"I am blessed."

On Tuesday afternoons during the school year I have the opportunity to work as a volunteer tutor in Kansas City, Kansas. I tutor at Juniper Gardens, a public housing complex. The residents of Juniper Gardens are a diverse mixture of people, including recent immigrants who are largely refugees from Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Nepal. Their commonality is their material poverty. Like all children, the kids who show up for tutoring have desires for what they want to be when they grow up. They have many of the same “bouncing off the wall” issues that my own children have.

During our first session in September, the group who facilitates the tutoring, The Learning Club of Kansas City, Kansas, has us go through a questionnaire with the children we work with. One of the questions they ask is “If you could go anywhere, where would you go and why do you want to go there?” It’s an interesting question that gets to the horizons the child has been shown, what motivates them to go somewhere, and some of their base interests.

The first child I worked with this year is a soft-spoken child. It took a lot of coaxing to get him to speak up and look at me while he was talking. This was not unusual for a child his age. When we got to the question about where he wanted to go, his answer was simply stunning: “I want to go away from here so I don’t have to be around all of the shooting.” I did my best to keep my eyes on the paper in front of me to make sure I did not give away too much of my surprise, my sadness, and my anger. No person should have to deal with that kind of stress, especially a child.

Having to worry about gunshots is one of the many ways that being poor is hard. Living in poverty presents daily struggles just to live, to find work, to be safe, to be healthy, and to have food on the table. All of us react to the struggles of life in different ways: positively, negatively or (most often) somewhere in between the two. For people living on the margins, the difference between living and dying, being free and going to jail, succeeding and failing is often amazingly thin. They have to have a great deal of faith and hope to go forward with living.

In the midst of this many people living in these situations have a deep sense of faith. As Father James Martin, S.J. said in a recent article from America Magazine:

Many are the things we can learn from people with personal experience of poverty. Many are the experiences that they take for granted that others would find intolerable. In their patience, in their fortitude, in their dignity and in their hard work, the poor can often be our models. And so blessed are they.

This seems to be a common refrain from people who work with people who are poor. One friend of mine who worked at a food pantry talked about how deeply faithful many of the people she served were. Most of the people she worked for were hungry and desperately poor. Many of them would answer the standard greeting “How are you today?” with the striking answer “I am blessed.”

In Your Eyes

I grew up in a parish with a church built in the 1870’s by German immigrants. The edifice they built was a large Gothic style church that stood out on the edge of the Mississippi River bluffs overlooking the old part of the town. It still stands out even though the suburban sprawl of the St. Louis area has surrounded it. The red bricks and large steeple give a sense of something bigger and definitely inspired people to look up to the heavens.

The church also has quite beautiful stained glass windows that gave me lots to look at while struggling to maintain attention to preaching that had not yet reached my ears, mind or heart. Behind the main altar were three stained glass windows that had images for each part of the Trinity. On the left panel is a dove descending from the heavens representing the Holy Spirit. The panel on the other side is a lamb with bearing a white flag with a red cross representing Jesus.

The middle panel is a representation of God as an all-seeing eye. You could imagine what might rush through a child’s mind. I found it interesting and slightly disturbing at the same time. One thought was the puzzlement of why the US $1 bill had stolen this image from my church! Another thought that frightened me was that God was watching me from that window. I’d imagine God judging me for telling white lies in school and at home. Even worse was the judgment He must have for me while I was tussling with either of my sisters during Mass. God must have also been pleased when his eye saw my parents leading us out of temptation by sitting between us.

I watching you Wazowski. Always watching.

When I was a freshman in high school I distinctly remember a series of questions our religion teacher posed to us on the first day of class: “What is your image of God? Is God a Creve Coeur cop in the sky looking to bust you? Or is God a loving Creator?”

As I reflected in my young mind and soul I was struck by how basic this question about the matter of the divine was. It was amazing to me how different my view of the world around me was because it reframed my image of God. It helped begin extricating me from a worldview of fear about what would happen to me when I fell short of how a Christian should live.

Before that point I remember religion teachers and others giving us an image of a vengeful, wrathful God that reinforced what I was seeing in the eye. There were also those who had given us such a squishy view of who God was that a young impressionable mind had trouble even conceptualizing God. As a result it was easy to attach scornfulness and judgment to the eye. I would say that I lived under a lot of fear about how God felt about me and I treated others that way as well.

