from being there at the tail end of Halloween and were supplied with our own continuous stream of Reese's and KitKat's while his grandma was given boring plain fluids and stuff.

My friend actually teaches Q's social studies class, where he's failing miserably and he said he doesn't want to be a social studies teacher ever and doesn't see a need to learn about social studies. While I was sitting in the waiting room i tried to say some stuff like the need to have perspective and understanding, but we were able to talk about it when we got back to my house after Holly picked us up. I made some food for us and we were watching a PBS special on slavery and he said that he didn't want to see any of it and we talked about it for a while and talked about guys like Nat Turner, John Brown, David Walker and why it's important to look at slavery, slave revolts, abolition movements and revolutions. Kinda intense talking about that as a white adult to a 12 year old black male, but I think it's extremely important for both of us.

Needless to say, as usual, things aren't normal here in West Philly, but I wouldn't have wanted to spend my Halloween any other way, and won't forget about it any time soon. My picture of community is always growing, often with lots of frustrations and great sadness, but at the same time there is hope and glimmers of incredible community and resurrection and that is where I want and need to be.

I am Not My Hair

I am not my hair I am not my hair I am not this skin I am not your expectations no no I am not my hair  I am not this skin  I am the soul that lives within   It's sorta humorous that I would pick India.Arie's song, "I am not my hair" as a song that I really relate to. Superficially, I guess it would have made sense for my brother back in his fro days. My hair is hardly noteworthy, and so while this song is mainly about a young black woman and the relationship between the appearance of her hair and her identity, this song really speaks to me on a spiritual level that doesn't care that I'm a white male with short hair.    Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending her show in DC. I had great seats thanks to Natalie and her mom. India came out on stage kinda diva like and I was pretty surprised just based on who I know her to be from her music. She had a swagger and was all dressed up in these different scarves, ponchos, and all these accessories I don't know about and her hair was all done up.  Anyhow, the music came up and as she was getting ready to start singing, she starts taking off all the frilly accessories and fancy colors. She concluded with the removal of her weave leaving her on stage in a simple white outfit and shaved hair that ironically looks similar to mine as she closes her eyes and starts to sing, "I am not my hair". It was a very spiritual and freeing moment to see such a strong black woman sharing her freedom and personal peace that she has found with all of us. She has risen above all the classifications, generalizations and assumptions people ascribe to her, and she is finally free to be who she was created to be. What a peaceful place to be.   For me, part of accepting my belovedness as a child of God is accepting my whiteness. From the start, my experiences in Philly and my understanding of the kingdom of God in my neighborhood, has been highly tempered by my whiteness. In many ways, this is a tremendous privilege, but it certainly has been fatiguing. So often when I walk my sidewalks, I can't help but assume that people only see me as a white guy in a 98% black neighborhood. That my skin is all they see and because of it, they won't give me the opportunity to share my heart with them. Expectations have grown so heavy to bear sometimes that I often feel like cussing people out, crying or belting out this song to people who pre-judge me. I am not your expectations, no! The past several years have been a journey of learning and lamenting as I have gone deeper in my pursuit of what it means to be a white male and a Christian in this nation (empire). I thought before moving to philly I had dealt with a lot of my emotions, mainly anger and shame, but I quickly realized that I had a lot more work to do. Now as I look back, I feel such more freedom than when I first moved in, enough to share honestly where I am now, without feeling ashamed. When I moved here, I knew that any racial comments were more directed to people's previous encounters or emotions towards white people than personal to me. Though I am a minority in my neighborhood, I am still privileged, I still have a tremendous amount of power and I could leave at any time and not be directly affected by what goes on.   The first time that I was called officer was modestly amusing, but after a while it really pissed me off and developed into an arrogant superiority that I was here to be a blessing and "these people" have the nerve to insult me, how pathetic I'll go to the suburbs and get my high paying engineering job, forget you. I kinda enjoyed funny nicknames like being referred to as the cast of Dawson's Creek or the Real World, but little girls calling me, "Cracker" really hurt me. I don't even know where cracker comes from, but it is just sad b/c I know some people use it b/c it's the word with the most power to hurt me. Months after moving here, some women in hospital scrubs asked me as I was hustling to get to the Sal, fresh out the shower in flip flops and a thrift store t, if I was an undercover cop. I can't tell you how many rumors about us being "undies" we had to deal with. First of all, do I look like it, really look at me and how I'm dressed, and second of all I sure as heck wouldn't say anything to you if I were so why would you ask me such a dumb question. Lots of people, young and old really speculated that we were undercover officers and this was extremely painful to me, but I understood it when moving in right next to the projects. Miss Linda caught some kids talking about us one time and she said, "They aren't police officers, they are my friends and they are special to me. You talk about my friends, you talk about my family, and I don't tolerate that." It was incredibly humbling to experience her advocating on my behalf.   