Sometimes you just have to laugh It's been too long since I've written anything. I have so much that I could write about, but I've been so tired working and doing all the other stuff i've been doing. Right now I'm waiting for my house to blow up. Long story short, I had a class downtown to be an income tax counselor for my job. I've been a little sick, it's been real cold and icy, I'm getting over diarrhea, so naturally I was compelled to ride my bike to the class and afterwards I went for a nice latenight ride along the banks of the Schyukyill River just as a snow squall was passing through and I got dumped on, but it was great and beautiful. As I was heading back home, I passed the Art Museum when I noticed the frequency change coming from my tires and i pulled over confirming that it was flat. The snow was coming down and I enjoyed the city at night with the snow and the lights. I called Holly and she came and picked me up, but I couldn't fit my bike in her car so i just locked it up in front of an old people home. As we were pulling up to my house there was a PGW truck parked in front of my house partially shielded by a fresh pile of rubble where there should have been flat sidewalk. Turns out there was a gas leak in my house and the one next door and they had to break into my house to try and fix it. I asked the men if it was dangerous to stay here, and they said i just wouldn't have any gas and that it would be cold to sleep here. I just laughed b/c I don't have any heat upstairs anyhow, so the way i see it, i'm saving some money with all this. I drove back to pick up my bike, and i fit int in my trunk but I couldn't shut it, so i drove ten blocks with my trunk flapping around. I got back home and walked to the Fresh Grocer to pick up some dinner since I couldn't use the stove or oven. As I was getting to the grocery store, three police cars pulled up and there was a bust of some sort right in front of me. Nothing really surprises me anymore, and i didn't even share about my giant ingrown hair that left me with a mass of blood, puss and hard stuff the size of a silver dollar in my cheek last week, that wasn't fun. Right now, it sounds like there are 50 vacuum cleaners in my basement and I have to go to bed with strange people in my house, but I'm used to weird things like this by now, I'd  feel strange without it. I just hope my house and I are still here in the morning. Well, my electric blanket is warming up and I'm eager to go enjoy it, goodnight

Coming Home

It's always weird for me to come home, but I love it. I guess Carroll County is my home, but Philly is my Home home now. Driving south across the 76 bridge out of Philly and seeing my city lit up at night in my rear-view mirror brought such joy to my heart. Coming home always gives me time for reflection, and not just because I mainly come home for the holidays. I like to walk around in my backyard and in the field behind my house and it reminds me of all the sports, sledding and imaginative activities that took place and shaped me. It's not as big as it was when i was little. In a lot of ways i hate growing up b/c i can't just be a kid anymore and it reminds me of things that i wish were different about how i was as a kid, but it still is so weird to me to realize I'm an adult now and now is the time to be the person I have talked about becoming since high school and college.

It makes me realize all the things that i used to take for granted and now that I have to pay for my stuff I realize just how much stuff i had growing up. When I open my parents fridge and see a whole bunch of food and fancy cheese and stuff, i immediately start thinking about my food budget and how much it would cost at Aldi's. I don't usually do much stuff at my parent's house. It's usually just a sleep in and do nothing time for me, which probably gives my family a bad impression, but it's kinda nice to have a break from my doorbell ringing every half hour and me having to be "on" or take someone somewhere, do something constructive with kids or deal with some crisis. It's nice to have a break, but I enjoy the constant stream of interaction I experience in my neighborhood.

I just watched Apollo 13 and that always makes me wish so badly that I could have been an engineer for NASA in the 70's. When they dump the box on the table and have a limited amount of stuff to create a workable CO2 filter that makes me so energized. It reminds me of that whole engineering part of me that is so real, but yet I'm seemingly ignoring right now. I hope I can figure out some way to realize that part of me in the context of Philly and community development. Watching An Inconvenient Truth the other day made me realize just how important artistic ingenuity will be in conserving energy and creating new solutions to old problems. Hopefully i can use my love for science and creating things to contribute to those issues.

I'm excited to be home for Christmas and spend time with my family, but I am so excited to go back home to Philly and get started on the work that I have been created to pursue!!!!!!!! My friends tell me i'm crazy to be excited about starting a job and excited about not being able to sleep in and stay up as late as I want, but i want that now. I think that my job will allow me to contribute to the coming and present kingdom of God, specifically in my neighborhoood and that excites me to the point of bursting!

Patience

I just posted a long incomplete blog from a month ago, i haven't felt much like writing and I haven't had consistent access to a computer, which for a blabbermouth like me doesn't bode well for much writing. The past month has been more waiting than I could have imagined. My health is still not completely normal and I still have not started my new dream job. Yay for waiting on the state to return my child abuse clearance form which is absolutely required before I start my job where I'm not directly working with children daily, while I'm fully able to work at the Salvation Army w/ a million kids while the paperwork is in processing. 

