Archive for the 'Family' Category

the new kid and considering the other

Published
by
Joshua
on September 3, 2008
in Community, Dialogue, Family and Planning
. 0 Comments

I forget what it’s like to be the new kid.  I live in a neighborhood where I am pretty familiar, in a community where I practically grew up (got connected to Circle of Hope 11yrs ago this month!), I have a family, I have an office, and have a general sense of living in my own skin.

Today I began taking two classes at Temple, and I have a new yet strangely familiar sense of being the new kid.  Other students are rushing around anonymously.  Most people in my class seem to understand how to go and buy the book we need or ready a syllabus or the etiquette for finding a seat in class.  I don’t, really.  I forgot.  It’s been 10yrs since I was in college, and everything seems a little different. One of my profs (yeah, I call them “profs” now) said something to the class this morning about “eh, you all are upper classmen and know how this stuff works…”.  Not really.

I’m grateful for how much effort we as a church put into considering the “other”.  At the Public Meetings we try to speak in ways that the next person coming off the street can understand and connect with.  We acknowledge that people even at this meeting might be from a different background than us-class, ethnicity, age, and even faith journey.  The “empty chair” at our cell meetings that we keep is to make room for the next person.  We worship in styles and languages not necessarily familliar to all of us…it keeps us considering the other.   We want all to be welcome without implying “you’re welcome if your just like me.”

Thanks for thinking about the other and considering those who may feel like the new kid around Circle of Hope right now.

Around the Corner from 40

Published
by
Liz Einsig Wise
on August 25, 2008
in Dialogue, Family and Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Turning 40 is around the corner for me in the coming year. I’ve never been one to lament the “big birthdays” (My 30th was a big party involving a grill, a DJ, and a giant Twister board - some of you were there!), but this one is giving me pause. It feels like I am coming around a bend in the trail, and I’ve found an awesome but unexpected rock outcropping where I can see both the path I’ve just hiked and the path extending ahead. I am a little surprised at how far I’ve already come and how much is behind me. I want to linger a bit right here.

Even with the “protective layer” of my parents’ generation, I am grasping my own mortality in a way I didn’t get it before. At the family reunion, my uncle said, “I am the oldest of the Swartzes!” and I realize I’m not so far behind. I see the ripples of the choices that my parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents made playing out, passing through the generations in a way you can only notice with the perspective of time - especially choices about their marriage partners, finances, vocations, and ways of serving God. I realize now that my own choices have the same import. My own father died young at 40, but I realize now that as young as he was, he still left a legacy of faith and love for his family. As well, I am grappling with a caregiver role for my mother, and this is a constant lesson in trusting God that she will have enough - money, health, support - over the next however many years, and believing that, novice that I am, I can actually be an instrument of God’s care in the situation.

Yet some (I hope many) chapters of my life remain unwritten. Looking at 40, I still struggle with God about who is holding the pen of my life. But a new, almost involuntary prayer has begun to emerge for me that I find myself repeating without even knowing it. It’s not very eloquent, and usually it comes out like, “OK, God, use me. Please do what you want in this situation!” This is not easy for me, and I fight it. But I’m trying to yield more and more control, and I think I am starting to glimpse a wider view than I’ve ever been able to see from my path before.

Parenting As A Village

Published
by
Rod White
on August 20, 2008
in Community, Dialogue and Family
. 0 Comments

This isn’t a word to parents, only. But that is where it focuses.

For parents the word is: Parenting should not be done alone.
For all of us it is: life (and life in Christ, in particular) is hard and we need each other.

Bible teaching about this:
John in 1 John: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who does not love remains in death…. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in them? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (2:14,16-19, edited for inclusion)

Interpretation for the subject at hand:
1. Loving our new family in Christ is a sign that we are alive in Christ. There is no life outside the new community centered on Jesus. The central command to each member of this new family is to love each other in the same manner Jesus loved you.
2. John says we should apply this truth by sharing material needs. I am saying that we should apply it by sharing in the parenting of children and, what’s more, by sharing in the ongoing development we all are undergoing that was (of course) not completed by our birth parents.
3. John is talking about sharing something one has with one who needs it. Some of us are obviously gifted to attend to children and those people have built some vibrant community among Circle of Hope parents. Some of us may have less of that. But I would say the vast majority of us have enough maturity in Christ to have some basic human parental instincts activated, whether we are 18 or 48. We should care for young people as a village and we should care for the needy child in each other, too.

