Circle of Hope

We’re delighted to announce the arrival of our new Network summer intern, Heather Eisenberger, and to welcome her to our city and community!

She is joining us from now through mid-August, as part of the Brethren in Christ’s Summer Internship Program.  Heather, who hails from Lancaster county, has just completed her sophomore year at Messiah College, where she is studying Congregational Ministries. This summer, her work with us will be focused on compassionate service and outreach. As part of her mission, Heather will be living with Shalom House and participate in their day-to-day communal life. She will serve and partner with a variety of our mission teams and engage in the compassionate work they are doing throughout our neighborhoods.

So, when you see her out and about, go say ‘hello’ and give her a big, warm welcome!

Heather, we’re so thankful you’ve come to share your sweet spirit and partner with us in the work God is doing in this great city.  So, thank you, for spending your summer with us.

(Joel McIntosh writing)

There is a fig tree outside my window on my roof, sitting in a container I built, that I’ve been caring for now for a little over two years. Actually, it’s more of a bush right now, but it does bear fruit. In the past few weeks it’s started producing it’s first leaves and I love it. Like many other things around this time of year, it’s come alive again with almost perfect synchronicity to the Season of Easter. It’s caused me to think and draw some metaphors (just for the first time this year, for some reason) to the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, Matthew 21:18-22). This story has probably caused endless debate, and my own speculation has some theological holes in it, but observing the tree come back to life feels like some kind of curse has been broken or reversed. Personally, the winter this year definitely did seem like a curse to me, and so much pondering death and dying during Lent was additionally exhausting.

I was thankful the other night when someone in my cell reminded us that Resurrection is not something you can just understand from picking up and reading in a textbook. You have to experience it. You have to be part of the cycles of life and death that are all around us. Jesus incarnates new life through his resurrection this season, and to me the fig tree sitting on my roof is a reminder of it. I am intrigued by Ched Myers’ interpretation of the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree (found in his books “Say to this Mountain” and “Binding the Strong Man”). Ched says that in the Hebrew Bible, the fig tree was a symbol of peace, security, and prosperity in Israel. Jesus’ cursing the fig tree, who’s time had not yet come to bear fruit, becomes a symbol of judgement and lament of those who would not heed to the coming Kingdom of God. However, Jesus immediately follows this by an admonishment for faith that will move the powers of earth into the seas. What an incredible charge for change!

So, I start thinking of the times and season we’re in when I observe my fig tree. I also think about the projects and ambitions of the Urban Farm Team this year (which was supposed to be the focus of this blog and I somehow so far have just talked about Jesus cursing figs). I am excited about the opportunities that this team is providing to experience resurrection through compassionate service. The season is ripe for advocating for vacant land in North Philly to be put in community hands through a land trust. Abandoned land is being revitalized, old windows are being built into coldframes and greenhouses, biodegradable waste is being diverted to nutrient-rich compost piles, rooftop rainwater is being reclaimed for irrigation, and need I mention the hundreds of vegetable seed packs that Art Bucher salvaged and redistributed from the dumpster?. We’re participating in transformation, seeing dead (“cursed”) spaces in our urban landscape become healthy and even grow food. There are 3-4 projects in our Circle of Hope network now that are connected in the efforts of urban farming, and many in our community are taking up small food growing projects of their own in their homes. We’re offering friends and neighbors the chance to see and learn how this happens, dig around, get dirty and participate.

I hope by this point you want to get involved with us.  Here’s one way:  May 1st we planning a Network-wide Urban Farming Day from 11-5pm. Stay tuned for more information!

Here are a list of our lead people, you can contact, who are tending gardens in their neighborhoods:

Germantown: Amanda Staples- amandastapes@gmail.com

Kensington: Rachel Summerlot, thayloos@gmail.com

Camden: Rob Lairmore, rlairmore@gmail.com

South Philly: Art Bucher, artbucher@netzero.net

(Paul Kohl reporting)

The men retreated last weekend (4/9-4/11).  We retreated from the things that scare us, drive us, box us in and cover us over.  We sang, we prayed, and we spent time in the furnace of solitude.  We slept in bunks made for 14 year olds, we ate camp food, we endured teenagers on a zip line.  We made up our own song and sang it.  We got precious little sleep because some of us breath loudly when we sleep or we simple did not go to be until late.  We ran ourselves to exhausting on the basket ball court or the soccer field playing Frisbee or we learned a new board game.  We explore the limitlessness of God and how we can tap into that by creating art from what we found in nature.  We grew in trust by sharing intimate feelings and thoughts with one another.  We learned at the feet of wise men.  We gained access to the David as a boy, as a man, as a king, as an old wise man.  We built a fire and tended it as the High Priest we are and worshiped in truth and light.  We are learning to take our own internal fire seriously and to tend it as well.  We are definitely doing this again next year.