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Buddy

His name is Buddy, maybe? As I sat across from him in a pizza shop on the North Side of Pittsburgh I wondered if that was just a name he adopted after hearing phrases like, "Hey Buddy! You need to move out of here!" or "Buddy, here is some money for food." over and over again.

You see Buddy is homeless. Until last Monday night I had never met Buddy. Our eyes had never locked, we had never spoken. I might have driven past him on the street or walked by but I never really noticed or engaged him. From what others told me that night in the dingy little pizza shop Buddy has been on the streets for years. He wears those years on what I would guess is a late 50's rugged, wind torn face. He is dirty and smelly. The fingernails on his hands have pushed up away from his skin because there is months, years of dirt packed under them. Those fingernails grip a stryofoam cup half-full of lukewarm coffee and his head stays down only seldomly lifting to make eye-contact.

He owns nothing but the clothes he is wearing. No blankets, book bags, satchels, tents, pillows or garbage bags. Nothing. He says stuff is just too heavy to carry. He spends most nights not sleeping but walking, walking nowhere, walking just to walk, walking to stay alive.

He frequents this pizza shop, and the other regulars have made attempts to befriend him, or offer money or help. He usually declines both. The people there say he isnt a drug addict or alcoholic and nothing in Buddy's demeanor would suggest otherwise. They say that he possibly has daughters, somehwere and in some other place and what must seem like some other time.

The sad reality is Buddy is alone.

I'm sitting across from Buddy because it is cold outside, bitter cold. The wind chill for that night is -30. We havent seen that kind of cold in 25 years in Pittsburgh. I'm here to beg Buddy to go into a shelter for the night, to get him refuge from the deadly temps. I'm here with my church serving with a homeless ministry, and one of my church members who works in this area has tried to help Buddy in the past. She is worried about him, I'm worried about him, the pizza shop patrons are worried about him.

It is obvious when you talk to Buddy that there has been some type of trauma in his life and that either years on the street, some type of deep pain, family disaster, illness or tragedy has broken his mind, and fractured his soul. As I sit with him, my desire to know Buddy's story grows by the minute, and I wonder how he ended up here and what his life used to be like.

Buddy has a story worth telling, treasured and celebrated. Buddy is someone's child. He was  someone's miracle, someone's dream, the child a young couple had prayed for. Somewhere in a folder is a birth certificate which holds his true name, his full name and a little of his family history. A document that is witness to the beginning of his story, his life.

Buddy is not a throw-away person. No one ever is.

Buddy had friends, hopes, passions. He was a boy. He skipped rocks on a pond, went to school, made forts, kissed a girl, fell in love, climbed trees, sat out under the stars and listened to crickets and probably got married. His now filthy, cracked hands once held his newborn baby girls, and those tired eyes years ago filled with tears of joy when they first heard the words, "Daddy, I Love You". 

Those days must seem as if they are from another life, and somebody else entirely. How did you end up here Buddy? What is your story? What is your pain? When did your life go off the tracks?

I wish I had time to share with you all the details of that night. I wish I could say I got him into a shelter, but I didn't. He wouldn't go. I wish I could fix all of Buddy's problems, but I can't. I wish I could some how redeem his story, but that is beyond me.

So what can I do?

I can remember Buddy, I can let his life touch mine, I can pray for Buddy, I can get involved with the homeless and the broken and every so often I can stop in that little pizza shop.

So can you.

Retro Post #3: A Tendency to Glamorize

*This post originally appeared on October 20, 2008

I think we often tend to glamorize the past and think America was a Christian nation, where everyone loved God, was very upright and moral and that our society didn't have the major problems that it does today. We believe that America is worse off, but is that really true? 

When you really look into it you find that is not the case. Take for example this little tidbit from a book I picked up from Garry Wills called Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America. Check this out.

"In 1909 there was one saloon for every 500 hundred people. There were more saloons in the United States than there were schools, libraries, hospitals, theaters, or parks, and more certainly than churches."

Go Figure! You have any thoughts on this?

