Always we begin again

The Rule of St Benedict that measured (like a ruler) the life of his monks says "always we begin again". I like that. It not only gives us more chances to get it right--it reminds us that whether we have done something well or we would have chosen to do it differently, we have cannot rest in the past. We have just as much opportunity for good or ill.

As we return to our homes and our beds and our families after our week in Chester & Philadelphia, it could be very easy to fall into familiar habits of how we go about our lives and how we see the world. I hope that each of us will value our experiences enough to be pushed forever forward and to allow ourselves to be truly changed. It may be that we are more easily heart broken when we think of those who do not have our advantages of education, economic prosperity, and hope for a better tomorrow. It may be that we are more thankful for what we do have. It may change forever what we feel called to do with our lives. It may help us expand our understanding of the contradictions we must experience as humans fully engaged in the world. As Charlie Warren said to us, an educated person is someone who learns from everyone they meet. And I hope our experiences th

is past week will help us learn to learn and create in us a desire to play a part in a story that is much larger than ourselves.

On our way to the airport we stopped at Valley Forge. We had a little time. It is an important historical place. Why not? And there are close parallels that can be drawn between the Continental Army's winter at Valley Forge and our experience this week. Destitute of supplies, shoeless, sick, and ill equipped, the Continental Army was on the verge of collapse. During the winter of 1777-1778, their numbers dropped from 12,000 to 6,000, and only one person was lost to fighting in a small skirmish. Yet in the spring--buoyed by word of, now overt, French support and with new training that made one Army out of the 13 militia--they emerged from their winter experience as a new force; disciplined, confident, compotent. We can do that too.

There are always challenges. Plans change. Reality changes. Self-acceptance is the first step to changing ourselves and changing the world. Rooted in the love of Christ, we can adapt to the challenges and changes we face, and we can make the changes we feel the need for in the world. And always we begin again.

History Lessons

In case you didn't already know, I love history! And yet, Philadelphia was never on my list of places to visit. How could I have waited this long to visit the birthplace of our nation, our church? Seeing the historic churches and other buildings that date back to the colonial days, seeing chairs and ink wells that were used by the founding fathers, touching the railing on the stairways that is original and bore the hands of each of them was simply amazing; even much more amazing than visiting Washington DC.

It is quite late, and I have already put many captions on today's pictures, so i will let them do the rest of the talking. Besides, it will take me a while to process all the history I saw today!

peace

Work Day

Today we really worked. The morning was spent learnin

g about and working with the Delaware County Housing Coalition, a not-for-profit that works with the city of Chester to help improve neighborhoods. Sometimes they purchase run down houses and relocate the family before renovations and reselling it to a first-time home buyer. Sometimes they buy a whole row of houses that are too far gone to be renovated and build new houses in their place, which again go to first-time home buyers. (By city definition, these buyers have to make under about $40,000 for a family of four.) Often they do work like we did today at Mr. McDonald's home.

Mr. McDonald has had health issues and is not able to do much. He is on the end of the row houses, and a car knocked down his fence that was covered with ivy. The Housing Coalition replaced his fence, and today we pulled out the tr

ee stumps and ivy that were still there, raked the soil smooth and planted grass seed. We also cleaned up the trash, installed a window A/C unit and planted some shrubs.

When it was time to leave, Mr. McDonald came out and joined us for a prayer of thanksgiving for the chance to serve, for his allowing us to come and serve him, and for the ability to share the love we have.

Then we ate sandwiches we had made this morning at the church as we drove into Philadelphia to meet the RND team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). We met with the psychiatrist who works with the program first. She explained the role of psychiatry in the program and talked to us about stress, how it effects our bodies and how we can manage it.

Then we met Dr. Sherri. What a fantastic guy. (He reminded me of the doctor Robin Williams played although I cannot remember his name right now. . . . anyone?) We talked about some serious stuff, and he explained it all without any appologies. The whole time he was making us laugh with jokes and marvel with magic tricks. There is a picture of him with our group in today's gallery. You will undoubtedly agree that he must be the cutest doctor (in the world or was it just CHOP?). After all he kept mentioning that, so it must be true!

OUCH!

Then we went to the basement to meet with OT and PT teams that work with Dr. Sherry's team and the RND patients. They got us all involved in the exercises and we were amazed at how challenging they were even though we didn't have the stress of really having to perform, and we didn't have the pain the RND patients have to work through.