Anyhow, i digress, i just want to be normal, for me at least. In two days I will be two dozen years old and I have a car, a cell phone and a good job, it all feels so weird. Waiting for the form sucks, but at least it gives me a chance to help with the Salvation Army's toy give-away and Christmas ministries. 

Today the Learning Zone was closed, so i really had nothing to do in the evening, but I ran into Maliq at the sal and told him to come to my house so we could do our tutoring there. I stopped by his house to check with someone and his older brother Jason came over too. I supervised as he made taco salad for us while we worked on Maliq's math. It's crazy, his older brother is crazy smart and goes to a charter school and plans to go to college while Maliq is struggling big time w/ his school and his behavior. I love spending time w/ both of them. Maliq ate a giant bullion cube much to my amazement.

We shared Hi/Lo's and i shared about my frustration w/ my child abuse clearance and the criminal background check and when they asked me questions I showed them pictures from last year when I was arrested for protesting the budget cuts to pertinent social programs and the concurrent tax cuts to high brackets. They laughed so hard when they saw the picture of me smiling as the cops put cuffs on me. 

I really enjoy the fact that this is normal to me. That it's normal to have Tyree come over and watch America's Next Top Model after we go to Bible Study. I'm not ashamed of watching and I can claim that it's part of being in a mentoring role, i was hoping Anchal would have gone farther. Saturday Percy went w/ me to center city and took him to the Reading Terminal Market for the first time, as i did some christmas shopping at one of my favorite spots in the city, so full of character, tradition and so many different people, sights and smells. We had coffee samples as we walked around Rittenhouse Square and I explained to him about fair trade as we shopped around Ten Thousand Villages. I love that I can do stuff like that with young boys who don't have fathers or real father figures. I am truly humbled to have the opportunity to share in their development. We truly are ordinary radicals blessed to be part of God's coming and present kingdom.

One thing I'm learning to appreciate more and more is the strong values and growth that develops out of the physical structure of the city. All the common space, interactions with the stranger, perspective, art and beauty, confrontation with the margins of society; it is the perfect opportunity to be challenged and inspired in our understanding of community which is extremely fundamental to love. I read a fantastic book about this and I will share more later, peace and much love to ya

Kiara and the Bee

I've been meaning to watch Akilah and the Bee for some time now, and I finally had the opportunity to watch. Tonight kicked off a cool new program where the kids stay Friday night's to watch a movie in the chapel at the Salvation Army. Watching the movie in their company was almost too emotional for me to handle. They were Akilah. Everyone stood, clapped and cheered every time she spelled a word right in the finals, David even did cartwheels and handstands each time. I heard them talking about how, "We won!" when Akilah secured a share of the title. Daroff and Sulsburger could as easily be Crenshaw Middle School. Many family situations, social interactions, fears and insecurities were practically identical to so many of the kids in my neighborhood that I love and worry about every day.

A few weeks ago, I was helping Kiara on her second grade challenge spelling words and she was having some problems with "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia." She was working on spelling out Pa. and said, "Hold up, I'm going to be like Akilah," and she proceeded to pretend to jump rope as she spelled out our state without flaw. Today when we watched the movie, she left her seat to come find me and said that she was going to sit next to me for the movie. Several times I teared up and wasn't fully successful at hiding it, as she kept asking me why I was crying. Lawrence Fishburne's character chose to stay in his neighborhood despite being a professor at UCLA and after some hesitation, the two team up to focus on the Scripps Spelling Bee. Kiara leaned on my shoulder and asked me if I would be her coach and I practically melted.  

Sitting there watching the movie reminded me of my interview last week. Upon sitting down, the Chair of the Community Development Corporation read a section of my resume to me where I described the places Mission Year participants live as, "neglected urban neighborhoods" and asks me, "Are you saying the neighborhood where I grew up and live in is neglected, and you want me to hire you for a job?" I pretty much froze as three black women were staring at this young white male, I didn't have an eloquent answer and stammered for a bit until I started talking about education.

I started talking about Maliq, who lives in the projects by my house and attends 6^th grade at the public school across from my house and maybe reads on a second grade level and is on a third grade math level. A month or two ago, I started tutoring him individually after the hour of homework help and general tutoring. I help him during that hour too to work on his homework. During the homework hour, I spend a lot of time helping Kiara, who really doesn't need much help, but likes to hang around me. She's the tiniest second grader I've ever seen, and also the cutest little girl ever. She has huge shiny bright brown eyes, the cutest braids, and more fire per pound than anyone I've ever met. She attends a charter school and reads at a sixth grade level. Both of them know that she reads better than he does. It worries me terribly how that will affect both of them, particularly Maliq. He is missing so many fundamental building blocks that he has been left behind by all his teachers. My job is to fill in the holes for him that no one else has the luxury of focusing on.  