I was walking across the street once and someone said, "Get out of the way you dumb white mother fucker". After calming down, my thoughts were that this person was so pathetic to say something so ignorant and that I'm too educated that if I thought that, I'd at least have the decency not to say it, and I was glad to be me and not so uninformed. I had and still have a lot of ugly thoughts. I pretty much assume that people respond to me based on my whiteness. I remember some girls giggling at me at the library and I went up and said something about how it's rude to laugh at someone and what did they have against white people and they just said that they thought I had pretty eyes.   I remember the first time that I went to the park to play basketball I told my two roommates I didn't want them joining me, basically b/c they sucked and I didn't want to be brought down by stereotypical white basketball players because it was going to be tough enough for me on my own. I remember running some pick up games and being picked after kids half my size, hearing generic white insults and being extremely disrespected. It often made me go into a beast out mode where I was determined to completely take over the game if I could and show them that I wasn't a white boy to be messed with and I could take them so I would destroy them and show them. For the first time in my neighborhood I had some power, and that made me feel comfortable. Draining a step back three in a 6' 3'' black man's face was incredibly addictive to me, to hear the ooh's and aah's and laughing from the other players and for me to smugly do it three or four more times before the game ended as I strutted off. Yet, every time I stepped on the court, I felt that my reputation and whiteness was on the line. I had to be on, or I would feel inferior. Now, to be at the point where I can have a poor shooting game and smile and shrug it off is a huge peace for me. Once at work, two of my peers, counselors continued playing basketball after the whistle had blown and we had been specifically instructed to set examples for the kids by putting the balls up right at the whistle. I calmly reminded them of this and encouraged them to stop, I did this several times and got no response, they just kept playing. I started to get pretty upset and just grabbed the ball after they shot it and one of the guys walked up to me and got in my face and I started arguing with him and wasn't backing down. He got mad and walked out. Some of the kids saw this and said they had my back and that some black people were ignorant and they were sorry. Pastor Shawn wanted to talk w/ the three of us, but the other two guys stepped out and so I shared w/ him that I felt completely ignored and that I felt bad, but had to consider that it was because I was white, how in so many of my interactions, it creeps into my head that maybe I'm being treated differently because of my skin. Pastor Shawn really calmed me and when the guys came in I was able to share and the guy that really disrespected me apologized for how he acted and made sure I knew that he had my back in our hood. My friendship with him really deepened because I was able to share with him that fear that I have of being treated differently b/c of my skin.   When I left to catch the bus for DC to get to the concert, Tyree told me, "Stay Black, Pete." Pastor Shawn used to call me Puerto Rican, comments like those are somewhat common to me, and for a long time, I took some pride in feeling as if I had transcended my whiteness to be seen as a minority or person of color. This feeling quickly turned to pain and feeling like people were telling me that my ultimate social goal is to come as close as possible to escape being white. Ironically, this is the exact opposite notion that most people of color feel in being forced to assimilate to whiteness to be successful in the workplace or politics.   I am white, I want to be proud of that, I want to be comfortable in it and I don't want it to be always a bad thing. More than being white, black, latino, asian, or any other race or ethnicity, I want people to see my soul and know me as I am. I do strongly believe that this can't just happen in an immediate colorblind society. I don't know a whole lot of things, I still struggle with a lot of things about race, but I have never been at such peace with being white, feeling privileged to live in my neighborhood and share who I am with people around me who might never get the chance to know someone from my background. I don't need to wear fancy clothes, have all this baggage, a fancy hair style or strut around, I am free to be me because I am loved by God. My true friends recognize this within me and love me the same. I am white, but I am this soul within. God has made me beautiful and I love who I am.   It excites me to have the opportunity to be one of two white people in my neighborhood. I am not defined by my skin, my basketball skills, the way I talk, what I listen to or how I dress. This doesn't mean I don't fall into those thought patterns sometimes, but I have a peace that only comes from God. Daily, I am so thankful he has called me to be a part of his Kingdom in my neighborhood that I find myself singing in the shower, as I walk down the street, through the projects or while I'm working at the Salvation Army. It reminds me of the end of Blue Like Jazz, what song will your soul sing when it gets set free? I'm finding my song and offering it to God and sharing it with my neighbors.