*Just to clarify I don't think drinking alcohol is bad but this little stat does say something about the priorities when America was supposedly  "CHRISTIAN". Saloons back then also often had dancing girls and prostitutes. Of course you could also mention racism, womens rights and a host of other things as signs of a culture that was rotten even back then.

When The Office Has Great Theology

I fell in love with The Office years ago when I was speaking on a High School retreat in Oklahoma. I would go back to my cabin after the evening service and watch episodes back to back that I had downloaded from Itunes. It was like finding a brand new best friend. A very funny new friend.

A couple of weeks ago I watched the final episode which I thought was about as good as a finale can get. Instead of making brand new friends it felt as if I was losing some old friends. I had my heart tugged more than a few times and I have to admit I shed some tears.

What I want to draw your attention to though is the last line of the show, which is spoken by Pam as everyone is leaving the office following Dwight's wedding, many leaving the building for the last time.

She said,

" I thought it was weird when you picked us to make a documentary, but all in all I think an ordinary paper company like Dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There is a lot of beauty in ordinary things, isn't that kind of the point."

What a beautiful line. What great theology. A theology of place, a theology of the ordinary, a theology of work and how God has made ordinary places, ordinary people, ordinary work and ordinary life to be filled with beauty, holiness and sacredness.

So often people have a sacred and secular division of everything in their life. Church on Sunday equals sacred, work Monday to Friday secular. Devotions equal sacred, changing diapers or cleaning the garage equals secular. Working full-time in ministry sacred, having any other job secular. It is an unholy dichotomy. One I held for a long time. This is not the view of The Bible and it is not Jesus's view. All things are spiritual and filled with God's glory and for God's glory. That view changes everything.

The Office nailed it. It captured the sacred in the ordinary. I know it was unintentional but they stumbled across God's common grace and His purposes. The Office could teach the church and Christians a thing or too. To see the sacred all around us, to experience God not just in the sanctuary but also at the copier. I know I'm not saying anything new but the line from the show was poignant. It was powerful. What if you went to work each day and realized how holy that time really is? Would it change things for you? Would you see the people that you work with and the time you have been given there differently?

Tim Keller in his book Every Good Endeavor which is about work writes,

“Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. All work has dignity because it reflects God’s image in us, and also because the material creation we are called to care for is good." 

So thanks Dwight, Michael, Pam, Andy, Jim and the rest of the gang for a great reminder! Goodbye, you will be missed.

Guinness & The Gospel

So in the category of I bet you didn't know this! Check out this little excerpt from the book The Search for God and Guinness

"Arthur Guinness was a great man of faith. Born on the estate of an Archbishop and raised a loyal son of the Irish church, Arthur lived by the words that were his personal motto: Spes Mea in Deo -- "My Hope is in God." He was deeply inspired by the revivalist John Wesley to use his wealth and talents to make the world better. Taking scripture as his guide, Arthur served the needy of his time and worked to use his gifts in honor of his God. One favorite project of his that seems confirmation of both the purity of his faith and his concern for social good: Guinness was the founder of the first Sunday Schools in Ireland.

Much of the great 250-year history of Guinness beer is a story in which wealth is gained through faith-inspired excellence and then used to serve others for the glory of God. This is what Arthur Guinness founded and this is the legacy that Guinness beer still symbolizes to this day."

As they say in Lord of the Rings. "They come in Pints!"

Retro Post #1: Jesus and Hot Dogs

This post originally posted on The Jesters Pub on October 4, 2005

Last night was one of the most memorable of my life and once again a reminder of the blessings in my life and the blessings that God pours out on us when we simply give of ourselves. I was invited by Mary Rude one of my high school volunteers to join her and her family in downtown tampa where they feed homeless people each Monday night. I was eagerly looking forward to finally joining them downtown and being a part of their incredible ministry.

I brought about five pairs of jeans and some shirts to give out and they were snatched up right away. Basically Mary's family brings hot meals and desserts and sack lunches, which they pay for themselves, every Monday night and there are literally about 60 to 80 people who line-up to receive the food each Monday. I became a server of the hot dogs. They were the most popular. It was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time as I handed out hot dogs to young, old, black, white, oriental, male and female all who were homeless, all who would sleep that night on the hard Earth.