Kiara is so smart, but enjoys asking me for help on her homework even when she doesn't need it at all. Every day, I try to let her know how smart she is and it is so rewarding to see kids decrease the amount of help they seek out because they recognize their strengths and how they really don't need me for everything.

I take tremendous joy when I watch my kids play Halo like me, the way they use grenades, rocket technique, the dance of the shotguns, and especially hearing them coach and share techniques with others. I see my influence when I watch them play and as much joy as I take from that, which is sadly very high, nothing is more exciting than seeing my m  ath processes reflected in the way Maliq approaches long division or fractions. He has a long way to go, but I see a slow development in the kind of confidence which he's never really known. His dad doesn't live with him, but recently started coming in to check on him. His dad means well, but usually ends up just lecturing him about how far behind in school he is. I worry about him so much, especially now that I won't be able to help him every day.

The head of the CDC grew up in the neighborhood, went to Villanova Law school and stayed in the neighborhood and has encouraged friends and colleagues to commit to the area. I really respect that, and get excited. It's going to take successful people staying and also outside people moving into the city to truly revive disempowered neighborhoods. When Akilah finds out that her coach lives in the area, she responds by saying that she thought he was someone important, obviously implying that if he were, he wouldn't live there. That is so painful to hear and something I believe is so important to combat. As Tupac reminded us, "It's sad that Brenda doesn't know that just cuz you're in the ghetto doesn't mean you can't grow." This is a reminder that I seek to lovingly instill in both Maliq and Kiara daily.

When I was walking home from the job, the only thing that I could really think about was the comment about living in a neglected neighborhood and how I didn't respond very clearly to that question. My neighborhood is neglected; it is a marginalized part of society, practically forgotten about by our government, education system, healthcare system, and sadly to a certain extent, our churches too.  That doesn't mean it's not beautiful, my neighbor's are some of the most beautiful people I have ever met, and I hope and dream big things for them, but I continually am reminded of how tough the road to success truly is for the kids that go to school in my neighborhood and grow up in the projects.

Akilah's coach doesn't just teach her spelling words, but speaks into her life, empowering her to begin to be the person she was created to be. He shares the Nelson Mandela quote about our biggest fear being excellence where he goes on to say:

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in every one of us.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Just thinking about the movie, maliq and Kiara made me realize that this is the gospel of Jesus and is the reason why I choose to live in Haddington. I too need to allow the manifest glory of God to grow in me and let my light shine, and that glory shines bright in my eyes when i look at kiara and maliq.

Looking to Move some Cake

'm looking to move some cake...there's a tower of Pillsbury Halloween Cake mixes on my dining room table with some Halloween icing turrets surrounding it. I've been trying to figure out what to do with it all ever since i got home from shopping on Saturday. I mean really, how often are you going to find real cake mixes and icing on sale for 10 cents a piece? So i have 17 cake boxes and 9 icing containers on my table (i've already used one of each). I'm not exactly sure what that says about me.

I took Buddha (5), Percy (13), and Country(17) to Aldi's with me cruising around in Miss Linda's van. Buddha's birthday was last weekend and he started throwing a monster temper tantrum when I wouldn't buy him a toy. We tried to calm him down, but he was not to be moved, so Country put him over his shoulder and took him out to the van. Pretty much everyone in the store stopped to focus on the tantrum. It was actually convenient for a change to be white b/c i could just pretend that i didn't know any of them. He calmed down and I returned for the cake mixes. I drew several people's attention to the heavily discounted cart of cake and there was a mad swoop for as much cake and icing as people could grab and we shared a common excitement as we waited in the really long line.

Kinda funny b/c all this happened right before I went to help the Mission Year group with their poverty simulation dinner before they spent the evening sleeping out on the streets. It's definitely important to be continually reminded of the overwhelming world facts about food and resource distribution, because they so easily become distant and impersonal after hearing them so many times. I thought about last year and how much time I spent w/ homeless friends and how I have gotten away from that and really need to get back to that. I started thinking that I could make a ton of cake and take it to center city and just hang out and eat cake with homeless friends, but then I realized that a lot of homeless people are diabetic and eating really really sweet cake besides not being nutritious is incredibly harmful for many folks.

What good could i do with all this cake? I'm thinking that I'll just give it to the Sal or throw a party for myself there when I finally get a self-sustaining job and invite as many kids and families as possible, but i'm definitely opened to ideas about what I can do with 17 boxes of halloween sprinkle cake. Give me your thoughts.

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.