Space to Care

On the right is a picture of the crumb of one of my favorite crusty breads, ciabatta.Those huge holes are like caverns to explore and collapse as you eat it, the aftermath of a perfect storm of bubbly yeast, heat and moisture interacting with the dough.

This week I was reminded of how much space we need to clear in our calendars to be caring. And by caring, I mean being available for others in a way that's an unhurried exchange. In yeast breads, flavor and crumb are formed best when there are long rise times. So it is with our appointments.

The nature of community work with Kingdom Causes seems never ending in my mind: there's always another contact, another church, another meeting, another project, another deadline, another grant to pursue. It may be just because it's all new to me, so I haven't fully settled into a rhythm yet. But it can easily feel overwhelming.

Still, this week I've had the chance to have dinner with my neighbors, meet with a friend I haven't met with in awhile, have an extended meeting with KCAMP's intern and a local pastor, and share breakfast (unplanned) with some guys who helped me grab soil from Home Depot for one of the gardens. In each of these meetings, it was unhurried time, an open-ended appointment. No dashing about to the next thing, the next deadline. There was space to care.

I suppose this sort of "scheduling my margins" is a foil for my other job, which is often about efficiency and immediate results. Folding in the space to care will be difficult, even though it's so necessary!

True Treasures

I had two experiences of drumming up support for Kingdom Causes this week: on Monday, a traditional golf marathon fundraiser, and last night, an opportunity to speak to one of the adult fellowships at my old church. The first had the usual pieces: e-mail blasts, personal phone calls (even Facebook chats) all to raise funds for this upcoming year. Normal fundraising stuff for a typical fundraiser.

I approached last night's talk like your typical missionary asked to come to a church: trying to figure out how to be the most inspiring so they would want to get involved or give. But at some point I revisited an exercise called the "treasure hunt" I learned from ABCD (Asset Based Community Development) training, which became the main "recruitment" piece of my sharing.

Basically, every person writes down on post-its 3 things that are related to things they know (head), things they are passionate about (heart), and things they know how to do (hand). We share with the whole group our "treasures," post them on a board, then organize them into like categories as stuff shared inevitably overlaps.

After we organized the many treasures, I basically told the group that when we think of reaching our community, we often forget that within ourselves God has already given us many interests, passions, and talents that can be used for his mission. We have such and such ministries you can get involved in with Kingdom Causes, but I'd rather they start with their God-given assets instead of having them fit "my" agenda. I did share about what we do now, but that was much shorter than I originally planned.

Henri Nouwen called fundraising as ministry a new way of relating people to their resources (as defined by time, talents, and money). It is actually a conversion process. I hope the treasure hunt exercise was a new way for the group to see themselves not merely as people needing more outlets for engaging their community, but that they already possess vast resources to shape whatever direction the Lord leads them.

Psalm 23 and Mission

Left: Photos of shepherd's crooks used for leading sheep (taken by Crag Face, 7/4/02


Yesterday I participated in a 1/2 day retreat with the Fuller class I'm auditing on spiritual formation. We were given Psalm 23 as our focus Scripture to meditate on.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures..." I realized it says "he MAKES me"...but the image it conjured up was my new role as a parent, "making" my baby's schedule, putting her to sleep at her bedtime though she at times seemingly protests. Am I being paternalistic? You bet I am! But at this fundamental stage of life, she needs me to shepherd her in this way.

And speaking of roles, this Psalm also reminded me that with all my roles, especially the ones where I take a leadership role, I must never forget the one role that will always be around, no matter what other roles fall to the wayside: being a sheep--a child of God. It is an eternal role I will never outgrow. Like my daughter, I must also be like her in that implicit trust she has when I take her out of her crib. I may not always be able to DO something for God, but I can always sit at his feet attentively.

The last thing about this verse is that only when the Lord my shepherd makes me lie down/besides still waters does he "restore my soul." I never saw this as a process before, just an unconnected list. But now I see I can not find refreshment of the soul if I have not stopped and ceased from all the activity in my life periodically.

There were some final questions I never got to at the end, but helped me to frame my thinking about next year with Kingdom Causes:

1. How has the Shepherd been preparing you to extend his reign through you in the role to which he has called you?
2. How has he been shepherding specific people in your place of ministry/work? How might he want to shepherd them?
3. How is he shepherding structures for which you have responsibility?

Community Building Intergenerationally

This was a new garden we set up in Monterey Park yesterday to add to the community gardens we've started in the summer. The grandmother of the woman who lives at this location mentioned to me that in the 68 (!) years she's lived in Monterey Park, there have been many gardens grown in her backyard. Ears of corn, squash, tomatoes and all manners of veggies were grown which also helped to feed the 4 kids that grew up at this house.

I also appreciated how the grandmother said with pride about her granddaughter how she was "doing her grandfather right" by growing food again after many fallow years. And that blessing sparked me to think that part of what these gardens do in building community is that they can bring the generations together. They should bring the generations together!

Anyway, when these beds are overflowing with veggies, we're growing to throw a "harvest party" for the neighborhood...young and old and of course, those young at heart!