Each face represented some sad story, a story of a person who by all regards is now forgotten in our society, except on Monday nights @ 7pm. I got to sit and talk with Curtis who was forty one and had a warm and inviitng personality. He talked about his life and how he had quit in life so many times but he was tired of quitting, he also talked about how his family had never been there for him and how he could have made something of his life. He talked about God and how he knew that God loved him and he just wanted to do what the Lord wanted him to do, but he just hadn't been able to.

I am always amazed by the honesty of people like Curtis who have no images to uphold, no self-righteousness to protect and can be raw before people and God. Curtis may be considered to be in poverty but I have met so many people who make 150,000 a year in my life who live in poverty of the soul because of their lack of honesty before God. I met Jesus last night, I felt him near, I felt His pleasure and I knew he was close to all of us in that place. I left downtown last night thanking God for my time there, for the people that I met, and for the Kingdom of God I saw lived out through hot dogs and coconut cake. I will be back next week!

**UPDATE**

Since this posting Mary's family ministry has become known as Amazing Love Ministries. Go to their website or their Facebook page to read their newsletters, see pics and other info about how this awesome ministry has grown or to support them financially.

I recently spoke their on a Monday night and it was a huge blessing to me to see what God has done with this ministry.

Here is a video about the minstry:

 

Where Orphans Dance

So I have decided to return to blogging after a seven month absence. For all those who read this blog faithfully and wondered where I went, I apologize. I have no good answer why I stopped, I just did. My recent trip to Haiti was what "shook" me back to a place where I feel like I have something to say.

Last week I joined a group of people from all over the United States for a week in Port-Au-Prince with the mission organization AIM (Adventures in Mission). I have been on many mission trips over the years (maybe with you) to Mexico and inner city and rural areas in the USA but this one was different in many ways. It not only shocked me but inspired me in new ways.

It would be easy to spend this blog post talking about the devastation that I saw in Haiti, there was plenty of it even six months after the quake. I could talk about the poverty, the deep poverty I saw, poverty unlike I have seen and smelt before. It is tangible and in your face in Haiti. Those were two very poignant realities in your vision each moment in Haiti.

But what I want to talk about is DANCING. Sound strange? Let me explain. One of the days on our trip we stopped by an orphanage that housed over 100 orphans, it is called Sons of God orphanage. These are children who not only survived a quake, survive poverty daily but also survive without parents. It would be hard to imagine people with harder lives than these children. Children living in a impoverished, devastated city and doing it all without parental or family support.

Our team went there to simply see the ministry and watch another team that was there. Well it is impossible to just watch! Our team jumped in by holding kids, taking pictures with them, coloring with them and whatever else. 

For some reason I found myself sitting back and just watching, watching with wonder all that was going on around me. One of the things I saw was JOY. There were smiles, laughter and play here in the midst of what could be a place filled with sorrow.

Then a holy moment arrived.

The other team there started a circle game where they sing a song, clap and one person in the middle pulls another into the circle to dance. The picture above is one taken during this event. I was sitting on a bench outside the circle watching this scene of merriment. Old dancing with young, white with black, orphans with missionaries and Americans with Haitians, It was a beautiful joyful scene.

 It was a picture of God's Kingdom. My father who was on the trip even danced! (Now that is a miracle and God's sense of humor!)

Then it hit me, a beautiful thought, and it brought tears to my eyes. The thought was: "The Kingdom of God is where orphans dance."

Wherever the Kingdom of God is, there is DANCING, even amongst orphans, those with no family and 1,000 reasons to live in despair can find hope and a reason to dance. When Kingdom people enter into places of despair the response is DANCING! The Kingdom of God brings new life and renews all things and the response is dancing, laughter and joy.

The same is true for all of us who know Christ. The scripture assures us that we were once orphans, lost, alone and fatherless until He came and claimed us as his own. He adopted us. He gave us a home. He called our name. Gave us a new name, His name.

If you know that truth, when is the last time it caused you to DANCE?