Rick’s team spent today at an urban garden called Open Lands.  The garden was recognized by President Clinton in 1993.  They spent the day weeding—according to Rick, “we weeded and weeded and weeded and weeded.”  Mr. and Mrs. Earls are the developers of the garden, and are really involved in their community. 

Scott’s team spent today at St. Vincent’s unloading two and a half truckloads of clothes and toys and then sorted them onto carts.  According to Kayleigh, they tossed big bags of stuff around all day.  Fun!

Cecily’s team spent today at the Cornerstone Community Center, a family shelter in the Uptown neighborhood.  The Center is preparing their kitchen for an inspection soon and needed the kitchen deep cleaned, so the team spent the day scrubbing walls, the stove hood, the stove, the cabinets, etc.  They degreased the whole place—the yellow walls were white when they were done!

Tonight we are headed for Promontory Point for a picnic, and on the way the youth will each be given $1 and asked to figure out how to eat dinner for that $1.  What a great way to experience what a lot of the world does!  I’ll try to finish another update, including photos, tomorrow while I’m at the airport.  In the meantime, check the flickr page (link in yesterday’s post) for today’s and last night’s pictures!

Hi friends,

I have uploaded all the photos I’ve taken so far this week to my flickr account–you can see them here!  Enjoy!

BiND:  Day 45 (II) – 47

Well, we’ve reached Proverbs!  We’re halfway through, friends!  I hope you’re enjoying this Scripture adventure—I know I am.

Proverbs is one of three wisdom books in the Bible (the others being Job and Ecclesiastes).  Some of the psalms also are considered wisdom literature, but these three books are the big ones.  Wisdom literature is designed to teach and to reflect on how we experience and interpret life and how we are to act in light of what we learn from God and from the world.

Proverbs is an interesting book in that a large chunk of it is said to be written by Solomon, to whom God gave the gift of great wisdom.  There are over 3,000 pithy proverbs attributed to Solomon.  Have you ever tried to write a proverb?  It’s hard!

One of the most common phrases in Proverbs (and one we’ve heard before, in Job) is “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  We don’t like to talk about “fear” of the Lord—we’re not into fear that much and many of us have enough baggage from being afraid of God in our faith journey.  We know that all through scripture we have God and God’s messengers saying “Do not be afraid”—which implies that “afraid of God” and “fear of the Lord are not the same thing.  So what is the “fear of the Lord”????

Well, I suspect it something more like awe and humility, and less like being afraid.  Knowing that God is great and good, and knowing that often we fall short of that, being in awe…in contrast to pride and arrogance in ourselves.  When we think about this kind of “fear” then I think we begin to get at what Proverbs is talking about.  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (perhaps because they think they don’t need it?).  It’s interesting to think about what we mean by “wisdom” and “knowledge”—what does it mean to be wise?  There’s worldly wisdom and there’s wisdom in God’s ways—can they be the same?  Proverbs suggests that the more attached we are to worldly things, the harder it will be to attain God’s wisdom.  Proverbs also says throughout that practicing the ways of wisdom is one of the only ways to attain it.  We don’t just “get” it, we have to live it and eventually we live into it.  And that is wisdom.

Our speaker last night, Bill Curry from Breakthrough, was really interesting.  The program has a number of components, from mentoring youth to working with women in crisis (whether those involved in drugs, prostitution, abusive relationships, or other crises) to working with men who are currently homeless.  Bill and his family decided to live in the neighborhood where they work—right here in East Garfield Park.  They’ve been building community with a really diverse group of people for several years now, and they love it.  It was interesting and inspiring to hear him talk about his life and work here.

Today two of our groups went places where other teams had been before:  Club Learn and the Gads Hill preschool.  At Club Learn we played jumprope and tag and super heroes, we helped kids learn their alphabet and practice reading, made an octopus craft out of coffee filters and tissue paper, and watched the Little Rascals.  It was quite a day—and it was hot, too!  I haven’t heard yet from the group at Gads Hill preschool, but I suspect they spent time playing with kids!

