“Scooby Doo Mother…!”

“What about the homeless? What about the sick? What about individuals in Africa?

Does God still love them?”The question isn’t about God. The question is about us.

-Gary Morgan,
Pastor Mosaic Church Nashville

We sat together on the vents outside the Nashville Predators hockey stadium. It was a group five men. Some were black, some were white, some were addicts and some had mental disabilities—all were homeless.

I had passed the group a couple weeks before, commenting on my sadness for the men to my friend Michelle, but quickly continued on with my life.

My friend Michelle didn’t. She returned, brought them food and listened to their stories.

It was Michelle’s idea to return again on a recent Sunday night. She wanted to see Glenn, a sweet man, who cried frequently in his wheelchair. She told me McDonald’s was having a special on double cheeseburgers and asked me to come along.

I followed.

Scooby caught my eye. His hands shook when he spoke and he had a raw crassness to him that was appealing. While we talked he chugged cheap canned beer, told me I should be “tapping that” (Michelle) and wondered if there were dead bodies in the vents below us. He also yelled without warning things like “Scooby Do Mother F-er!”.

His friend said he was embarrassed because Scooby swore in front of guests. But I kind of liked it. I could tell Scooby wasn’t trying to impress me.

Midway through our conversation, Scooby asked me if I had attended church that day.

Surprised by the question, I said no. I had worked instead.

Scooby then said, “When you share what you have you are the Church. So right now we are at church.”

May we live as the Church,
Kent

Escape

The radio buzzed incoherently as the wheels blistered against the parking lot pavement. We had no plan. Nowhere to go. Accept somewhere else. We had to leave. We were running, ducking, dodging… escaping the wonderful place we too often feel blessed to call work.

The night had a Nashville chill. There was no epic snow nor ice. But you could see your breath. It was the kind of air that makes your lungs feel heavy, always struggling to breath, like swimming the breaststroke or making out in a car.

We turned the heater on to fight with the cold. It hummed to a drumming double-bass-peddle beat of musical exhaustion. The air smelled burnt and tasted old. But it was sweet. Like black marshmallows on the Fourth of July.
…

A year ago Eric and I volunteered at a rescue mission in Birmingham, Alabama. Everyday we hung out with the homeless. We made breakfast for them, sorted clothes with them and took communion beside them. But more than anything we listened. It was exhausting.

At the end of the day I would want to getaway. I did not know how to process their struggles. John told me his wife and kids died in a car crash, Tyler said he went bankrupt after a bad business move and Jim said he started smokin’ crack at age 14. Nearly all of them took drugs, hated the Man and loved Jesus. I related with one of the three. None of them had a fair shot.

At 3:30 Eric and I would escape. When our shoulders were heaviest and our minds most confused, we left.

A mile or two down the road there was a coffee shop. Few of our homeless friends knew about it and those that did only loitered outside. We hid inside, upstairs, towards the back, and released our frustration, together, between the sweet smell of roasted Moroccan beans and fresh inked newspapers.
…

Michelle, Audra and I too drove to a coffee shop.

It had been a long night. Typical inner-city, Myspace, gangster drama. We left and drove fast.

But we couldn’t move fast enough. The light fumbled yellow to red and we stopped.

I think there are certain moments in life you are just bound to remember: seconds, minutes, eternities. Like the first time you drive, hear your parents argue or kiss a girl. This was another first. It was the first time I felt someone else’s pain without hearing their story or even their voice.

Five men sat on the curve–squatting under a heat exhaust vent. They were huddled together, half smiling, half drunk, but most clearly frozen. They had nowhere to go. It was a black painting, the world of the loveless, as viewed through the passing window of the have-lots.

The vent was their only escape.

Michelle was silent. I knew what she was thinking. I mumbled something about it being a cold night and she said it broke her heart. Audra agreed. I wondered about the one on the end–the outsider. I said he would be the one I would think about. I wanted to hear his story.

Later that night Michelle told me she couldn’t stop thinking about the five guys. She said it would keep her up at night. She told me she wanted to go back, listen and touch them on the arm or shoulder.

Michelle said she often embraces individuals at the medical clinic where she volunteers through touch. She believes it might be the single most healing action she can provide. She said many of the people she sees go days, weeks, years without feeling the loving touch of another. She tries to show them grace. She said she touches their arm or shoulder because she believes that is what Jesus would do.
…

The next day I thought, hoped and even prayed for the five guys.

Michelle went back.

She brought blankets, listened to their stories and placed her loving hand on their shoulders.

She told me Jesse was the one on the outside. The other guys call him Jesse James. He is a cowboy of sorts–always look for an adventure: somewhere new to escape to.
…

For the last week I have been wondering where the homeless escape. It has made me wonder if escaping is not so much about a place or even a moment, but the company of others.

