Creative Eastown

Two things have conspired to prompt this post. First, I just finished re-reading "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott, in an attempt to inspire some writing this year. Get over the fear of bad writing by knowing that bad writing has to come to get to the good writing. Second, I just heard a short presentation on some of Grand Rapids' interesting neighborhoods, and I overheard a remark that "Eastown is sometimes compared to something like the East Village for Grand Rapids." This struck me as funny, but it also reminded me of this short writing project I did last spring. One of my student staff members at Calvin presented a short exercise for new staff members to get familiar with each other by spending 5 minutes writing, with no preparation, about a place from their lives that holds some importance. I decided to join the exercise, and I wrote about Eastown. This is what I wrote, as uncut as I can make myself leave it.

"Eastown is the place where I feel most like I'm in Grand Rapids. My memories of this place go back to about 1984, when I began mentoring my "little brother," Tierre Rogers. Our first meeting was at the McDonald's just west of Fuller, on Wealthy, one of the only McDonalds to ever close a few years later. Ironic that it was a McDonalds that first drew me to this neighborhood, since the real appeal has ever since been the many locally-owned businesses. My other memories of Eastown include bowling at the old bowling alley behind "Just Breakfast" which is now Wolfgangs, seeing the "Return of the Jedi" at the old Eastown Theater, which is now the Uptown Church, meeting friends at Just Breakfast, ice cream at the old Baskin Robbins, which is now the Chinese Restaurant, and of course many many trips to Yesterdog's over the years with friends, my wife, our kids, and even this week, with visitors from Mexico. The smells, sounds, rituals, taste, and general feel of Yesterdog's are a wild combination of about 30 years of memories, ranging from high school craziness to recent recent recent experiences bringing my kids there for birthdays and other occasions - our photos on the wall from the early 1990s become more and more interesting as time goes by. My other memories include running through Eastown on my morning runs, having my UM diploma framed at the Eastown Gallery, eating at the Pita House with SLC staffs, eating at Don Rafavs for Mexican in recent years, beginning new traditions at Brandywine, and taxes..."

Then I ran out of time.

Earth-careful hope

I recently finished reading Lionel Basney's little book, An Earth-Careful Way of Life: Christian Stewardship and the Environmental Crisis, and I moved immediately to N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I love how the two connect. Wright's reason for writing Surprised by Hope is to counter ages-old misconceptions about what kind of a "place" heaven is. With a host of other observers, Wright observes that the less your idea of heaven connects with earth, the less you are likely to care for the earth. Why bother, if its all going to burn, and besides, what really matters are our spirits, right? Wrong, and shockingly so.

Basney offers a hopeful little commentary on the relationship between nature and culture that defies easy categorization. He covers a lot of important ground, explaining why our connection to the earth, not vaguely but in actually touching dirt in the growing of productive gardens, enables us to a fuller humanness. He has all kinds of potential to sound off prophetically about the wasteful ways most American Christians consume in blissful and self-centered ignorance. But for the most part, he contains his cynicism and stays hopeful. Hopeful for a world that turns upside down, mostly through local communities and their growing connections to earth. He also avoids any hint of pantheistic earth-worship that worries many Christians about their friends who are "into the environment."

Wright’s contribution to the conversation is primarily in reminding us that the weight of scripture points to a future in which earth and heaven are reunited. He spends quite a bit of energy countering the popular notion that heaven consists of an existence that is ethereal, or non-material, drawing on C.S. Lewis’s description of heaven as a place where our bodies are actually “more solid, more real” than they were on earth. Again, if this is so, and if this earth will be transformed rather than burned up, then Basney is right to encourage us to get to work on this transformation of the earth.

If you’ve paid attention to some of the work that Calvin students and faculty have been up to over the past few years, you will recognize in these projects (rain gardens, native plantings, invasive species reduction efforts, LEED certification programs, and re-forestation projects to name a few) you will recognize the influence of contemporary prophets like Lionel Basney and N.T. Wright.

A visit from the Chimals

Earlier this month our family had the unique privilege of hosting friends from Mexico, Reverend Andres Chimal and his wife Maria de la Luz Gonzalez (aka Paty Chimal) at our house during their first visit to the United States. The Chimals were our hosts for 6 months during the summer and fall of 1993, back when we were young, childless, and much more mobile. They were phenomenal hosts, turning their dining room into a bedroom for us for half a year, and patiently teaching us many many things, including how to really speak Spanish, and what Mexican food really tastes like. We have since made two trips to visit them with our children, in spring 2005, and winter 2007.

Fittingly enough, they arrived on Cinco de Mayo, and we promptly introduced them to Dutch Tulip Time festivities in Holland, Michigan nearby. The privilege for us was in seeing our lives, their joys, frustrations, opportunities and temptations, through new eyes. From the overwhelming abundance of opportunities to obtain more stuff, to the rapidly changing spring weather patterns, to the relatively very quiet urban neighborhood in which we live, the absence of any walls around any homes, and our inability to introduce any uniquely American food (with the exception of mom's good old fashioned beef-roast, mashed potatoes and green beans on Sunday...), we found ourselves ranging in emotion from gratitude to shame and back to surprise.