Our third group (Scott’s team) spent the morning exploring Chinatown and trying new foods—bubble tea smoothies and squid!  In the afternoon, they went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, where they beat the record for the amount of Cheerios repackaged (they come in huge boxes and the volunteers scoop them into 1-pound boxes/bags to be given away to hungry people).  They worked hard and fast!

Tonight we have some free time so we are headed to Millennium Park, where we will hear the Grant Park Orchestra perform Beethoven’s 7^th symphony while we eat a picnic from Cosi, and then we’ll watch the fireworks from Navy Pier before coming back to the church for another night of sleeping on the floor!  Tomorrow we have groups scheduled at St. Vincent’s (the big warehouse for the thrift stores), Cornerstone (a family shelter), and Open Lands (an urban garden).  Should be a great day!  

Today has been an interesting day.  The homeless shelter Rick’s group was scheduled to work at said they couldn’t handle all the volunteers this week, so that group spent the day doing some painting and repairs/cleaning at the church where we’re staying.  This church has a lot going on—three congregations worship here, DOOR is here every week in the summer and every weekend in spring and fall, there are midweek programs, AA, other addiction groups, and several teen and young adult programs.  The building is literally in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It gets a lot of wear and tear.  So today this group taped, sanded, painted, and cleaned.  They worked really hard and fast, and it looks great!  After lunch, they went to the Garfield Park Conservatory (about a 15 minute walk north of here) and explored various plants from different climates.  It was a good time!

Cecily’s group worked at a mixed-income preschool, where children of doctors mingle with homeless and low-income children and where all the kids are bilingual.  Carl and Charlie said the kids kept asking for underdog pushes on the swings—and they got them!  Eventually they taught the kids how to swing by themselves too.  Sounds like they had a great day!

Scott’s group was at a daycamp for mixed-income elementary age kids.  They played tag, they did crafts with the older elementary kids (the boys apparently spent lots of time cutting up tissue paper, and there were some finger painting experiences too!), and helped tutor kids in math and reading.  As Scott says, “that was fun!”  They also spent some time in the computer lab with the kids.  Scott also read part of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to some 5th graders.  

Last night’s program, the Men of Destiny, was very interesting.  There were 4 men, though usually they are 5.  They sing beautifully—they were a real joy to listen to.  We also got to hear some of their stories of homelessness and addiction and how they got out of those situations through the help of various ministries around the city.  We also got to hear some of their personal faith, and though their theology is very different from ours it was great to hear their conviction and about their relationship with Christ and the difference God has made in their lives.  Tonight we have a speaker from Breakthrough Ministries coming to talk with us, so more on that tomorrow!

The church where we are staying is where Martin Luther King, Jr. had an office during his work in Chicago.  In fact, the location of his office is now a lounge, and that’s where I’m sitting to type this!  In the sanctuary is a stained glass window, installed a few years ago, and in the bottom corner is a profile of King, testament and witness to his work in this neighborhood, organizing and working for justice.

BiND:  Day 44 and 45 (I)

Book V of the Psalter includes both the shortest (117) and the longest (119) psalms—quite a difference from 2 verses to 176 verses!  (An interestingly bizarre aside:  Psalm 119 is almost entirely about God’s law and how great it is to live in covenant relationship with God.  Which is also the topic of Psalm 1 and Psalm 19.  Hmm…)  In between we have psalm 118, which has become part of our Christian consciousness as we’ve used it to reference Palm Sunday (verses 26-27 especially, but 25 as well:  the word translated “save us!” is “Hosanna!”). 

A few things I noticed reading book V…in no particular order!

* This book contains a section (psalms 120-134) of “Songs of Ascent” which are, in essence, pilgrimage songs.  They would be used when people go up to Jerusalem (which was on a hill and surrounded by hills) for the various festivals.  So these songs have both liturgical use and traveling use, reminding us that going up to the house of God involved preparations both inward and outward!

* This book seems to contain a lot more references to God’s steadfast love, to God’s continual forgiveness (for example, psalm 130) and faithfulness, than previous sections of the Psalter.  And yet there’s still the contractual understanding of God too—“I’ve been good, so what’s the deal?”

* There are really great descriptions and metaphors in this section.  We’ve moved beyond “rock” to God as knitter, writer, builder, and even, if taken out of context, stalker. 

