February 2006

Scenes from a Life or How I learned to redefine “Normal”…

Today I’m outside playing with Mason, hoping to capture or create some sort of graceful moment to relay in my newsletter. But that’s not always how life happens here. Instead, today was a hard day for Mason, so it was a hard day for me, as Wednesdays are my first grade days in Mason’s classroom. His first emotional breakdown today was about the injustice of a fellow classmate allegedly taking his pencil. Keep in mind that all the pencils belong to the teacher and several other classmates offered him any other pencil to diminish his hysterics. Put on top of that the 3^rd graders who threatened to beat him up and it made for an all-around rough day for my little friend. I ran into Mason later and we went over to one of the boy’s houses who said he would sock Mason in the nose. We rang the doorbell and by this time Mason was fully immersed in his imaginary world where he is the police and ready to dole out real justice. Mason knocked on this boy’s door, complete with his set of handcuffs, looking to make an arrest. The boy is a little confused so I step in and ask why he wanted to beat Mason up. I realize that these boys were friends at least a few months ago, if not earlier this week, and I am wondering what went wrong. This boy offers that it was justifiable because Mason was teasing him about this boy’s dead father. Well… Mason’s got some explaining to do, huh? Mason sheepishly apologizes but the boy doesn’t accept his apology. He gives a weak pledge not to beat mason up, but he’s not quite ready for forgiveness. As we walk away, Mason wonders why this boy isn’t his friend now. I try to explain that some things hurt a lot and it takes us longer to get over that pain. I’m not sure how much of this registers with Mason, but I think he’s beginning to formulate some system of fair/unfair in this place he’s learned to call home. I sense that he already has a deep sense of justice, but as a seven-year old boy he feels understandably helpless in an adult world.

And on our walk around the neighborhood, Mason’s right when he mentions there’s not much to do. I just want to stay outside since I can hardly believe I’m experiencing 60 degrees in February. The only park in the neighborhood has been chained off for over a year because of asbestos remnants in the soil. One of our neighbors has talked about getting progress going on the renovations for the playground but so far the only change I’ve noticed since I’ve been here is some more litter inside the fence. Mason then proceeds to prep me in case we hear gunshots while we’re outside, at 4:30 in the afternoon. He’s entirely ready to run if necessary.

Yesterday Karrie and I hung out with Keekee and her cousin Taranicha. We’re taking Keekee and Taranicha from one world into another—from city to suburbs in a matter of California-traffic-clogged moments. A visit to Dairy Queen was in order so along with that came a brief splurge into the world of suburbia for these purely urban teenagers. To me, with a short time of city life under my belt compared to their 26 years combined, the difference between city and suburb is already strikingly clear. Though as we walked around the outdoor mall, I’m not really sure they noticed. I don’t know what they thought of the piped in piano music coming from some inconspicuously placed speakers. I don’t know what they thought of the overwhelming majority of people who looked more like me and Karrie and less like them and their neighbors. I don’t know what they thought, but if I were them I would have been more than a bit disconcerted.

Keekee is by far my best friend here, this 13-year old girl who lives with nine siblings and cousins. It was really great when Keekee lived just a block away, but a few weeks ago the whole clan moved to Richmond, about 15 miles from West Oakland. I was angry that God would take this family from our neighborhood, especially given my excitement and hopes for Keekee. Thankfully though I’ve managed to get out to Richmond a few times already to hang out with her. The other day we drove around just talking. Well, mostly her talking and me listening. But it was great, a chance to spend a solid two hours diving in with a 13 year old living a life that, on the surface, looks nothing like mine did 10 years ago. A lot is not that different—boys, friends, family. Good stuff and bad. But my friend Keekee also hasn’t been in school for three weeks since the sudden move threw all the kids’ school placements out of whack. My dear friend was counting on graduating from eighth grade in June, and now I hope this turn of events which she had no control over doesn’t force her to stay another year in middle school. I complain about the lack of space in my house or how I never get time to myself…and then I’m reminded about how Keekee is sharing a four bedroom house with 11 other people. My problems don’t seem so big after all.

A typical week at Prescott Elementary school sees more than one teacher absent each day. Friday in Mr. Lam’s kindergarten, we found ourselves dealing with a class and a half because at least one of the kindergarten teachers was absent and there were no substitutes. The solution at Prescott is to split the teacher-less class(es) between other teachers. Sometimes the students are in the appropriate grade classrooms, sometimes not. We attended a city council meeting earlier this month where we heard a lot about the ongoing strife between the Oakland teacher’s union and the state-assigned administrator in the currently stalled contract negotiations. One of the many angry teachers present pointed out that at Prescott last year there were 45 days with no substitute teachers. That number may seem high but it seems like there’s already been more days than that this year where there’s been at least one teacher absent and no substitute coverage.