So how do I see God?  I sometimes do still see God as a Creve Coeur cop in the sky looking to bust me for going a few miles over the speed limit, and it’s hard to get that image out completely. More than not I see him as a loving and patient parent. A parent who sees who I am completely with all of the gifts I give to others and all of the times I fail, but through it all still loves me.

I had the opportunity to go back to my home parish recently. I looked at that eye and it struck me that maybe the eye, as a representation of God the Father, wasn’t as judgmental as I had viewed it while I was a child. Was God looking down at me with love? During my father’s funeral Mass in that same church was God looking at the many mourners with compassion and at my father’s soul with joy at a life well lived? Does God look out at all of us and our joys, sorrows, with the tenderness of a loving parent? I certainly hope so.

*Nota Bene: These photos were taken and provided by Dan Dotson. You can find him at www.dwdotson.com. Also, All Saints Catholic Church in St. Peters, Mo. is having a capital campaign to restore and protect the stained glass windows in the church. Donations are appreciated! 

Rhubarb and Rebirth

I love rhubarb pie. I came to this love later than most food loves. My mother in law introduced rhubarb pie to me. While I was looking through a gardening nursery catalog last spring I saw a deal for asparagus and rhubarb crowns that I just couldn't pass up. I'm a bit of a sucker for sales and specials! So last spring I planted two rhubarb crowns.

One problem I have is that in my excitement in my home projects I don't thoroughly read the instructions. The one piece I missed was to find a place that has a little bit of shade. I did read it last fall after it looked like the hot summer sun had seemingly
killed off my two rhubarb plants. To see what was happening I reread the planting instructions and saw that nugget of wisdom to not plant it in too sunny of a spot. Oops.

I didn't give up completely on them. I try to hold onto hope in regards to my garden. It's really all I have! So I kept the areas that encircled what used to be my rhubarb plants clear of weeds, and even dropped a bit of compost on them. To my great surprise (and joy) one of them came up. .500 would be a record setting average in baseball even though my friends who are into baseball stats would remind me that it is an extremely small sample size.

The next weekend I went out to what I expected was the grave of the second rhubarb plant. In tow was a bag of grass seed, my bucket with compost and a handful of straw. As I knelt down to roll the stone in front of it's tomb I saw a rhubarb leaf sticking out of the ground. This is silly to write, but you can't imagine the joy that filled my heart as I offered up some of my compost to the ground that produced this little miracle.

Filling Shoes

After my dad’s funeral my brother, my brother in law and I were clearing out my dad’s closet. We were looking to see if one of us or someone else we knew could use or fit into some of his clothing or shoes. My brother in law made the statement that none of us could fill his father in law’s shoes. He was absolutely correct.

During the few weeks after the passing of my dad I heard lots of comments about how much I am like him. In many ways I took the comments about me being like my dad as they were intended, as compliments. However, a part of me winced at these statements.

I felt like my dad spent a lot of time and energy trying to live up to his father. His dad pushed him to be like him and in many ways you could sense the disappointment my grandpa felt towards dad, or maybe I was sensing my dad’s own feeling of him disappointing my grandpa.

When my grandfather died I felt like my dad had a lot of heartbreak, hurt and mixed feelings to deal with. In looking at the choices my dad made it was obvious that the way he choose to be a father was to spend time with his kids and wife. He took us fishing. We went on vacations all over the US. All four of us had him as a soccer or basketball coach at one time in our short-lived athletic careers. His presence was always felt at our activities. Mom and him even went so far as to attend most of the freshman and sophomore level basketball games that I kept statistics for. I’m sure that they were cheering me on with “excellent writing of that three point play there Tim!” or “way to get the whole floor clean with that dust mop during halftime!”

As a dziadzia/grandfather my dad went out of his way to be a part of his grandchildren’s lives. At least once a year my mom and dad traveled to California to spend time with my sister, her husband and my niece and nephew. My mom would often come over to Kansas City to help out my wife, Sarah, when I was traveling. Dad would always initially say that he probably wouldn’t come over because he had too much work. In the end he’d always come because, as he told my mom, “I’d hate to miss something.”