Marilyn Heins (common sense parenting author) says: “We need to change some of our attitudes. Right now most of us feel that it is wrong to interfere when we see bad parenting because we revere individuality and respect the rights of the family. But we have to find ways to help each other. Helping neighbors used to be the American way. We need to invent the equivalent of a barn-raising when a neighboring family is in trouble.”

I think a lot of us have the aversion Dr. Heins is talking about. We don’t go far enough to really help each other parent because we are protecting the parent’s rights and relying on their personal responsibility. For instance, when a child seems out of control to us at the PM, we are very hesitant to help the parent do their work. When a safari jeep drives up to a herd of elephants, the mother elephants circle their young. We could at least do that. Instead, we defer to the parent (even if they are out of ear shot).

An overwhelmed single parent might show up with rambunctious kids in tow, looking for something. We’d likely to be very nice to them and even empathetic. But when it came to helping them with their six year old bouncing off the walls, we’d be very cautious, like we’d be accused of child abuse if we had a relationship with the child. By the time we got over our fear, the kid would have grown up and grown up outside a Christian village. And as a result, they would have been taught individualism by the adults who protected that concept at the cost of love.

I’m throwing out more points than I am fully exploring, I know. But I hope they cause us to take a look at just how often we are willing to leave each other by the side of the road, needy and even hurting because we don’t think we have the right to be involved. Some of us are pushy, but most of us are just afraid of possibly being considered pushy. Some of us violate boundaries too much, but most of us are lounging behind boundaries to love, feeling like what is happening to our brothers and sisters is none of our business.

I think John tells us that loving our brothers and sisters, and their children IS our business. If we don’t lay down our lives for each other, we are not even alive. Parents and children living in the megalopolis need each other and they need the whole community to care about what they are doing. They have the main role to raise their children, they get to do it the way they do it, but they can’t and shouldn’t do it alone.

It Takes a Village

Published
by
Rebekah
on July 3, 2008
in Community, Dialogue, Family and Partnerships
. 3 Comments

(by Rebekah, not Hillary Clinton)

So, I did a little experiment, and I found out why it takes two people to make a baby. It’s because you need at least two people to raise that kid, while managing the rest of your life! God bless those progressive thinkers who think they can do it alone, because I most certainly need you all, my village.

For those of you who don’t know, I am a single mother of a gorgeous 4-year-old girl named Eden. My pregnancy resulted from a casual relationship that wasn’t worth continuing when posed with the question of becoming more serious.

Luckily, at the same time (i.e. double life), I had been building real, healthy relationships with folks connected to Circle of Hope, and it’s those relationships that have seen Eden and me through. For instance, when I first told my friends at Circle about my pregnancy, they threw a party for me, and solidified their commitment of support. This was exactly the help and acceptance I needed to feel at a time when I was so scared and ashamed. Then, a group of other moms came together and provided me with a patchwork of childcare, so that I could work full-time for two years! For those of you who don’t know, full-time daycare can cost at least $600 to $900 per month. These women saved me money I didn’t have, and, more importantly, provided the peace of mind that Eden was in a safe, nurturing environment. Now, another group of friends rotates to watch Eden, so that I can attend cell group one night per week. I’m also grateful to have my blood-related family close by.

Mind you, I’m one of those people who likes to do life on her own, and not accept help, no matter how much sense it makes. I like to talk through issues with friends, but I like to resolve them myself. When initially discussing my single parenting with my mother, she warned me that one of my biggest obstacles would be that I would have to ask for and receive help. Surely, my mother knows me well, and I am on a growth journey of seeking out and taking extended hands.

All this to say, I wouldn’t necessarily advocate single parenthood, but having many of you as helpers, planners, observable subjects, affirmers, and grace-givers, makes the parenting feel a lot less single. This village we’ve created in Circle of Hope has been essential to Eden’s and my development…and sanity!

punk rock happiness

Published
by
Joshua
on June 26, 2008
in Dialogue, Family and Friends Projects
. 2 Comments

Andrea and Kelly are really inspiring to me. I prefer in person, but also through the award-winning blog Punk Rock Mommy. These two friends have a special parking space in my heart. I love that hanging with them, I always know that they are going to listen as much as they are able. They are definitely going to shoot me straight with what they think, even if I don’t want to hear it. The special thing is, I can hear the truth from them because they speak it in love.