Dr Sherri's team spent a total of almost 4 hours with us. That was a remarkably generous gift of their time, and it not only helped us understand Steph and RND better, I believe it fit well into our week. We have been learning about issues that keep certain people from living life the way we do. RND does not discriminate based on economics or education or race or anything, but in some ways it keeps people from living the same generous and happy life we most often do. The courage and stregnth it takes to deal with this invisible pain, and even more to intentionally make it so much worse in order to rewire the nervous system is phenominal. Dr Sherri used the example of feedback in music. When the microphone is put in front of a speaker, it creates a loop of sound that gets louder and louder. This is what happens with RND and even the lightest touch. The signal gets feedback from the brain and the sensation is amplified and doesn't get turned off. Was it hard for the OTs and PTs to push children through such pain to rewire their nerves. "No, because we see that it works with the children who come out on the other end and can get back to a normal life." These are truly special (and cute) people.

be peace.

A Fun Day

Even with the challenges that are present in Chester, there is joy. Today we got to immerse ourselves in that joy with the children from the Chester East Side Summer Camp. We took an outing to the Swarthmore Swim Club.

Situated in a neighborhood of massive stone houses with perfect lawns, you might find it hard to believe you were so close to the broken down streets of Chester if you had not driven the 10 minutes to go from one world to another.

And I have to make a confession: sitting in a chair to warm up from the 68 degree water I saw an elderly couple begin to enter the pool where the Chester kids were playing. They started in and then looking around got back out. I fully expected them to move away and without actually thinking words had resolved myself to the thought that this wasn't right but wasn't so surprising. However they walked over to the stairs that put them in the middle of our noise and splashing and color. Later, trying to describe Fr Dave to one of the boys after he had left by telling where he had been sitting, he asked, "Is he the guy with light skin?" I love the simple honesty of that question. Not that he was white, which would be a different kind of person, not that he wasn't colored, simply that he had lighter colored skin. I thank God for showing me new ways of thinking today at the pool.

After the pool we heard about what kind of things need to be done to reform education--starting with the culture at home, and involving the community of faith--from Charlie Warren a veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement and an advocate for educational reform here in Chester.

Then you will see how bleak downtown Chester looks in the photos in today's gallery. There is a whole volume that could be written about our tour. Suffice it to say that on a Wednesday afternoon, we barely had to be aware of cars and most buildings were vacant.

Tonight the Trinity youths came to join us for a cook out before we all headed for a very lively mini golf excursion. It was very nice to meet and play with them.

On the way to and from we sang (very loudly) songs from Trout Fishing in America and litterally had the van rocking. Our favorite tracks? Alien in My Nose, Are We There Yet, and Big Rig. . . . Oh, there's i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii . . . . you will have to ask when we get back! :p

I am off to evening prayer with the group and then bed at 11.

peace

Humility

City Team serves almost 8,000 dinners each year, each cooked and served by men in a drug and alcohol rehab program. It is

also a shelter to 40 or 50 men each night, although in the winter when it is bitterly cold 'they don't like to turn anybody away'. A "Code Blue" is named for the blue mats that fill every inch of the floor on those nights.

City Team also provides clothing to men and women and babies as well as baby essentials like formula, diapers, Q-tips, ointment, and whatever they can get donated or buy with donations. This town of approximately 35,000 has the second highest rate of teen pregnancy per capita in the . .

. . WORLD! After spending the morning sorting food in the basement and sorting baby clothes upstairs, we had lunch with the residents. (Dinner is open to the outside community.) Then we had a tour of the facility by Anthony.

Along the way, Anthony told us his story. He had been involved in church when he was a kid, and when his parents started fighting and separated he turned away from God. "If there was a God, why would he let this happen?" He didn't want to go home after school, so he would hang out. Then he started drinking a little on the weekends, then before school. Alcohol was too hard to hide and took too long, so he turned to drugs. He was trying to cover up his pain instead of giving it to God.

"My first job here at City Team was cleaning the toilets in the chapel. "Everyone uses those toilets. The public, the residents. It was disgusting. It was humbling. And that is what it is all about, learning to be humble."

