Working with the homeless

Being on the benevolence committee at church, I deal with quite a few homeless people or ones who are really low income. For the last month we have gotten walk-ins every Sunday. Of course, some of them are less than reputable.

By nature, I'm a very trusting soul but I can't exercise trust in this position. Our policy is we'll give a one time gift of $20 to anyone who comes in asking for assistance. We've seen than many will come by again changing their names, trying to talk to people that they haven't talked to before.

Two Sundays ago, I got what was a most unusual experience. Rather than the jiving, conniving type, I met two men who bowled me over with what I perceived as sincerity. One of them asked me to pray over him. The other, John, stayed for the Study. John is an unusual case. He's very articulate, has a very good Biblical knowledge base, and has what I deem as a contrite heart. He visited again this Sunday, never asked for anything. He's either an expert deceiver or a true child of God. Of course, I'm almost certain it's the latter.

He's looking for transportation to church from Hinsdale in order to get there on time Sundays. The train gets him there too late for the Worship and Sermon. Anyway, it's the first time I've felt like I was really literally executing like a Sheep of Matthew 25.

Eric brought him to the Wheaton shelter Sunday. Eric has such a big heart even if he seems a little gruff at times.

Today is anywhere from 106 to 114 degrees in the heat index. I told John I would pick him up at lunchtime near the Wheaton Shelter and bring him to the Bloomingdale shelter which is a good 10 mile drive. Far to hot to trek the distance which most of the DuPage County homeless do.

John moved from Florida to the area looking to do writing and music. Apparently he has had some bad experiences with people who have ripped him off finacially/materially. He's not bitter however.

What strikes me so, is that while he does not enjoy being homeless, he is thankful for the experience. How many of us can say that? His interests include: Nature, environmental concerns, healthy eating and reading his Bible which I've heard him quote or paraphrase quite a bit.

So, I'm hoping we can help get him on his feet again. I'm not sure of how employable he is skill wise but I don't doubt his heart.

I'm feeling compelled to volunteer to serve breakfast once a week at one of these shelters. I believe this is true religion. I'll have to see how the school schedule is. Abby and Timmy are going to different private schools now which don't provide transportation. I'll be praying for the opportunity though.

An astronomy presentation

Did a presentation at the Huntley libary for ~60 people.

Updated my Tree

Added a few things.

Humilty

I'm captivated with how strongly the Bible emphasizes humilty or service or others. The thought has been there but ever since Mike's teen study, I'm noticing it more and more. In fact, without it there is no chance for true spiritual and fellowship growth.

1Pet 3 is all about considering others as more important than ourselves:

7In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat her with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life. If you don't treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard. (Yikes!)

8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds.

It is not the normal or easy thing to do but it is the most fulfilling for me!

The Branch of Career

You may notice in my tree drawing the "career" branch is sawed off. It's not that I don't like my job because I do. But this is the reason I reject my job as having personal value:

Concerning Men

"Finding an raising their place in the power hierarchy was and still is a contstant preoccupation with men, however, and the source of much anxiety. Most Men find themselves unable to meet other men in any situation without wondering how they rank relative to the other. The obligations of status are constant burdens on men's minds."

The Redmpetion of Love, Carrie Miles, pg 73

Prayer for a Friend

My Friend, pray parts of this prayer/song each day.

Hard to Get
by Rich Mullins

Isaiah 55:9
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened by the hurt

Do you remember when You lived down here where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread
Did You forget about us after You had flown away
Well I memorized every word You said

Still I'm so scared, I'm holding my breath
While You're up there just playing hard to get

You who live in radiance
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that's not as patient as Yours was

Still we do love now and then
Did You ever know loneliness
Did You ever know need
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You were barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat

Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?

And I know you bore our sorrows
And I know you feel our pain
And I know it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained

And I know that I am only lashing out
At the One who loves me most

And after I figured this, somehow
All I really need to know

Is if You who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time?
We can't see what's ahead
And we can not get free of what we've left behind

I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All the words of shame and doubt, blame and regret
I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here

Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so You've been here all along I guess

It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get

Job 13:15
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

The Redemption of Love... still reading

I am SO VERY IMPRESSED with this book (see side panel for purchase details) As the one review says on amazon.com, it represents a significant enlightenment of many things I suspected and can now quantify about the designed yet lost equality of the male and female relationship. I'll definately post more on this after I've finished reading.