The truth for me right now is, I am not going to be able to have too many more of those truth-in-love moments with one of my friends. She’s been living with Inflammatory Breast Cancer for the past year and change, and the experts think that it’s about time her body got a break. I’m soaking her in while I can, though, and I’m grateful to know and love Kelly and the rest of the family.

I’m glad that I wrote down nuggets of wisdom that Andrea has says, often in passing when we get together to pray or eat tacos. Most of them are pretty funny, some just plain old profound. One thing she told me the other day was that she has spent the past year laughing. I’d say not laughing because everything is silly, as a defense mechanism, immaturity, or lack of understanding the gravity of her situation.

We laugh together, because it’s like she says…”happiness doesn’t come from us getting what we want, it comes from God working in us.”

Work on, God.

conducive to a delicate constitution

Published
by
Steve Hoke
on June 5, 2008
in Community, Dialogue and Family
. 3 Comments

My wife is beautifully pregnant. For the past 29 weeks I’ve been reading books, talking with wise friends, attending birth classes, and talking with my wife. Through all of the discussion and reading, one thing has risen to the top of the list; I need to be tender with my wife. I need to create for her a sense of safety, encourage her, make sure her voice is being heard, and love her. If you find yourself with a pregnant lady and don’t have the time to read all the books, I just outlined most of them for you.

The first time reading that I need to be tender I thought to myself, “Well, sure, I do that already.” However I kept reading it in the books, then friends said it to me, and the very educated birth lesson lady told me the same thing. Apparently I needed to hear it. I have decided that we all need to hear it: be tender to each other. If you are walking with someone who is carrying another life inside her its pretty easy: be tender. But even if it’s your housemate, guy that sits next to you at work, burly bald man at public meetings, new person in your cell group: be tender. They need it. So do you.

Being overly conscious of my pregnant partner’s changes has helped me learn about her needs, it’s also opened a window to other people’s needs. I’m not as tender as I like to think, but I am talking steps to improve. It takes practice and intentionality. Once more: be tender.

responding to God

Published
by
Joshua
on May 30, 2008
in Action, Community, Dialogue, Family, Peace and Resources
. 2 Comments

‘ve been trying to keep up with my daily dose of Brennan Manning since my friend Kim gave me a copy of The Ragamuffin Gospel:  Good News for the Bedraggled, Burnt Out, and Beat Up.
Today I read an insight of his that casts some light on what I think a lot of us are working through this season:  trying to do enough, or the other side-feeling bad about not trying enough.

“American spirituality still seems to start with self, not with God.  Personal responsibility replaces personal response…The emphasis is always on what I do rather than on what God is doing in my life.  In this macho approach God is reduced to a benign old spectator on the sidelines…We become convinced that we can do a pretty good job of following Jesus if we just, once and for all, make up our minds and really buckle down to do it.”

How freeing it is, indeed, to not put off letting Jesus work until we have it all put together.  I can think of a million reasons why I’m not firing on all cylinders right now-and if I can only___________ than I’ll get right with Jesus.

We can almost instinctively talk about our debt, having small kids, not kicking our bad habits, our living situation, our poor diet, or lack of exercise as if they are God’s major barriers-not just our struggles or limitations.  Let’s own the limitations as ours (not God’s), and let our redemption come from Christ (not us).

Jesus works beyond circumstance.  If you’re having a hard time right now, that’s okay.  We all do, we’re not there yet.  Rather than overly dwelling on limitations we can own them/admit them, let Jesus in, and follow him on to new life.

I think Christ has a lot to say about it beyond our circumstance/need/limitations/sin/brokenness/struggle.  How are you responding to what Jesus is doing  in you?  How are you responding to what Jesus is doing in your cell?  How are we responding to what Jesus is doing in theWhat is Jesus trying to do in you?  What is Jesus doing in your cell?  What is Jesus going to do in the megalopolis?

There’s no substitute for being in love

Published
by
Joshua
on May 2, 2008
in Action, Community, Dialogue and Family
. 2 Comments

I’m grateful for my cell. They are people full of opinions and questions, they listen and they share as we live trying to be together, following Jesus on mission.