* This section contains the depths of despair (Psalm 137, likely written after the exile, remembering what it was like) to the heights of joy (Psalm 150) and everything in between, and it has psalms for every use imaginable—blessings, curses, traveling, eating, reading, meditating, worship, prayer, battle, peace, families, grief, happiness….God is part of all these aspects of life, and people have been talking to God about everything (the good, the bad, and the ugly!) for ages.

What did you notice, appreciate, or have questions about in these psalms?

I’ll leave you with a video of David LaMotte (who came to our church last fall) singing Psalm 137 with himself.  There’s such beauty, even in the despair.  (This song is in our hymnal too, if you’d like to learn it.)

Hello friends!

Well, we’ve been gone 24 hours now, and we’re on our way to an adventure.  We had a great trip here, with Giordano’s deep dish pizza for dinner, and then we spent the evening getting to know the other 50 people who are here for the week and learning about the various agencies we’ll work with.

Sleeping here is an experience all in itself—as Brian, the director of DOOR Chicago said, we’re living the shelter lifestyle here.  We sleep on the floor, packed into the rooms pretty tightly.  Our girls are sleeping in a room with about 12 others—there are a totally of 20 of us in the room, and there’s not room to even walk between the sleeping bags!  The boys are in the balcony of the sanctuary and in the choir loft.  Going to bed at night is an adventure!

For work sites, our group is split into three teams.  Each day we’ll be going to different sites.  Today our teams went to a feeding program/soup kitchen in Barack Obama’s neighborhood and two thrift-store donation sorting warehouses.  One of those two organizations uses the proceeds from the stores to help people get health insurance, the other uses it for various programs that help the needy. 

Scott’s team (I was with this team today, hence all the photos…) made chili and salad and chopped bell peppers, then served about 55 people lunch.  It was a great experience to see how a church can minister to people in need.  It was also difficult to see how many people need help just to eat, and in a well-off neighborhood.  We learned that many of the neighbors have been trying to get rid of the church because it brings so many poor people out of the woodwork in their neighborhood.  Oh my.

At St. Vincent’s, Rick’s team unloaded what felt like a ton of clothes—including at least half a dozen skids of holiday (Christmas, Easter…) stuff!  The team worked really well together and got to know each other better.  Rick says Jessie is surprisingly strong!  They cleaned out three semi trailers filled with bags of donations.

Cecily’s team isn’t back yet, but as soon as they are, we’ll give you an update!

This team was at the Brown Elephant, the thrift store for Howard Brown—where proceeds go to help people get health insurance.  They spent the day organizing the store, putting clothes in size order, organizing books, and putting things out in the store as the staff processed the donations.  They had a long commute today—about an hour and twenty minutes on two buses!

Tonight we have a men’s choir coming to sing for us and to give their testimonies—should be interesting! More stories and photos will come throughout the week, so check back!

Thanks for your prayers and support!  

PS–here’s a fun picture of Meredith in the supermarket in Chinatown….

BiND:  Day 43

Today we read Book IV of the Psalms—the book with lots of references to the covenant, to Moses and Aaron and even to David (though he’s credited with only a few of these).  Many of the psalms in this book are clearly designed for liturgical use—they are calls to worship, prayers of confession, prayers for help, songs of praise, even sermons!  You might notice that some of the things we did in worship today are similar to these psalms—we sang about God’s amazing creation and power, we blessed God for the things God has done for us, we prayed to use our gifts well, we remembered what God has done for our ancestors in the story.  This collection of psalms is almost like a book of worship resources!  And once again we are into popular song territory—there are great settings of Psalm 91 to a traditional Scottish tune, to psalms 95-98 in the various “sing a new song” hymns of our hymnal and to contemporary tunes with guitars and drums in songs like “Resonate.”  And then, of course, there’s the classic setting of Psalm 100 to the well-known tune Old Hundredth (the tune we use to the doxology).  You can find it in our hymnal under the title “All People That On Earth Do Dwell.”