Teen Camp

It's always hard to know how something is going in the forest when you are in the midst of the trees. Now that I've been home for a while, I believe that overall the Teen Camp went very well and that the Teens were indeed blessed. Some of the blessings I received:

• Renewed closeness with Mike.
  We worked side by side all week and that either means disaster or build-up for a relationship. Not sure how he feels but I enjoyed both his lessons and his company.
• Closer relationship with the local teens.
  I really think we became much closer and I hope that we'll continue to build on the relationships.
• Renewed Prayer.
  This was totally unexpected and probably due in part because I taught daily 20 minute lessons on different types of prayer.
• An amplified sense of Godliness in Nature.
  I am more aware of God's presence due to considering the Trees. I don't have a plan to keep that renewal going though.

I'll add more as I think about camp.

Skepticism can be...

HEALTHY!

Most people take too much information at face value. In fact, I'd say I've trained myself to not accept 90% of what I hear and read without making a concerted effort to verify the information as best I can. My investigative abilities are not where I'd like them to be but I am growing into them.

So many bad things can result from not being skeptical. For Christians it seems to be manifold. If someone in authority proclaims something as being true, then they just parrot what they've heard and defend it as absolute. That is not how we should be.

Consider the history of Christianity. In the first centuries of the 1st millennium, it was in vogue to eliminate heritics by blood or by banishment. Where is the precedent for that in Jesus' commands? Through the centuries the "Church" brandished the sword against those who did not accept the Christian dogma of the day. Today we reap the effects of that with radical Muslim regard for the 'crusaders.'

In the 19th century most of Christian writings believed that the earth was very old. Today, Creationists trumpet a young earth; make bold proclamations against anyone who holds a different opinion. The masses blindly follow on without any investigation of their own.

Bottom Line: The worst enemy to Christianity is Christianity.

It's sad because so many people and even non Christian friends of mine see through the hypocrosy.

I want to be pure in heart. I want to be honest to my intellectual weaknesses and bold in my quantified reasoning while maintaining a spirit of humility. Not easy to do, is it?

My Roots

While at Teen camp this last week, I really enjoyed doing one of their exercises taken from Dr. Jane Goodall's tree drawing project called Roots and Shoots: This picture describes where how I came to be the person I am today and also shows where I'd like to be going in the future too. It's not a very good sketch but it describes me well.

Vacation at Maranatha

The end of June we spent a week in Muskegon, Mi at Maranatha

Some good friends of our had been going there for years and we decided to go a couple of weeks before the time came. I'm so glad we did. It was my first real vacation in a few years. It was relaxing; fun; and just all around enjoyable. We spent almost all the time with our friends the Forgilles and Boggs. Played a lot of Eucher, spent time on the beach, spent time in worship and nightly sermons. The worship was pretty good and the sermons were OK. It's interesting that the one thing I took from it was a renewed desire to read and meditate on the Bible again.

The morning were spent by Timmy and I at the Baseball clinic which is run by Al, and ex-baseball players Bill Curtis and Chris Snopek. They were both wonderful and really reached out the the younger kids especially. Timmy was very intrigued with Bill and spent several bus rides sitting with him. Bill has since sent Timmy and signed baseball card.

We've already made reservations for next year.