Maybe instead of thinking about escaping to the Bahamas, a coffee shop or even one’s church, what one really needs is a friend who listens, a colleague who cares or the loving touch of a stranger.

May we all escape this day,
Kent

Last Week

I went to court on Friday.

I was there to help represent Rocketown. Two of our skater kids had spent the summer playing musical homes. Their parents were in rehab. We met with the court to assess whether the boys were fit to return home.

….

TJ stormed into the office on Thursday yelling.

He said he was through with the rhyme lab. He didn’t want any restrictions when he rapped. He told me it was unfair to his story. His home was not cheery. His neighborhood was not safe. TJ did not want to spin positive rhymes. He said it did not portray the shit he had been through.

…

Did you and Alex used to be close?” I asked surprised as Michael’s MySpace page came up. The page was labeled “In memory of Alex.” Alex was a former Rocketown kid who had passed away last year.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “We used to be best friends. We would skate and shoot photography together. At his funeral his dad said my name. He only named five kids.”

…

Jimmy had a MySpace message left on his page. It didn’t say who it was from but Jimmy thought it was from his father. He hadn’t seen his dad since he was 7.

The message talked about what a horrible kid Jimmy was. It said he was a liar just like his mother. It said what goes around comes around. And it ended with “You need Jesus you low life piece of shit.”

…

“So what’s going on?” I asked surprised to see Michelle with her mom. Michelle was a somewhat new face to Rocketown. She had started coming after she ran away from home.

“A lot of new things have been happening,” she responded half-smiling.

Big stuff?” I wondered out loud.

“Well, yeah!” her smile got bigger. “I just found out I am pregnant.

Michelle is 18 and still in high school.

…

“I just want to live a life where I do good,” Jeremy said with a soft sincerity making it hard to tell whether he making a statement or asking a question. “And I believe all good things come from God. Is that such a bad thought?”

He asked this question because the church he went to said it was.

…

Coming back from a coffee shop I asked Mary Virginia if she knew kids’ home lives were so crappy when she was growing up.

She said no. I agreed.

…

Tomorrow is my day off. I think I am going to sleep in.

Ben & Jerry’s, Fat People and Cogitive Dissonance

I ate Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tonight as I watched The Biggest Loser on TV.

With each bite I felt guilty.

I listened as each contestant described his or her life as a walking buffet line—wandering aimlessly day-after-day with plate, fork and knife in hand, constantly eating their way into grotesqueness.  My heart was tearful.  My eyes were disgusted.  Yet I couldn’t stop watching.  It was a beautiful train wreck of the obese.  And I cheered them on to skinniness one spoonful at a time.

I don’t know if you have tried Ben and Jerry’s Cinnamon Role Ice Cream but it is addictively blissful.  Think heaven in a recyclable paper cup.  Taste caramel swirls, cinnabon chunks and sugary sweet vanilla.  Dream of ice cream for breakfast at only 13 fat grams per serving.

I couldn’t stop.  I didn’t want to stop.  My eyes were glued to the television and my hand moved uniformly pint-to-mouth… pint-to-mouth.
…

I don’t make a lot of money.

Really, that is an exaggeration.  The other day the local paper did a breakdown on home mortgages for low-income individuals.  My salary did not even make the chart.  It was too low.

Yet I have an apartment.  A really nice apartment. And I can go to the grocery store and buy nearly anything I want: organic salad, aged cheese, Ben and Jerry Cinnamon Role Ice Cream.

But I still walk swiftly past have-nots:  the dumpster diving hungry, the vulgar swearing homeless and the hand extended forgotten.

I ignore, deny, smile and say I am sorry.   And then I pray for them at night.  I say I love the homeless but my actions say otherwise.
…

In college we used to talk about cognitive dissonance.  It said one side always wins.  The theory stated it is impossible to believe one way yet consistently choose another.  Sooner or later you either kick the habit or believe what you are doing is right.
…
I spoke with my friend Ben on Saturday.  We talked about the beautiful struggle to not just speak a faith but to live it; to not just recite love but to give it.
…
I turned the TV off midway through the show and then I put away the ice cream.  I solved my dilemma by not choosing either.  I avoided it all together.

But I know I will see a group of homeless men on my walk home. And I will probably see even more going into work tomorrow.  The question is which side of the road will I choose to walk on.  There is no avoiding their humanness.  There is only the question of mine.

May our prayers reflect our actions,
Kent

Boo-Yah!

People often asked me why I was studying PR if I knew I was going to enter ministry.

This is why!

So fresh and so clean, clean,

Kent