Nascar in the hood

Nascar, whiteness, the city and the kingdom of God

I never thought that I'd hear city kids talking about how crazy Nascar driver Brian Vickers was to upset the Nextel Cup chase the way he did last Sunday.

So this morning, we went out to King of Prussia, which as it sounds is a fancy expensive suburb where mostly white people live, and a whole bunch of black and latino kids came in from the city by bus to do some track work on souped up go-karts, preparing for their races to come later in the year. It was a lot of fun, and i really respect the effort to broaden the kids horizons, to show that despite a lot of thet culture around Nascar, car racing is not just for white people and that you don't have to compromise your blackness to enjoy it and talk about it. For me, moving to philly has been a lot about becoming free from being enslaved to my whiteness. Learning not to be ashamed of being white, learning to embrace other cultures I love w/out giving up my whiteness and continuing to lament the pain and sins of racism. I love that I love reggaeton, that i enjoy curried goat and oxtails, that i'm learning to dance the wutang, that i love U2 and Coldplay, that I like watching international soccer, that i like art, and enjoy spending time in nature. One of the great sins of racism in this country is how many important and necessary ideas evolved into being classified as "white," such as education, art, religion, and nature, among others. "White" became eerily sinonomous with "good" and "white" is and has always been rejected by minority groups as a remnant of slavery. That to me is a very heavy issue, but I am brought tremendous joy when I see this reversed, even in small ways off to the side of a racetrack in a maddeningly wealthy suburb of Philly. How freeing it is to be able to enjoy the wealth of other cultures without being traitorous to your own. There is a danger in focusing on the enjoyment of difference and failing to see that the point is that there is the larger story than each culture going on with the advent of the kingdom of God, but as Christians, we sure have a ways to go before we are even capable of falling into that pitfall.

Saturdays were not created for getting up early, but i suppose that's an appropriate backdrop for me to do something antithetical to my core beliefs. That belief being, that Nascar is a part of my whiteness that I flat out adamently reject. I suppose it's not completely fair to ascribe nascar to whiteness, but i doubt that besides curling there aren't many other "sports" that are so whitely dominated both in number of performers and audience members. Upon moving to West Philly I was quick to distance myself from Brian and his nascar lust affair, owning like seriously 20 Nascar hats, and 90% of them were for an Earnhardt. When he moved out the red christmas lit number 3 on our wall was the only remnant of the nascar freak in our house. I've been around several compulsive Nascar fans and i've never been so turned off by a culture. Especially Tony Stewart fans in College Park, but anyhow, this isn't a rant, it's more of a confession, so i digress.

Anyhow, i've been quietly monitoring the chase for the cup on espn.com, not too into it, certainly not watching any of it, but impressed w/ Kasey Kahne's run to make the chase and the dramatic absence of Tony Stewart. Anyhow, last sunday after church Robert told me that after a two year wait, he had been accepted into the urban youth racing school. I found that funny b/c Brian tried hard to get some kind of in there to work w/ the kids at the Sal, but he invited me to watch his practice which was this morning.

I actually ducked out after the free lunch at church and watched the last 50 laps of the nascar race off and on. I must say that when Vickers spun his teammate out and knocked Dale Jr. out, i was pretty shocked and thought that there were some crazy stuff going on. I'm not ready to call nascar a sport, but it definitely takes a ton of skill. I love seeing God's sense of humor in calling me to the inner city and there showing me that it's ok to embrace parts of nascar, parts of my whiteness that i reject. Don't get me wrong, i will never be a crazy fan, i don't know that i'll ever consider it a sport, but i definitely have a new respect and appreciation for it. Oh and the guy wants me to do some work with them in aerodynamics analysis, maybe some wind tunnel testing and talk to the kids about the role understanding airflow plays in racing. How cool is that!! God hasn't forgot that I went to college!

and then this happened

and then this happened...

I'd been feeling kinda down and felt like not much was happening in my life, i thought about the question, "What is the city teaching you?" and I didn't have any answers for awhile, and then this happened...

 

Sunday mornings are always the hardest days for me to wake up, usually b/c I'm up late preparing my lessons to teach at Sunday School, and sadly I don't always feel like going to my church sometimes, but anyhow, this Sunday wasn't difficult for me to wake up. It wasn't hard because at 5:56 a.m., my 12 year old neighbor Marquise was in my room shaking me, telling me to go downstairs because there were guys down stairs. I was so dazed that i actually kicked him sorta reflexively, but it was my left foot and i was tired, so it wasn't anything. We ran downstairs and just as we got to my door which was wide open, there were two guys about to enter my porch. They stammered something about Marquise being there before they slinked off.