MY YOKE IS EASY

MY YOKE IS EASY

“Come to me, all you who are exhausted and weighted down beneath your burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

“Jesus spoke to men who were desperately trying to find God and desperately trying to be good, who were finding the tasks impossible, and who were driven to weariness and to despair. He says, ‘Come unto me all you who are exhausted.’ His invitation is to those who are exhausted with the search for the truth. The Greeks had said, ‘It is very difficult to find God, and when you have found him, it is impossible to tell anyone else about him.’ Zophar demanded of Job: ‘Can you find out the deep things of God’ (Jb.11:7)? It is Jesus' claim that the weary search for God ends in Himself.” - William Barclay

Yeats, the great Irish poet and mystic, wrote: “Can one reach God by toil? He gives himself to the pure in heart. He asks nothing but our attention.” The way to know God is not by mental search, but by giving attention to Jesus Christ, for in him we see what God is like.
He says, “Come unto me all you who are weighted down beneath your burdens.” For the orthodox Jew, religion was a thing of burdens. Jesus said of the Scribes and Pharisees: “They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders” (Matt.23:4). To the Jew religion was a thing of endless rules. A man lived his life in a forest of regulations which dictated every action of his life. He must listen for-

ever to a voice which said, “Thou shalt not.”

Even the Rabbis saw this. There is a kind of rueful parable put into the mouth of Korah, which shows just how binding, and constricting, and burdensome, and impossible, the demands of the Law could be. “There was a poor widow in my neighborhood who had two daughters and a field. When she began to plough, Moses (i.e. the Law of Moses) said, ‘You must not plough with an ox and an ass together.’ When she began to sow, he said, ‘You must not sow your field with mingled seed.’ When she began to reap and to make stacks of corn, he said,


‘When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it’ (Deut. 24:19), and ‘you shall not reap your field to its very border’ (Lev. 19:9). She began to thresh, and he said, ‘Give me the heave-offering, and the first and second tithe.’ She accepted the ordinance and gave them all to Him. What did the poor woman then do? She sold her field, and bought two sheep, to clothe herself from their fleece, and to have profit from their young. When they bore their young, Aaron (i.e. the demands of the priesthood) came and said, ‘Give me the first-born.’ So she accepted the decision, and gave them to him. When the shearing time came, and she sheared them - Aaron came and said, ‘Give me the first of the fleece of the sheep’ (Deut.18:4). Then she thought: ‘I cannot stand up against this man. I will slaughter the sheep and eat them.’ Then Aaron came and said, ‘Give me the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach’ (Deut.18:3). Then she said, ‘Even when I have killed them I am not safe from you. Behold they shall be devoted.’ Then Aaron said, ‘In that case they belong entirely to me’ (Num.18:14). He took them and went away and left her weeping with her two daughters." The story is a parable of the continuous demands that the Law made upon men in every action and activity of life. These demands were indeed a burden. Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulders. The Jews used the phrase the yoke for entering into submission to. They spoke of the yoke of the Law, the yoke of the commandments, the yoke of the Kingdom, the yoke of God. But it may well be that Jesus took the words of his invitation from something much nearer home than that. He says, “My yoke is easy.” The word “easy” is in Greek chrestos, which can mean well-fitting. In Palestine ox-yokes were made of wood; the ox was brought, and the measurements were taken. The yoke was then roughed out, and the ox was brought back to have the yoke tried on. The yoke was carefully adjusted, so that it would fit well, and not gall the neck of the patient beast. The yoke was tailor-made to fit the ox.

There is a legend that Jesus made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country men came to him to buy the best yokes that skill could make. In those days, as now, shops had their signs above the door; and it has been suggested that the sign above the door of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth may well have been: “My yokes fit well.” It may well be that Jesus is here using a picture from the carpenter's shop in Nazareth where he had worked throughout the silent years.

Jesus says, “My yoke fits well.” What this means is: “The life I give you is not a burden to gall you; your task is made to measure to fit you.” Whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly. Jesus says, “My burden is light.” As a Rabbi had it: “My burden is become my song.” It is not that the burden is easy to carry; but it is laid on us in love; it is meant to be carried in love; and love makes even the heaviest burden light. When we remember the love of God, when we know that our burden is to love God and to love men, then the burden becomes a song.

There is an old story which tells how a man came upon a little boy carrying a still smaller boy, who was lame, upon his back. “That's a heavy burden for you to carry,” said the man. “That's no' a burden,” came the answer. “That's my wee brother.” The burden which is given in love and carried in love is always light.

Extracted from William Barclay's Commentary