giving life

I recently read a book that contained the phrase "the Father is that which gives life." These words supposedly came from the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth as he preached to his disciples(from a book by Leo Tolstoy titled The Gospels in Brief). I do not know if the wording got jumbled in translation (this phrase started as Greek then became Russian and finally was translated into English) but it seems a little awkward to me. Because the sentence begins with the noun Father, it seems to me that it should also use the pronoun he. In which case it would read, "the Father is he who gives life." But this is not how it reads. The phrase purposely uses the words that which when referring to the Father, which has the peculiar effect of completely abstracting the idea of the Father. It seems to be saying that anything which gives life can be called a Father. I suppose that this is not that much of a reach. Humans create life all the time when they have children. But I am going to take a wild guess that this is not the context in which we are working. We must remember that these words were spoken with GOD in mind. Now I know that we are dealing with various translations of the bible and a writer who may have taken a little liberty in writing his book, but I think it is fun to play around with this idea a bit.

In the bible, Jesus continually refers to God as his father. He also continually refers to himself as the son of man. I do not think many people would argue these last two points, even if they disagree with what is being said (all one has to do is read these words in the bible). Now, there are a number of interpretations to what Jesus was saying and what he really meant. One is that Jesus is THE son of God, in which case he was completely unique and was here on earth to divinely save us from sin. This interpretation is pretty popular seeing as about 1 billion Christians around the world claim to believe this idea. But what if we think about the above phrase, that "the Father is that which gives life," and interpret what Jesus was saying a little differently. What if he was really saying that every time we give life, or every time we create something, we are effectively acting as the father. In which case, we as humans are God and Jesus, as the son of man, is divine in the sense that he best represents what is best in all of us, mainly that he continually brings life to those around him.

This inevitably makes me think about all the times that Jesus proclaims the coming of the kingdom of God. If we go with interpretation number two, then we do not have to believe that the coming of the kingdom of God means angels and judgment and so on, but that in using the teachings of Jesus that bring life to others and ourselves we are bringing the kingdom of God to earth through our own life-giving creations. To me this is a pretty cool idea, because then we do not have to wait for anyone else to do good things for us, but we do the good things ourselves. It is empowering (and for me a little more realistic).

Finally, it makes me think about our Art Days that we have once each month at the Center. Some people may say that doing art is impractical, that it does not teach the men useful skills for reassimilating into society. But I beg to differ. Each time we get together we sit down, we explore ourselves (the last time reflecting on how we see ourselves) and then we put our ideas and feelings onto paper. We create works of art that are beautiful because they are pieces of ourselves. I believe that each time we do this we are finding the divine in ourselves and then sharing it with each other. To me there is nothing more effective than this to working toward reassimilation. Because if we can see God in each other, in concrete ways, then we can do anything.

Happenings

Homeless Court is once again around the corner. This round has been much more involved. I now meet with my clients on a regular basis and request a lot more documentation. Because of the increased responsibility on the part of the client, fewer people made it through the process. I took three people to see the public defender today. Nevertheless, as usual, there were surprises. One client actually had no active cases, which is a good thing. But now I will be working with her to see if she can get some of her cases expunged so it is easier to get a job. She has made some remarkable progress. Another gentlemen was not on file, but because he has a rather simple case I think we can get him into court on the 17th. A few extra calls here and there should do the job, and maybe a letter or two. Other than that today went as expected.

We are working on putting together and event for early August that will celebrate the contribution that the African-American has made to the Bay Area. The idea is to have food, music, speakers, art and a whole lot of fun. It takes a lot more work to plan events like these than I thought. Talking to people, getting them to committ, finding resources and donations on little or no budget. It's all great fun. Or not really.

The enrichment meetings are going well. Last week we spent over two hours discussing The Allegory of the Cave - Part II. The guys could not get enough of it. Some of them actually requested to use it again. We decided, however, to move on and this week our discussion group will get a dose of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Self-Reliance, with a little Thoreau and Whitman thrown in to support the transcendental theme. I think that it will be a good topic and even though it is fun to discuss on its own, there is good practical knowledge all over the place.

I have been doing some one-on-one work with one of the guys, teaching him how to use a computer. I cannot believe how much we take for granted having grown up during the computer era. I have to start by explaining how to turn the computer on. From there I have to explain how to log onto the computer, but before I can do that I have to explain how to use the mouse, what button to click, how many times to click it, where to click, how to make sure the cursor (the little flashy vertical line thing) is in the text box, what to write in the text box, etc. And that is just logging in! Imagine explaining icons, the start menu, word and of course the internet. I have so much respect for people who teach this kind of stuff every day. The way I think about it is that it is just like learning a language. We learned how to speak our specific languages when we were babies, we don't even remember it. That was how it was for me learning the language of computers. I don't remember learning all the details. The guy I am working with is a completely clean slate, has no knowledge whatsoever and is used to doing things his way. But we are making progress. It is an interesting experience.

JVC experience

This is an essay that was submitted to JVC to use in their newsletter. It has some ideas common to previous blogs...

A Buddhist proverb states: To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. If this statement is true, then the Jerusalem cross we received upon our initiation into JVC aptly symbolizes this key.

Jean-Paul Sartre argued that hell is other people. After spending a year in JVC, I find it difficult to challenge this assertion. Fortunately, however, the above proverb reveals that heaven is other people too. In other words, we have the opportunity to create heaven here and now, but we must consciously work toward this goal and not the other. This is not always easy.

Working with the homeless exposed me to a large contingent of angry, self-interested men. In addition I lived with fellow social workers who experienced similar tensions and hardships as I did. In many ways it was good to have each other for support. But without a proper understanding of how to relate to the inhabitants of this high-stress, volatile environment, I felt vulnerable to conflict and fear.

During silent retreat, grateful for my continuing guidance but still without a concrete remedy for the growing tension, I turned to Christ as He hung on the cross. This dramatic setting was my only access to the intense personalities and feelings I experienced at work and home. There, confronting unbearable suffering and anger equally as violent, Jesus gave me, despite his desperately human appearance, a divine answer: ease His pain.

It is fitting that I plan to pursue a career healing others’ physical ailments. I can think of no better preparation than a program that gave me the key, provided the dynamic environment and support to test it and pushed me to work, through the healing of others, toward heaven and not hell.