Family night this week was a night of fast food and movies at a friend’s house. An easy escape from our life. On our way back from grocery shopping earlier this week, we were talking about how life post-mission year will be so much easier if we could just choose not to care anymore. We’re being exposed to so many issues, so many directions towards which our heart can extend compassion and eventually we’ll come to a point where we reach our limit. But we know that once we’ve crossed that point of exposure, that point of living amongst injustice on such a large scale, that point of investing our lives for something bigger than ourselves, we can never not care again. So a night of escape from our life is a welcome diversion but ultimately just as unsustainable as an attempt to solve all the problems that we see each day.

A few weeks ago I spent my Sabbath basking in the unseasonable warm spell rolling through the Bay Area by sitting in Union Square in downtown San Francisco. As I soaked up the sun, my head spun with thoughts and frustrations and the echoing sound of the two loud gunshots I had heard a few mornings before. Two days earlier I had been awoken at 7:02am to what sounded like two reverberating bangs right next to my ear. The day before that I had been reflecting on how the sound of gunshots in this neighborhood has become sadly common, often not eliciting much of a response from me unless we hear of an injury or fatality. This is a far cry from our reactions at the beginning of Mission Year, but whether this has developed out of a desire to become numb or just a feeling of powerlessness, this is where I was. I was by no means pleased to accept this as the status quo, I just didn’t know what to do about it. And the Saturday morning gunshots threw this whole thought process into a whirl. I heard some shouting and I propped myself up on my elbows in my bed and peered out the window. There was a man lying on the ground in front of our house, motionless, with a few other people around him in shock. The next several moments are sort of a blur, but it was about five minutes before the police came to investigate the situation. The man was taken away in an ambulance and as far as we know, he survived. We couldn’t catch his face or any other identifying features, and for a second each of my teammates and I took a mental inventory of all the young men we knew in the neighborhood who could have possibly been this victim.

Serendipitously, the vice president of Mission Year was in town for a visit and planning on coming to our house for breakfast that very morning. Leroy has seen his fair share of urban violence and challenged us to respond, somehow, with hope. He challenged us to send the message that we believe there is a better way for our neighbors, that we refuse to sit idly by and watch the people we love live lives dominated by fear and intimidation. He challenged us to think about how we could get our church involved. The Church, after all, is called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Essentially, Leroy was not only asking us what Jesus would do but calling us to do the radical activism of the Kingdom of God in advancing an agenda of love and peace and hope.

So thoughts and plans and outlines and questions rattled through my brain for the next 48 hours. And as I sat there in Union Square on Monday afternoon, I felt so small and useless. I wondered what a white girl like me, with activism experience limited to suburban college kids, could say to my thoroughly urban neighbors to get them to rally around the cause of local peace. I wondered if they would doubt my motives and I feared that any work I might do would last only as long as I lived on Campbell Street. In confused moments, I often look back through old journal entries for encouragement or to reflect on how far (and often not) I’ve come on different issues I may have been facing. I came across a note to read Isaiah chapter 40, which I had incidentally written to myself after scanning through journal entries once before. As I read, God’s voice was clear and speaking through to this exact situation.

Comfort, comfort my people, says my God... God sees the pain and heartache of his people in my neighborhood and longs to comfort and soothe their heavy burdens. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins… That all this violence and fear and suffering we live amidst is a product of the fallen world. All the cycles and seasons that we face here, though never seeming to change much, can lead to more than just an extension of the same. Comfort my people, calls God, and let them know that I have taken away the chains of sin that bind them to destruction. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it… All the desolate places, the landscape we look out upon of sadness and pain, all these will be brought up with hope and strength and power by the might of God. The conditions of our world will not last forever. A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field…The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” Cry out that all we think matters here is not what will last. God’s word—love, peace, truth, hope—this lasts forever. That hope and love will conquer; we are not satisfied to watch hope and love be held hostage to the false victories of fear and hate and despair. We will claim this territory for our God. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” Lift up your voice and do not be afraid to speak out. Say: Here is your God—your God is to be found in all that is good and true in facing evil and resisting it. Here is your God—power, justice, care, compassion, the world in His hands, incomparable, not intimidated by worldly schemes, everlasting, tireless, devoted to the cause of the weak. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. In that moment I was thoroughly heartened by the hope that God promises. I still don’t have the answers and I have no cleverly produced action plans but I know that with God all things are possible. If I serve a Lord who simply asks me to step out in faith and calls on His people to rise up in love then I have no choice but to respond. I trust that the God who knows the number of hairs on my head cares infinitely about the state of my neighborhood and longs for the day when His people see that love will have the final triumph.