Seen and Unseen

I just got back from a retreat in Austin given by Mobile Loaves and Fishes an organization that works to feed and rehome the homeless, and at the sametime create relationships between them and MLFs volunteers.  It is really hard to define all that MLF does (mlf.org).  

This was my third Street Retreat.  Each one has been totally different and I have learned something different each time.  This was my first time doing the 3 day retreat.  What I learned this time was more about myself  that I may share later but I wanted to share an observation, what we see and don't see.

I am amazed at what we see and don't see.  When I walk down a street I notice the beautiful earrings in a store window or a nice bit of architecture, but the homeless man in a huge coat carrying a backpack and bedroll I walk by without a glance.  Which do I value more?  Can I truely value life more if I don't notice a person before a thing?  Where am I storing my treasure if I see consumable things before I see someone made in the image and likeness of God?  I think that is telling.

After the first day out on the street I saw more people.  I looked at and spoke to "them".  They were still "them" and I could see them.  It's a terrible term "them" it is not "us".  It was strange that by the second day I was becoming more invisible, or it seemed to me.  People quit giving me glance or a smile as I walked down the street.  We actually had the joy of being kicked out of a library for nothing more than some of the people in our group carrying a bedroll.  We were just reading quietly and keeping out of the rain but we were told we couldn't be in the library with a bedroll.  I felt I was in a sort of no mans land at this point.  I was not homeless, but wasn't acceptable in the non homeless society.

We met a young woman flying a sign at a street corner.  Part of our group tried to talk to her.  I don't know why I didn't.  I had some change left over from buying water earlier and gave that her, but I didn't talk to her.  They tried to get her to join us for evening.  She was young and pretty and new to Austin I was afraid for her.  I prayed for her as they talked to her.  She started to yell and I felt I could feel her pain.  She seemed to be in an immense amount of pain.  We couldn't force her to come with us.  I will never forget her.  I will see her.  I never want to not see anyone again.  Her yelling felt like someone wanting so much to be heard and seen and not being heard and seen in the way she needed for so long she didn't see us as maybe people who wanted to see her and hear her.  We all need to be seen and heard and we all have impediments to being seen and heard.

Alan Graham, Steven, and Sarah our street Shepards see people.  Maybe that is what MLF does best. It tries to teach us to see each other as we are, warts and all.  They have no romantic ideas of our brothers and sisters on the street being all saints but they see that we can learn from them as much as they can learn from us.  We can form community.

This all got me thinking today, what else and who else do I not see.  Do I not see the elderly?  Do I miss seeing the young people around me?  I was struck on the second day the people who did see us.  A man who gave up the sidewalk for a woman in a hoodie who was sunburned and a bit smelly, and an older man in a suit who said hello to us and looked us in the eye.  I wonder who those people were.

My goal is to not see the things in the shop window as much but to see, instead, those around me.  To keep my eyes open to those around me and to hear them as well.  I want to see people and not to condescend to people.  I want to form relationships with people and not merely minister to them.  I don't want to do this to simply for myself, to be thought of as a good person.  I want to see, hear, be, love, and give.  In return I hope to be seen, heard, and loved, only.

Focusing my life on Love

I believe I have been given a mission, but it is really the same mission of all Christians, to carry God's love out into the world.  To share that love with those who are near to me and those who are not.  I am called to start always from love in all I do.  There is a great well of Love that I draw from, that well is God.  It is deep and it is sweet.  That is the God I want to show the world.

This Love makes me strong.  I can resist all and endure all because of the Love of God.  He sends His Love to me The Holy Spirit who strengthens and guides me.  I don't know what God will ask me to do for Him and I know I may never see the results myself, I simply trust in Him.

When we fail to start from Love as Christians we fail to bring them God.  How can we expect them to act as if they have God already when we don't share Him with them?  Love them into goodness and trust God to change their hearts.

What is Love?

The kind of Christian Love I mean is God, no more no less.  Love means to will the ultimate good of the other.  We will it, we don't impose it.  We will their good, not simply what they want.  I may want to sit at home eating icecream all day but it isn't love to enable that.  Eating icecream isn't evil in its self but enabling disordered eating is not for my good.

Love isn't week.  Love is strong and endures.  Because we can't use force, you can not force Love, we must have the patience of St Monica.  Love is so strong hate breaks itself upon it.  Love makes us strong.

Focusing my life on Love

I believe I have been given a mission, but it is really the same mission of all Christians, to carry God's love out into the world.  To share that love with those who are near to me and those who are not.  I am called to start always from love in all I do.  There is a great well of Love that I draw from, that well is God.  It is deep and it is sweet.  That is the God I want to show the world.

This Love makes me strong.  I can resist all and endure all because of the Love of God.  He sends His Love to me The Holy Spirit who strengthens and guides me.  I don't know what God will ask me to do for Him and I know I may never see the results myself, I simply trust in Him.

When we fail to start from Love as Christians we fail to bring them God.  How can we expect them to act as if they have God already when we don't share Him with them?  Love them into goodness and trust God to change their hearts.

What does God want of me?

How do we know what God wants of us?  What does he want us to do?  How do we discover what it is He is calling us to do?  These are some really hard questions that I struggle with on a daily basis.  Am I doing God's will?

I know that none of us is called to simply sit by inactive or safe within our comfort zone.  God moves us and we so we will be called to move.  But motion for the sake of doing something isn't right either.  Discovering God's will in our life takes trust first of all.  If we don't trust in God we won't be open to what He wants of us.  Second we need to be people of prayer and meditation.  Ask God to do His will in our lives and to show us what He wills for us to do and the grace we need to do it.  Then we have to keep our eyes and ears open for the call.  He will send messages to us through others, through what we read, what we see, and it will convict us in our hearts.

The next step also involves trust.  he will ask us to do things we don't think we can do.  We might be afraid but we aren't doing this alone.  He is with us and working through us, so we dont need to be afraid.

Life in the Spirit

Since coming to believe in God my life has been transformed by His love.  I know that I am a loving and beloved child of God.  No one can change that.  I am worth loving.  I don't need a bigger house , more money, or a new car to be worth His love.

Struggling with Lent

This year I am struggling with Lent or at least with what I have chosen to do for Lent.  Maybe that's good, it shows I chose something I need to work on, my relationship with food.  This has been a long ongoing affair.  Sometimes I abandon my self to food, letting myself melt into its arms.  Other times I break up with my chosen addiction and shun it almost completely.  What I think I am learning is that food and I have to just be friends.  Friends that can enjoy each others company at times but we have to see other people.

What does that even look like?  I have no idea at this point but with Gods help I can make it.