The greatest gift my dad gave to me was expecting me to be honest, a devoted husband and a loving father. I never felt pressure to follow the same life paths my dad did. I always knew that he loved me unconditionally (I know this because of some of the bonehead things I did, like driving 110 mph on I-270 in St. Louis). I don’t want to leave the impression that things were always easy, or that we always got along, but I can honestly say that I have been overwhelmed with gratitude and joy for the time I had with him.

In the end none of us (my brother, brother in law and I) could physically fit into my dad’s shoes and they were given away. His shoes wouldn’t fit us and I think he would have loved that.

The Winter Winds

Hoping for Spring

A couple of weeks ago I was excited by the arrival of the seeds for my garden. I have been looking forward in anticipation for the coming growing season and the end of the snow and cold that has taken over the last two weeks. In my excitement and anticipation for being out in my garden I forgot that we still have to get through January, February and part of March (last year we had to get through April and early May as well).

The second half of 2013 was, well, hard. My grandfather was diagnosed with melanoma and was aggressively attacking his body. After fighting through the pain my grandfather died in late October as the cold winds starting blowing in from the north.

During this time my dad was working with a pretty stubborn cough. After we had finished our Thanksgiving meal my mom and dad revealed to us that there was a spot on dad’s lung that was possibly cancerous. Dad went for a multitude of tests and the doctors had decided that the best course was surgery to remove part of, if not all of, dad’s right lung.

They ended up removing the whole lung and the surgeon was confident that they had removed all of the cancer. Dad came out of the surgery and spent the first few moments after he woke up flirting with my mom, telling us that the absence of a lung on the right side would just make him “lean a bit farther to the left,” and cursing Richard Nixon for sending him to Vietnam.

His recovery from surgery was slow, but progress was happening. You could sense that things were getting better. Several of his former co-workers remarked to me that he looked good and was upbeat about beating cancer and going on with his life. His boss told me that dad had told him he was looking forward to going back to work.

On Sunday January 12, 2014 a warm wind was blowing in from the south. You could feel the hope that Spring might be coming after several months of sadness, mourning and unease. My dad, I guess sensing this hope, was excited about the sunshine and warmer temperatures and went out for a walk. He returned to his home bloodied from a fall. His remaining lung gave out and his heart stopped.

There are still almost two months left in winter. My sadness over the death of my father has left me feeling the bitter winds from the north. I know that in time the winds will shift, and life will spring forth again from the Earth. I know that there is hope in the Resurrection. The Earth will continue its cycle of birth, death and rebirth. I hold onto this hope.

Holy Ground

Where two rivers meet.
"Over there is sacred ground,
unfortunately we stopped in Kansas."

I’ve been interested lately in the concept of a “theology of place.” In Hinduism there is a strong attachment of the sacred to places where two rivers meet (I guess Kansas City and St. Louis are holy places). The Navajo orient themselves based upon the four holy mountains that surround their homeland from the north, south, east and west. As Christians we gravitate around churches and we travel to pilgrimage sites around the world. We hold onto certain places as holy, going so far as to name them “The Eternal City” and the “Holy Land.”

In Matthew 25 Jesus states that we will be judged by how we treat people who are suffering and he says (without reservation) that we should give food and drink to those who don't have them and that we should welcome strangers, and visit people who are sick or imprisoned. We have made this difficult to accomplish because of where we choose to live and whom we choose to associate with.

Generally speaking it is not about a lack of desire to do live out what Jesus asks us to, but more because it’s generally not right in front of us and there isn’t a Lazarus on our doorstep. In the words of Shane Claiborne “The great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.” Our cities and suburbs are set up where we can be isolated from many of these opportunities to do what Jesus tells us to do.

I’ve found that like most of our experiments in living as a Christian we sometimes do what we are supposed to do and sometimes we don’t. When I lived in Nepal poverty and suffering was in my face all the time. There were ample opportunities to either do what Jesus told us we should do or choose to ignore those who were starving or didn’t have clothing. Sometimes I did and sometimes, well, I had to ask for forgiveness.

We often place ourselves outside of where the poor and marginalized are. These are the places where God resides and wants us to go to. It's going to the other side of Troost (a street in Kansas City that street that is a racial and economic dividing line or north of Highway 40 for those familiar with St. Louis) to be with those who hunger and thirst. It's about reaching out to new immigrants to welcome them, it's getting to know a child or an elderly person through sponsorship organizations like Christian Foundation for Children and Aging that give us better opportunities to more closely follow Jesus.