The following moments allowed me to truly wake up and take in the breadth of what had happened. I looked in my front room and saw the broken glass, and new immediately that my great road bike that i had just been given would be gone. I was surprised to see my tv, but all my DVD's were gone except my free tour of Italy DVD and a worship one w/ Michael W. Smith, Third Day and Jars of Clay. Kinds oddly humorous that they left that one and took Shane's Another World is Possible DVD about Poverty...may it add to their confusion. Some other small stuff was gone, but not too much really.

Marquise stayed with me and kept me comfortable. Having someone there to distract me and just keep me at ease was such an incredible blessing. We played the game where I shoot my vinyl stuffed Terps basketball into the newspaper basket from across the room. Some of the men that get to church like 3 hours early came over and were real helpful. They didn't even think twice about having me call the police and get as many people involved as possible, but i wasn't so sure. In my hood, people aren't trying to have the police in all the business and if you get them involved, sometimes there's intimidation stuff or people just ignore you.

The police all assumed I was a college student and made a bunch of assumptions and the detective was just so weird and blunt saying stuff like, "Hmm, so this guy fucked you over." He really annoyed me and frustrated me the way he spoke. I gave them a description of my bike and described the guy a little bit and of course, they spot an older man riding a blue bike and hold him up so that I can go have a look at him. I knew it wasn't him. I went to get in the police car, but then they told me i had to ride in the back.

Wow, i know so little, but now i've ridden in the back of a police car as well as getting arrested this past year! The guy wasn't him and it wasn't my bike. I felt real bad and didn't even want to look or let people see my face b/c all we need is more pointless racial profiling and assumptions.

I didn't really know what to do. For the first time in like the past 10 months, I felt kinda scared to walk through my neighborhood again. I didn't really feel like sharing too much, but everyone knew what happened. Especially b/c half of the kids in the neighborhood stopped by my house that day to ask what happened and to check on me. One of my neighbor's Miss Kim found out and told practically all the women in my neighborhood, which is the majority of my neighborhood cause the father's and husbands just really aren't around. Miss Cynthia offered to share any of her food w/ me that I wanted. I had dinner invitations and a week or two later Kim was talking to me and she just looked in my eyes and said to me, "Pete, you know i was talking yesterday to some neighbors, and you have no idea how much love you have in this neighborhood, people love you so much." I don't know how to respond to that. I don't know how to balance the fear and the intense love that I experience in my neighborhood, but I truly believe that it is teaching me the gospel of Jesus and teaching me what it looks like to be a part of God's kingdom, especially in places forgotten about by the empire, and I hope I am a worthy vestle to relay that gospel to churches like mine who have lost touch with the pain and hurt in this world, in my city, but the world of redemption and beauty that lives amongst the brokenness and violence.

and then this happened (continued)

Who knows what would have happened if Marquise hadn't walked by. Why would an 11 year-old boy be walking by just before 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  He saw my door wide open, saw the broken glass and had the courage to walk in and see what happened. The men saw him and ran out of the house. They were in my house while I was there. I try not to think about it too much because it kinda freaks me out. The thing that hurts the most is that despite just waking up, I recognized one of those faces on the front porch.

He looks like he is in his 20's and he was one of the first guys in the projects that talked to me. He asked me about what I did and asked me to pray for him and he seemed to look out for me. I gave him food a bunch of times, sat and talked, gave him some tokens and would buy dumb stuff from him like old paintings of Alaska or bootleg CD's that I didn't care about. He actually gave me a decent bike that was in need of repairs and he walked right past his old bike to take the new one that I had just been given. After the incident happened he even had the nerve to try and blame Marquise for what happened.

Marquise sleeps on my couch downstairs whenever stuff goes on at his house. Pretty much his whole family, including his great-grandmother drink and smoke weed and really neglect him a lot. Sometimes he tells her he needs to leave and go to a safe place and he says that's my place. His great-grandmother almost encourages him to leave the house. I don't know what to do or think about him, but I know that he needs people like me in his life, and I need him to survive in my neighborhood, and in him I see Jesus and i see a picture of the kingdom of God, and that is beautiful.  

Is God Green?