I looked and looked for a recording of Psalm 103 from Taize, but the only decent sound quality video I could find was with a soloist (when it’s sung in 4 parts, with a cantor as well, there’s nothing quite like it!).  I’ll leave you with that today.  May the song and the psalm be our prayer together.

BiND:  Day 42

Today I noticed that these psalms are mainly written right around the time of the exile—warnings about how not to end up in exile, laments about what to do now that Jerusalem is being destroyed, etc.  Lots more lamenting.  Also a lot more remembering of God’s past faithfulness—a theological move that says both “God will still be faithful even though we haven’t been” (a crucial theological point, and hard to make if you have a contractual rather than covenantal understanding of God) and “Hey!  God!  Remember how YOU chose us?  What’s the deal?!?!?!?”

I’ve been thinking as I read the psalms about how we view God.  I think the ancient view (and, often, the modern view) of God is as someone useful.  If we’re good, God will do things for us.  Now, if that’s not true, then what’s the point of being good?  (this is always the question that comes up when we Reformed types try to talk about grace and even predestination…)  Job sort of blew that theory out of the water, really, when it turned out (as God knew it would, but as the Accuser thought it wouldn’t) that benefits aren’t the only thing God’s good for.  But when we read the psalms, it comes right back—“God, I’ve been good!  Why the suffering?”  Interestingly, the prayer almost always turns right around to say “I remember what you’ve done before, and I trust you and hope in your goodness.”  I’m not sure we always manage to make that last step, and as we talked about RE Job, we might have some work to do on the “I’ve been good!” part too.  Anyway—I just think it’s interesting that ancient people still followed the LORD even when there were no discernible benefits, and that so many people throughout the ages continue in this line of thinking that is totally blown up by Job, Jesus, Paul…  God isn’t about benefits.  Faith isn’t a cost-benefit analysis.  In some ways, it comes down to trust. 

You may have noticed that this book of the psalter contained a lot fewer psalms that have been turned into memorable hymns—part of that is because we don’t so much like the lamenting, especially in our culture.  We insist on being positive and upbeat and happy all the time, even in worship when we are able to let our guard down and be real in front of God and God’s people (it’s good practice for being out in the world and being real!).  This section had a lot of things we don’t like to admit.  But there was one—Psalm 84, which has a really beautiful hymn setting in our hymnal (How Lovely, Lord, How Lovely).  The idea of God’s house, being in it…I love it.  Anyway, there’s also a contemporary setting of the psalm, which I thought I’d share with you all.  It’s a live recording of the band in concert (in other words, don’t look at them—listen to the words and music!)  Enjoy!

BiND:  Day 41 (Book II of the Psalter)

I find myself humming as I’m reading—so many of these psalms contain phrases that hymn writers have been using throughout the ages.  Sometimes I catch myself humming a hymn tune, sometimes a contemporary worship song—it all depends on what’s on the page!

Reading the psalms this quickly—25 or so a day!—is one way to go on an emotional and spiritual roller coaster.  We are accustomed to using the psalms as prayers when we are in need, or occasionally using them liturgically (Psalm 51 shows up as our prayer of confession sometimes, and other bits and pieces can be found in our bulletins every now and then), and of course singing phrases that have been turned into hymns (though we may not know they’re psalms).  But I don’t think we’re accustomed to reading other people’s prayers this way, going from extremes of need to extremes of joy, from festival songs to Job-like cries for help.  Here’s an interesting little tidbit:  today’s psalms are grouped together as a book for exiles—giving hope, reminders, and words of lament for those who are living far from home, waiting for the day they can return.  We’ll see more of those psalms as we go on, too.  You may also have noticed that, like in Job, there is no real understanding of an afterlife.  Phrases like “what good am I to you if I go down to the pit?  does the dust praise you?” show us, as Job did, that the conception of death is that when one dies, one is dead.  So make the most of life—live by the covenant, praise God, and hope in God’s goodness.

I definitely have some favorite psalms from today—Psalm 42, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God” and psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God” and psalm 62, “For God alone my soul waits in silence.”

Do you have any favorites or questions from today?

photo is of Luttrell’s psalter, from the British Library.  The Psalms have been used as personal prayers and as congregational song pretty much since they were written.