Yesterday was the National Day of Prayer, and something subtle-seeming set me off. The theme for the day was “Prayer! America’s strength and shield”. It sounds vaguely Christian, right? You might even think that it’s basically what the King David wrote in Psalm 28 (the theme verse) “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.”

Big difference between the theme and the theme verse, I noticed. The LORD was substituted with the word prayer.

This got me thinking, what else do we substitute for God? Could it be that we even use good things that we do to try to fill parking spaces reserved for God?

It’s easy for us to trade justification for being in love (with Christ). We’ll use all kinds of other things: substances, affirmation from people, success at our job, comfort, sense of safety…we also will substitute a sense of justification where we feel good enough about ourselves (or bad enough) to not need to be in love.

When we are in love with Jesus, we are justified, life is full of color, and the closeness we have is so sweet that there is no substitute. My hope is that we would live as lovers of Jesus who would be excited to develop that closeness and celebrate the transformation that comes with it in us and in the world.

Identity: Who Are You?

Published
by
Joshua
on March 1, 2008
in Community, Creative Arts, Dialogue and Family
. 1 Comment

My cell took a field trip this week, and it got me thinking about identity. Vicki is a 5th grade teacher at Grover Cleveland Elementary School at 19th & Erie Ave, and she helped organize a celebration of Black History Month called “Identity: Who Are You?”.

It was pretty amazing, full of great moments in kids performing songs, dances, readings, and skits. There were lots of meaningful readings mixed in, even a singing of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (not quite as good as this Kim Weston version)-which was quite moving for me to hear children singing out “We have come over a way that with tears have been watered/We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered”…man. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it. We have a long way to go, but we sure have been on the journey a while.

The question was repeated several times in different contexts- “who are you?” I’m grateful for the students and teachers of Cleveland Elementary to be so boldly asking and the students for offering such brilliant responses.

Who are you? Who do you identify with? What do you identify as? Is it your occupation? Your role in your family? Your relationship status? Your ethnic group? The brand of clothes you wear? The sports that you’re good at? In some comparison to others?

I don’t always know how to answer that question well. Even as I’m sorting through who I am, I find peace Jesus’ words in John 15. I want to find who I am not just living in Christ, but Christ living in me. I want to find who I am through us living in Christ, and Christ living in us.

Through lifting our hearts,
Through lifting our songs we learn
A new way to hear

Rejuvenation

Published
by
Jenna Avellino
on January 25, 2008
in Community, Dialogue and Family
. 6 Comments

With the start of the new year, I like to look back at my accomplishments and make goals for myself for the coming year. Looking back at 2007, I realized that in the past year I have been completely rejuvenated by new relationships. Connecting with other people and learning to share my life with new friends built my confidence and made me feel like I have something to offer and I can receive what God has to offer me.

This time last winter I was in a bad place. I had quit my full time job to try and start my own business, but didn’t know what I was doing. Working from home seemed like such a great idea until I realized that it meant me sitting in my house all winter by myself talking to my cat and feeling guilty because I couldn’t figure out how to get any work done. I was lonely and frustrated. I had a few friends that I hung out with every once in a while and my cell was not growing. My slow break out of my own self pity came simply from getting out of my house and meeting new people.

I was lucky enough to land an awesome job at Circle Thrift a few mornings a week, which made me feel like I had some purpose and got me to socialize a bit. My cell also had a growth spurt and I started building friendships with my new cell members. By the summer, my cell was thriving and talking about multiplication and I was feeling more confident that people actually wanted to hang out with me and I had good things to offer. My new found confidence also helped my business and I started getting myself out there and selling more of my work. I felt like a part of something bigger. It was something I couldn’t feel alone in my house. I was a part of this larger community, sharing my life and learning from my friends.

Looking back at the past year, the biggest thing I have learned is that I need community. I love people. I love getting to know people and hearing their stories. I think I finally understand what it means to truly share my life and my experience and how life giving that is. I learned how to see God through my friendships and see God working in the lives of the people around me. Taking the steps to get up and out of my loneliness was the best thing I could have done for myself and I thank God that I was in the midst of these wonderful people who made me feel safe and loved. Thank you, friends.