today, it's rainy and cold. i'm sitting in my favorite coffeehouse downtown. i realized that i could sit in the comfy chairs instead of at a table and enjoy my time even more. gosh, i wish i had thought of that at the beginning of the summer. sooo i suppose that today is my last artist date in denver. it's kind of unreal. i transition in and out of things really well, so i'm ready to head back home. my time here has been so healing and good...but i'm excited to be back and share more of my summer with you all. but still...coming to the end of something is always kind of surreal.
i wrote this reflection paper because i was given an amazing scholarship to be here this summer...and the paper was one of the requirements. definitely the first time i've ever been paid to write a paper :) i like it. here is most of it, sans the blog posts i included in the actual paper. it's super long...like...really super long. so either grab some coffee and settle in or stop reading here :)
and if you do read this, please know that i write from my heart and from what i have learned. i don't stand at a position that my experience is the best and right way. if you disagree with me, i'm okay with that...but please don't send me hate mail.
The sound of I-25 cars whizzing past my window was like a fly constantly buzzing in my ear. A flickering green light from an exit sign felt more like a laser beam pointed into my sleepy eyes. I longed for a luscious green lawn instead of a cement yard littered with stray bicycles and toys. I considered myself more dignified than to live in a renovated motel alongside families who were once homeless.
During my first week in Denver I felt lost, insignificant, small, and poor. Being directionally-challenged, navigating the bus system was terrifying. I soon became one of “them” – relying on the number 9 to get to work, running after the 15L, sitting in the hot sun, surrounded by pigeons and clouds of cigarette smoke, waiting for the next bus to come. The first weekend in Denver, I made my own dinner from the meager non-perishable groceries I had picked up at King Sooper’s. Never having made a supper without the help of a friend or supplies from my mother’s fridge, I sat down to a lukewarm can of Minestrone soup, Ritz crackers, and water. Oh how I longed for that Northwestern cafeteria food.
I didn’t expect to find that I too was broken. I came to serve others who are broken – the margins of our society, the disenfranchised. But, I quickly found myself in a similar place. I interned at Treasure House, a transitional housing facility for single moms. I was excited to build relationships with these women, but the first conversations caught me off guard. As the women learned of my own adoption, they walked in familiar territory, sharing stories of putting their children up for adoption or battling whether they should keep their baby or find an adoptive family. My own wounds from being adopted were irritated – a kind of pain I had never allowed myself to feel. I’ll never forget the first conversation I had with Danielle. She shared her fears of finding a family to take her baby due in November. She asked what kinds of things she should look for in an adoptive family and then asked if I would look through the families with her and help pick out the family for her baby. My own brokenness was being brutally exposed by a young woman I was there to serve. My eyes filled with tears as I agreed to help her and finally, I began a lifelong journey of digging back to my roots and allowing myself to feel pain, spurring on a movement towards healing.
This summer provided much healing for the past year of painful ministry that hindered my relationship with God. I walked into the summer trying to hide the broken pieces of my life. I was exhausted, sick of being criticized, and tired of spiritual to-do lists. Greg Fuchs, our intern director, taught a class called Leading from Within. He enabled us to take care of our souls so we can serve and not get burned out. I learned how to become a human being again – instead of the weary, impatient human doing I had spent so much of my life as. Each week I had an artist date – a few hours spent doing something that my soul craved. Often this included sitting in a coffeehouse with a large latte and my computer. If we went to the mountains for a weekend, I would go off and dip my feet in a river and listen to the Lord whispering in the wind. My favorite artist date was sitting on top of a grassy hill covered in yellow flowers, watching the most marvelous sunset around snowcapped mountains. After my artist dates, I was more patient and loving with people. My soul was filled. The spiritual practices Greg introduced to us refreshed and transformed my relationship with God. My daily time with the Lord usually included opening my Bible, journaling about what I had read, and praying. When my devotions became stale, I dreaded spending that time in the Word and opted to avoid it at all costs. We practiced Lectio Divina while we were on our mountain retreat. As I allowed my heart to receive the Word of God and not just frantically search for some application, the Bible became alive. A Jesuit friend of Greg’s shared how to pray an Examination of Conscience with us. The practice allowed me to get quiet before the Lord, reflect on my day, and ask for his grace in drawing me nearer to him the next day. As I practiced this, I found myself moving closer to God and giving thanks for his help in doing so. I learned how to better listen to God and open my heart to receive his truths.