Is God Green? I want to begin with a problem: namely, that the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world, and the uselessness of Christianity to any effort to correct that destruction, are now established cliches of the conservation movement. The indictment of Christianity by the anti-Christian conservationists is, in many respects, just. For instance, the complicity of Christian priests, preachers, and missionaries in the cultural destruction and the economic exploitation of the primary peoples of the Western Hemisphere as well as of traditional cultures around the world, is notorious. Throughout the five-hundred years since Columbus's first landfall in the Bahamas, the evangelist has walked beside the conqueror and the merchant, too often blandly assuming that his cause was the same as theirs. Christian organizations, to this day, remain largely indifferent to the rape and plunder of the world and of its traditional cultures. It is hardly too much to say that most Christian organizations are as happily indifferent as most industrial organizations to the ecological, cultural, and religious implications of industrial economics. The certified Christian seems just as likely as anyone else to join the military-industrial conspiracy to murder Creation.                                       -Wendell Berry   It rained a lot here and i stayed inside all day except when i ran to work and then ran home afterwards. I think of rain as a perfect opportunity to go running in the woods surrounding Liberty Reservoir or a chance to partake in the renewal of life and plants. Rainy days are often actually some of the most colorful times around here. I won't be seeing fancy fall foliage here though, but when it rains you see lots of rainbows in the oil puddles in the streets and parking lots. Not exactly what God intended. Anyhow, I depend on dinner at the Sal (Salvation Army) most nights, especially this week since our fridge is pretty empty. I'm not really making money right now and this is one way God really provides for me. It's cool, i should think about it more in terms of God's provision, but usually i am just anxious to make sure the kids don't eat all the food before i get a chance to have some of it. I think i will try to view it more as a communion meal tomorrow. Today there was a fruit/veggie give-away bag for the kids and i was excited for that too b/c fresh fruits and veggies are way too expensive for me. There were lots of platanos left over too b/c a lot of people don't know much about them so i am eagerly awaiting my brown bag of green plantains and green bananas to ripen so i can eat more healthy than normal. I usually eat stuff out of cans, boxes and bags, as most people do on a limited income. I hope someday to have a garden where i can eat some of my own food. I want to help start a garden in a vacant lot that sits there so Paul and Charlie have more stuff to do around church. Tonight Sean and I watched a PBS special called "Is God green?" I suppose it's an interesting question that ties to some of my personal frustrations with realities in my neighborhood about urban blight, industrial wastelands and poor nutritional and ecological awareness. It was actually pretty encouraging to watch despite heavy doses of really frustrating  partisan politics, mostly free market capitalism stuff with God seemingly thrown in. It's tough to see someone like James Dobson, whom I have such respect for from when i was a kid and learning values through Focus on the Family programming to hear him seemingly miss giant opportunities to be the prophetic voice that so many people in this postmodern generation are seeking. I think that longing and that search came through in the special tonight. I think that's my story, and i saw it tonight. People are experiencing "conversion" anew when they take up the fight to end mountain top removal coal mining, set up tent cities with the homeless in St. Edwards Cathedral, share communion with the homeless in Love Park, laugh and play with widows and orphans in the mountains of Guatemala, teach in public schools, advocate for public health, work with beautiful children in west philly, anacostia or tampa. whatever your story is, when "Christians" have the opportunity to step outside of a narrow personal religion and see the possibilities of the gospel to speak truth and life into injustice and truly see that it is not just about me, about you, but about a new village, a community on earth that is already here, but is also coming, a community that has been given new life and been transformed by Jesus and his beautiful revolution of love and grace. To see the scriptures laid out before you concerning the spirit of the Lord upon Jesus to proclaim good news to the lost, lame, captive and powerless.That is exciting, that is at the heart of the gospel and we miss that so often b/c we just are concerned about ourselves and keeping our sorry butts out of hell. Creation groans for rebirth, for the kingdom of Jesus. This has long been the yearning of my heart, but I am mostly too afraid to step out and pursue this rebirth that comes only through Christ's kingdom. I watch tonight and i cry out within me, yes God is green, can't you see that, this earth is part of his witness, his testimony of love to us, his glory is reflected in the simple complexity of tiny plants and ginormous animals. It's not just about global warming, partisan politics, the religious right, green this or that, but it is about rebirth. We Christians are too often motivated by economic gain that we blur the lines of the scripture to support a lifestyle that is beneficial to us.  It's about time some of us are speaking out against this. Christians should not use their size to leverage political power for our own purposes, but we ought to live out a Godly way of life that draws people by our movement that brings life and hope to all. Jesus invited people to come and see, to follow him. I believe that to be Biblically consistent, you must at times be politically inconsistent, and that scares people in Washington that crave predictability. Done, for now, but there will be more later