After we said goodbye to Anthony, we went back to Chester East Side Ministries and met the director, Reverend Bernice Warren. She read to us from the Bible about a woman Jesus healed on the sabbath whose back was

bent. "She went to the synagogue because she wanted to be healed and the very people she needed to help her said 'go away'. They blamed her! It wasn't her fault her back was bent. Well, peoples' backs are bent for many different reasons."

I leaned over to Fr Dave and asked facetiously if she could preach too. He told me she had come to Trinity Ambler to preach and raise money for Chester East Side. The plates were passed and they had $400. She got up and told the people it wasn't enough! The plates came back the second time with $3,500.

On our way home we went into Philadelphia and ran up the 'Rocky Steps' at the Philadelphia Art Museum and stopped for ice cream at McDonald's. Dinner and showers at the YMCA, a meditation from Ester de Waal's book Living with Contradiction and evening prayer and it was bedtime. And now, finally, it is my bedtime too.

be peace

Absolute Power & the Industrial Paradigm Shift

It is readily acknowledged that you won't get even the most basic job in Chester unless you are a member of the Republican Party. It is also quickly mentioned that it would be the same if the Democrats had a choke hold. The political machine here has created a virtual vassal system and unabashedly serves its own purposes.

Chester was a boomtown through WWII and the 50s. There was heavy industry here that was well respected for its quality. One in four US ships that served in WWII were built in Chester. Then those industrial companies realized they needed to expand and have larger plants to be more efficient. And there was no room for expansion on the crowded riverfront, so one by one they left.

With housing for 90,000+ people, Chester has a population of about 35,000. The people left behind are mostly those who cannot leave, either because they don't have the skills or money to leave.

The Chester of today is in many respects the local dump. Trash is shipped in from nearby states and municipalities. The new state prison is here. The new casino is here. They are building a new soccer stadium by the river that will be home to a new "Philadelphia" team, and they are conveniently adding a spur to the interstate so no one will have to actually drive through Chester.

It seems like there are simple things that could be done to change the conditions we have found. Keep the children in school so more than the 25% of high school freshmen graduate. Teach the children who are there to read and write--almost 90% of rising seniors are functionally illiterate and even fewer have basic math skills. The average annual cost of an education is about $12,000, and it seems the local politicians would rather spend the $30,000+ per year of incarceration. Because that is what most young people who stay here have to look forward to.

And in this place of repression, toxic waste across the street from children's programs, collapsing abandoned buildings, we found such joy. Most of the people we met at Chester East Side Ministries and the Chester Senior Center met us with generous smiles, and even as they acknowledge the change they have seen in Chester they are joyous.

I was surprised today to learn that Martin Luther King went to seminary here in Chester, and he did an internship right here at Calvary Baptist. Many of the ideas and 'dreams' that he would voice on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial had their roots in this place. Although his work was in the south, Chester's struggles helped to shape the Civil Rights Movement. I pray that her struggles may set some noble spark in us also.

Peace

Our beautiful home in Ambler

Our travel from Ft Myers to Philadelphia (via Atlanta) was quite uneventful. Our group of 12 moved through the airports, baggage check, van rental and hour long drive to Trinity Ambler with no difficulty, like a group of veteran travelers.

We arrived at Trinity with mouths agape at the beautiful buildings and wide open grassy campus. The original church building burned down in the 80s, and the current building reflects the love of that older traditional space.

Fr Dave was here to welcome us, and after dinner he celebrated a special Eucharist for us since we had been traveling all day and not been able to have communion. The girls in our group picked a couple of songs out of our mission songbook. We sang Micah 6:8, Jesu Jesu, and You Are My All in All.

After the Eucharist, I read The Path of Peace by Henri Nouwen for our nightly meditation. It was longer by far than our meditations will be the rest of the week, and while it was about 45 minutes at the end of a long day, the story it tells of Adam and the peace he has that is 'not of this world', the peace we need to seek--the peace of the weak, the peace of the poor, the peace of the broken, the peace of simply being, not doing--it gave many of us a sense of direction for our next several days' work.

By this time it was almost dusk and many of us went outside to catch lightning bugs and explore the campus. There were some spooky stairs leading down to a basement . . . . perhaps the dwelling of some of the . . . . communion of saints? John? John?!

And now I have precisely 2 seconds before lights out, and I need to brush my teeth!

Peace,

Louis