Our Friday class was usually led by Jeff Johnson, the executive director of Mile High Ministries. Jeff took us on a journey of understanding theology from below, inviting us to read Scriptures through the lens of the poor. One of my favorite classes was when we looked at the very beginning of Genesis, looking for how it might be life-giving for the poor. Genesis 1 begins talking about a formless, empty darkness in which God was hovering over the surface of the deep. I’ve always imagined the beginning as a serene picture of outerspace with nothing in it. But as we looked at the word “deep,” Jeff shared that for the Hebrews, it was an image of chaos used to inspire fear and violence. And “hovering” was used in the Bible either as a hen hovering over her chicks or as sexual intimacy. So looking at how Genesis 1 was good news for the poor, we find an image of God so intimate with the chaos. We often think we need to run and escape the chaos to find God, but in the very beginning, God shares a story of how He is intimate with chaos and meets us right where we are. As I’ve continued reading Scriptures this summer, the Bible has become alive and active in my life. We have a God whose heart breaks for the poor. We have a God who isn’t the “great God of no,” but He is a God of freedom, inviting us to follow Him in the best life we could possibly have.
I have clung to the promises of Isaiah 58 this summer: “Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply. Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors! Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.”
I wanted so badly to come to Denver and find a future career…or at least some semblance of a job I might acquire. I didn’t find a job, but I found a calling – a calling to adopt Isaiah 58 as my lifestyle. I’ve always thought I would follow my heart and figure out what I wanted to do in life. But when my heart doesn’t feel like loving others and fails me, God’s call is constant. It is what I am clinging to for my future. During the retreat, God gave me the words, “Don’t be afraid, it is I. The time has not yet come until now.” God has been preparing me and transforming me. His call for me to live a life walking alongside those in poverty is so clear after this summer. I don’t know how that will specifically pan out in the next few years. I know it won’t involve a life of luxury and money, but the worth of sitting with a woman whose broken, battered heart is being restored by the scandalous love and grace of our Heavenly Father is something that someone with all the money in the world can’t even come close to attaining.
I took Social Problems with Monsma last fall semester. The class prompted me to understand the structural barriers hindering much of our society from getting ahead. The class completely ruined me, but it was what got me to Denver this summer and I think every Northwestern student should take it. So much of what we learned in class was visible on the streets. One of the Treasure House residents, Crystal, suffers from severe mental illnesses. Crystal is an absolute miracle. She was born to parents who were making meth in the basement and were high more often than not. As a four-year-old, she learned to cook and take care of her and her baby brother. She became addicted to heroine after her mom helped shoot her up. Crystal has been pregnant ten times, given birth seven times, and no longer has custody of any of her children. I went with Crystal to spend a day in the doctor’s office because her kidneys hurt. We moved from office to office, spending hours waiting for the doctor to be free. When she was finally examined, she was sent to make appointments with four other doctors. Crystal can’t afford health insurance, so finding a community health clinic with the various specialist doctors she needed to see will take the next few months to happen. In the meantime, she has risks of breast cancer, kidney stones, and asthma. I know that universal health care creates a fear that our current health care won’t be as good or we’ll have to wait longer…but who are we to “deserve” better health care than someone on the streets? Who am I to have the luxury of driving my car to the doctor to get a wart burned off my little toe when dear Crystal will wait for three months to get a mammogram, fearing each day that cancer is growing inside her? I know Crystal made some bad choices in her life…she’s the first to admit that. But if we just see the fact she used to be a heroine addict, we miss the redemptive story in her life. We miss how Jesus is redeeming her and it’s a promise she struggles to cling to. We miss the story she grew up in…the chaos, confusion, and dysfunction. And if we just see the rough edges, it’s too easy to move towards judgment and not grace. Dear friends, so often we think about what is best for us…but how radically different would the world be if we could lay aside our selfish desires and move towards making the best choices for the Crystals of our world?
I fall asleep to the lulling sounds of I-25 cars humming by my window. There’s a green exit sign that casts its glow into my room – a night light I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep without when I leave. Right now, I’m in a community that’s mourning the loss of one of its own. An eight-year-old boy who lives several doors down from me was tragically killed when he took a three-wheeler into the street. When you’re in community, everyone feels both the tragedies and joys. This place has been my home for the last two months. The funny turquoise and salmon colored paints adorning this old motel have become the colors of redemption and restoration. As I walk outside my room, there are children playing basketball, racing up and down the sidewalks, and pulling each other in a wagon. My neighbors are often sitting on their doorstep, smoking or just looking off to the mountains. As I pass through to leave, I will take with me these images – the images of the Kingdom of God, of restoration and reconciliation, of the coexisting brokenness and healing, of hearts that have been redeemed, of a God who dearly loves this city and each of his children who live here.
"Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more. No longer will babies die when only a few days old. No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life. No longer will people be considered old at one hundred…They will not work in vain, and their children will not be doomed to misfortune. For they are people blessed by the Lord, and their children, too, will be blessed.” (Isaiah 65:18-20, 23)
17 more days...