As I was walking around the block this morning, enjoying silence and trying to appreciate the antithesis of the exciting urban environment I ventured about just twenty-four hours ago, in Cincinnati, before returning to a land of huge manicured lawns, four car garages and electric dog fences, I realized that the background of all of my strange thoughts was the song "How He Loves Us." In fact, I find those words coming to me at the most random moments these days. "He is jealous for me...loves like a hurricane, I am the tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy..." And the lyrics drift through my flesh, my soul, my heart and penetrate the desperate parts of me that question His love... the parts of my that aren't afraid to lay it out to Jesus, to drop the f-bomb while screaming, "Why is this life so *%$#-ing hard?"
We had the crazy privelege of being a part of two communities this past weekend. One is on the outskirts of Cincinnati in a pretty rough neighborhood. They meet in an old Catholic Church and it's beautiful in all of its undressed glory. One of the crosses on the top of the building has fallen apart and there was something about this when we first pulled up that made me know that this was just the place for me. The stained glass was old and beautiful and made me long to be back in Italy...in Florence.
The pastor is in his late fifties I'm guessing...and was wearing a pink shirt...and sounded like a former California surfer. He was simple in the way that I like simple. And he interacted with the community as he spoke. The group was small and I'm sure would be looked upon as a failing community by many large churches... but what I saw in the misfit bunch was life, passion, and a pursuance of true Kingdom living.
I found out later that this community was birthed when three families intentionally moved to Norwood, a desolate and seemingly condemned neighborhood. They constantly met to pray and did a prayer walk and asked God for a large piece of property owned by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It was all but given to them for pennies compared to its worth. And they all lived in one house for months until they began buying more properties on the block. I was told they even had a shared purse.
The "church" is comprised of a network of house churches and a gathering in the aforementioned building once a month. They have a coffee shop across from the deteriorating church building where people can meet to do art together, pray together, knit together and so on. And people are pretty open that it's not easy living within a few feet of one another, but the value of friendship, love and accountability outweighs any of it. At one point, as I was sitting outside the building, watching my kids chase each other, an overweight, toothless white man walked up. My senses were heightened as, having lived in Chicago, home of scam artists, I awaited the outcome of our dear friend Laura's interaction with him. She is an Occupational Therapist and works with psych patients and so I figured this was right up her alley.
But what I heard come out of his mouth didn't match his appearance. He opened up to her, sharing that he drank too much the night before. He said he's been trying to get it together and even had a job. Laura encouraged this component and the conversation ensued. He never asked for money, hit on her, or insinuated a self-centered reason for approaching her.
I later found out that he is a part of their home church. This man, familiar with addiction and so willing to admit his faults, is in community. I was challenged by him...by his willingness to be vulnerable. And I was floored at the compassionate and kind response of Laura. She sees value in every human, despite what label modern-day Psychologists have placed on him or her.
Later that evening, after having the privelege of sharing with Laura's home church what we are doing in Italy, we gathered our bags and our tired kids and travelled further into the city, to a neighborhood called "Over the Rhine." I knew we would love it, for our favorite band named themselves after this very district.
Ironically though, the neighborhood is not something off of a CD cover. Its borders house drug deals, abuse, addictions and seemingly orphaned children. One walk to the park had me near tears as I watched two older siblings, responsible for their three year-old brothers, forcing these "babies" to fight. One of the little guys didn't want to fight. I could see he was a peace-maker. His eyes welled up as his brother shouted in his ear, "Hit him back." My heart was breaking. And I wanted to grab him and bring him to safety... but I felt hopeless. Because right next to this scene was another...and another like it. I knew at that moment that the urban nastalgia of a neighborhood with a cool name like "Over the Rhine" wouldn't last a day if it weren't for people heeding God's call in their lives that He wanted them there for such a time as this.
They say Cincinnati has the most amount of racially segregated neighborhoods in the country. And I felt it as we walked through a few different communities. At one point, in broad daylight mind you (meaning that mom, if you are reading this, no need to freak out), a man started following Liz and I, along with our kids. He talked and talked, opening up the conversation on a heavy note: "I just got out of prison..."
I didn't know what to say as I was just waiting for him to get to his line that usually goes something like "I went to Harvard. I just fell on hard times. I almost got drafted for the NBA and I know Michael Jordan.... Hey, can I ask you a question? I am wanting to get to Chicago for a job conference and I don't have money for the train... it's fifty bucks to get there...."
Can you sense I'm a little jaded? I would like to say I have been ignorant or patient enough to hear them all... but just when I say that, I find myself sucked into someone's story and handing them a couple of bucks.
So anyway...the guy never got to that part. And I don't really think he was heading there. I mean, you don't normally start off asking for money by mentioning your bail. Just when I was getting nervous, he found some "friends" and stopped to chat. I had the feeling though that he wasn't going to go past "his" block. That is the feel of the city. People know their "place" and stay there.
And yet, that evening, during a house concert at Liz and John's house, serenely nestled and juxtaposed in the ghetto of sorts, after listening to Liz sing these amazing poetic and heart-entrancing songs, we met some other couples who were also living in the neighborhood. These couples all had something way beyond themselves living just beneath their smiles. They all had moved to this area, very intentionally, and like us in terms of Torino, pictured a garden in the desert. One woman, after I had shared about my park experience, said, "I can't make a difference with all of them. But I can love on one."
Ahhhh. Hope alas.
I left Cincinnati with gut-filled peace, the kind you can't fake or forge...the kind that is only found when I'm surrounded by people who are living out community and usher me in, not because of what I do but because of the same Spirit we have within. It was love in its raw and freeing form, like the ocean at sunrise. Like a child dancing. Like Laura's compassion...Liz's voice.
Still, the words from "How He Loves" are drifting through my being. I have so many questions...so many worries and obsessions and lalalala... but those words, like the feeling I drove out of Cincinnati with just last night, wash my insides...and "I don't have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about the way....
"He loves us.... Oh how he loves us. How he loves us so...."