Maundy Thursday 2008

Today is the day to remember Jesus' washing his disciples' feet.  This night he proclaimed peace, and a new commandment - to love one another.  Coming this year the first day into the sixth year of a tragic war, and amid all kinds of other signs of unfaithfulness on the part of God's people, this day, this reminder, is a good gift.  The rhythm of Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter brings appropriate opportunity for reflection, repentance, lament, waiting, and finally, joy unspeakable.  So many conversations, even today, have reflected the deep longing for the One who will finally bring Shalom - Come, Lord Jesus.

three-tiered wonder

So I don't know quite how to describe it, except that it was one of those, "I'm not worthy" moments. We were riding our bikes, from the Jenny Lake campground to the Visitor Center, inside Grand Tetons National Park. Over my shoulder flew a beautiful butterfly, a Western Tiger Swallowtail as it turns out. I was immediately struck by the layers of beauty in front of me - first the butterfly, then my 8-year old daughter Abbie, and beyond her, the grand vista of the Teton range beyond the crystal blue water of Jenny Lake. I wondered then, and many times during our three-week trip in the west, about the beauty evident in the world, and the many ways in which it is revealed to me.

From vast lunar landscapes in the Badlands, to boiling hot crystal clear geysers in Yellowstone, to the arid red-rock of Arches, the multi-hued hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, out-of-place orchards in the water-pocket fold that is Capitol Reef, towering cliffs named for the Biblical Patriarchs in Zion, the breadth and depth of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley's strange collection of reddish stone monoliths, Mesa Verde's remnants of the Anasazi cultures in the cliff dwellings, Ouray's natural hot springs, and Rocky Mountain National Park's 12,000+ foot highway in the clouds - our family saw, heard, smelled, tasted and touched the beauty of the American west this summer.

Learning from the Amish

I spent the weekend in Amish country, in Newburg, Pennsylvania. Our family has spent quite a few of the past 10 Mother's Day weekends gathering here on the land where my wife's maternal ancestors have lived for the past century or so. Each year on the Saturday before Mother's Day the local Christian school operated by the Amish community organizes a large auction - selling everything from new and used farm and garden tools to beautiful flowering baskets and herbs, to horses, buggies, homemade food like doughnuts, ice cream, soft pretzels, mouth-watering seasoned barbequed chicken, and culminating in a hundred or so hand-crafted quilts and other art.

So after a day of sharing space, buying stuff, farm and country smells, delicious food and craftsmanship ranging from quilting to auctioneering, alongside perhaps 600 Amish and 400 non-Amish folks, I have been wondering about this cultural and faith tradition and trying to piece together an adequate critique and appreciation based on my own tradition within the historic Reformed branch of Protestantism. *disclaimer - I actually know very little about contemporary or historic Amish faith commitments - most of my thoughts are rooted in observation and a loose story line about the Amish. I came away from this past weekend wondering also how to make friends within this tradition who can enlighten me...

A big part of me is jealous, I'll start with that. The Amish community I observe in Newburg has preserved a simplicity of life (or so it appears to me) that my own tradition has long since given up. Not that the Amish life is easier, far from it - in terms of actual work, I'm sure it is much more difficult to complete the tasks of living required by Amish commitments. But not having to think about redeeming new technology, or not having to keep up with a flood of email and cell phone and a variety of forms of popular culture, not to mention the array of worship styles and theological issues that continue to manifest themselves in my tradition, this appears to me as a blessing. Ironically, the contemporary discussion around local food, fair trade economics, organic eating, and general awareness of how justice and consumption link - these all point to the wisdom of the Amish in preserving a local and a simple lifestyle.

And yet. When I think about the reach of a place like Calvin College through the very murky and complex work of doing higher education with an unwavering commitment to engagement with culture and embrace of historic Christianity, I think of what would be lost without this messy engagement. For now, I'm glad for the reminders I get from my Amish brothers and sisters, and I'll continue to wish for a stronger dialogue between our two traditions.

a flourishing garden

"It doesn't matter where you got the seed - if you got it from a Benny Hinn revival or the bottom of a Chicken Coop cup - what matters is how the seed grows in you." This was the quote of the day in this morning's sermon. Colossians 1:1-14 was the backdrop for a baptism, and a celebration of a year of active ministry at Neland church. A good challenge and reminder that our 21st century consumer mentality regarding church and the gospel (I like it this way, not that way - with these people, not those people) is irrelevant to Paul's way of thinking. Several questions arise, though, not least of which is the observation that it was my "choice" to worship at Neland, and this brought me into the place where I could hear this truth preached week after week. What matters is the growth, the vitality, the flourishing of seed and garden.