we'll see where this ramble takes me....
on the way home from church i saw a large white truck belly up to the curb on MLK and pick up a few day-laborers looking for work. they were latino, i would guess mexican from the little i know about the men who usually stand there. the man in the cab was large and white. the men ran to the door, all clamoring for a chance to work and only two were picked up and the rest cast back to the curb. i just finished reading "the tortilla curtain" saturday night. candido was always running to white trucks and looking for work from large, white men. meanwhile his bride sat in a canyon, pregnant and starving. it was so eerie to see it all go down just past my windshield yesterday. what do we do? pray for mexico. pray for something. michael said we could throw a big feast for them and host it on the sidewalk, ask them what they need, what their families need. would this seem patronizing? only if it was patronizing, i guess.
i know i need to remember that God is already at work, i just need to join God in whatever that work is.
i made this scarf at knitting night a few years ago. in julia's room at reed. it took me a semester of friday nights with these amazing women, talking about all kinds of all kinds, to finish it. it's cream-colored with a blue thread on the side; i ran out of cream yarn and needed to tie it off. it is crooked and catywompus in all the ways of a beginner. and a beginner who wasn't really paying attention to the knitting, but more just doing something with her hands while she hung out with her ladies and talked and listened and played with naomi's rat.
in short: the scarf is totally ugly.
jordan was at my house thursday night for a prayer gathering. he wore the sexiest outfit i've seen at a church "function"--tight leather pants and high heeled leather boots with a black leather shirt and a huge fur collar. jordan and jordan's fashion are two of my favorite things about The Well, my beautiful church. he saw my scarf lying on the floor and wanted it. and then he wore it to church on sunday.
it has never looked so good. my collection of friday nights and conversations and times with those beautiful women all wrapped around jordan's neck. it was a perfect coming together of the places, the people i love.
last night we went to powell park, the havenator tribe. there were some somalian children playing on the teeter-totters and mozea and i talked to asha, the eldest girl, for a little while. she wore a deep purple head scarf and rocked herself on the bright red plank of wood. her sisters wore yellow and red and blue and each one walked and played on the different pieces of wood, also yellow and red and blue. they were so beautiful. asha was noticeably surprised that we wanted to talk to her. i know the somalian refugees in the neighborhood are not always greeted with welcome and affection. i know this because i talk to my neighbors. my white, home-owning, non-refugee neighbors. i turned around and saw michael and ruah on a distant swing. they, too, wore bright colors against the evening light. michael ran back and forth in front of the swing and ruah zel laughed with completeness. it was whole laughter. nothing distracted or divided or shamed. just complete focus on the joy of her papi and the swinging motion and the cool night air. here we all are, i thought. somalians and anglos and latinos all wearing the colors of the world on our clothes and our skin. here we are, under the sun, beneath God's gaze. here we are, some of us with so much money and some of us with so little. some of us with means for shelter and food, others so little. not that any of us deserve it, the much or the little.
what do we do? we pray and we pray. we believe God is already at work and we join God in it, if we are attentive and mature enough to find out where God is and what work God is doing.
i know for sure that God is loving us. each one:
there is mozea and ruah and michael, my beautiful people, and me.
there is jordan.
there is The Well.
there is reed and the women of knitting night.
there is asha and her family and the hundreds of somalian families who live in the section 8 housing just off powell.
there is candido and his bride, albeit fictional, but live narratives of his life portrayed on MLK.
there is the large, white man in his truck.
there are the people who built the truck.
the people who pumped the oil for the truck.
the people who paved the road and built the sidewalk and the church and the teeter-totters.
the people who protested the paving of the road and the building of the sidewalk because it was their land first and someone took it away from them.
here we all are.
under the sun.
a mess. and yet so beautiful.
here we are.
and what is the work God is doing among us? how is God loving me and asha? where is Jesus in the section 8 housing development? is he on the swings? the teeter-totters? does he wear purple, too?
what is the work of God's love on the sidewalk of MLK? how can i join? where can i sign up?
there is so much pain, so much.
just inside of me alone.
and then, there is so much love.
for all of us.
there's more than enough for all of us under the sun.
there's more than enough love.
can i believe that for me, today? can i be so loved to give it all away?
i'll pray.
we'll see.
there's more than enough. more than enough. more than enough....
