The Politics and (Clean) Power of Coalition

The public action, for me at least, was actually quite a diappointment. My roommate canceled at really the last moment, leaving me to represent Trinity House. Then I noticed it was still drizzling after the explosive thunderstorms of the previous night. 30 minutes later I discovered that those same storms had knocked out the electricity of the man whom I was to meet at the L stop. The alarm of this man, also named Joe, was thus disabled, which extended his beauty sleep until I called him while watching the trains go past. Joe commented that traffic was in the Loop was worse than normal (as a rule I avoid driving downtown), so we had only five minutes when we passed by Daley Plaza. But we still had to park. Joe told me to just go, take his sign along with mine, and he would join me at City Hall.

I walked hurriedly by the ominous brown-tinted windows of the Daley Center, trying to dodge raindrops and suit-clad lawyers. Wait, did I fail to mention that I had never been to City Hall before? Crap! I entered into the classical revivalist building and was greeted by "office of the mayor" signs. This was the place, all right. Following the sound of cheering coming from somewhere through the stairwell, I finally got the hallway where over 100 people, most dressed in green shirts, hooted and hollered for the aldermen who were introducing the ordinance. And then it ended. I waited around, signed in, got a t-shirt, and then checked my watch. It was going to be late day at the office. Oi.

Why do we do this again?

"This" referring to attending planning meetings, writing op-eds, knocking on doors, and occasionally attending public actions. Essentially, community organizing. Seriously, after a frustration like Thursday morning, why do we try to organize for change?

Well, we all have our reasons. That's called self-interest.

To give a brief lesson on organizing (get a longer one by checking the Midwest Academy's "Organizing for Social Change"), it pretty much begins with identifying one's self-interest. That does not mean that one is interested in only oneself, or selfishness. A mother's self-interest in a community policing program could be keeping her children safe when they play on the playground. Of course, that safe self-interest in a mother's children's safety might also persuade her to support the failed war on drugs, which has not really made the streets safer but has needlessly locked up an awful lot of African-American men (and spend billions of tax-dollar money). The next lesson in organizing might have to be "framing" the issue...

My self-interest that drove me to City Hall on Thursday was the health of my adopted home neighborhood. Fisk Power Plant in Pilsen, just across the river from my home Bridgeport, has been linked to about 40 deaths annually from the particulate matter that it spews every day. Apparently, a coalition of national and community groups has been organizing to clean up Fisk and its sister plant, Crawford, just a bit south and west, for years. The plants had been grandfathered past the Clean Air Act regulations of the 1970's with the condition that they eventually get up to snuff. But they never did.

What about the other groups that were represented in that hallway? Well, that's the tricky part. Some were expected: the Sierra Club, which recruited me at my church, Greenpeace, and a smattering local green organizations. But then there were the labor unions. And that's where the story gets interesting. SEIU and the Steelworkers both supported the ordinance. Why? Green jobs would likely be new opportunities to organize workers. And that's where the electrical workers get angry. Closing Fisk and Crawford would mean the loss of over about 200 jobs taken by IBEW-represented members. The ordinance would provide funding for transferring of jobs and retraining, but everyone knows that it's not the same as keeping one good job.

As a quasi-labor organizer, this fascinates me and fills me with dread at the same time. There are some real power players involved here, including Midwest Generation, which owns the dirty plants, several powerful labor unions, several more community and environmental groups, and of course, "dose guys" we voted into City Hall. It thrills me to part of such a showdown.

However, it pains me to see unions fight each other when collective bargaining is being cut all over the United States and "right-to-work" legislation is rearing its ugly head. The cruelest cut is how unions sometimes back policies that destroy communities. In this case, it is IBEW that supports the maintenance of out-of-date coal power plants that are poisoning my neighbors (and likely yours truly, but on a lesser scale). Another example is in West Virginia where the Mineworkers were advocating for strip mining Blair Mountain, where one of the great labor conflicts in the United States took place a century ago. Far too often business style unions support actions that alienate them from the local community and from the larger public.

Unfortunately, what I see in my near South Side neighborhood is the creation of a false dichotomy; choose between good, union jobs or clean air for breathing. I am an organizer for a worker justice group, so I am well aware of what the loss of even more jobs means. But I am also a neighbor, so I see people have asthma attacks too. There must be a way that these two identities, these two forms of self-interest, can work together to create a cleaner, safer, and more prosperous South Side. That's why I waited in the rain for a sleeping man and why I showed up to my office 2 hours later than I usually do.

I support the Chicago Clean Power Ordinance. I hope that many others--union, environmentalist, alderman, Bridgeporter--do the same.

He's Just a Boss: Ministry With Low-wage Workers

It was a chilly day in Chicago—nothing that would compare to true Windy City winter, but still. The group of 30-40 people was a mixed bunch. We were union members, clergy, community organizers, journalists, and most importantly, low wage workers. We made a picket line outside the carwash on Broadway and made our presence felt. Luckily, the owner got word pretty quickly, and he invited us—all of us—into the waiting room, out of the November chill.

We stayed there for about an hour and a half, waiting for the owner to negotiate some sort of settlement with a Methodist minister, the Arise Chicago workers’ center director, and, most importantly, the carwash worker who was owed several thousand dollars in back wages. Finally, the trio came out of the office, announced that they had reached an agreement, and we filed out of the waiting room.

The carwash worker left with a $1,000 check in his hand. And a warning to never come back. The worker stood with us outside the carwash and thanked the group for accompanying him. He told us proudly that as long as we stay together, there is no reason to be afraid of unethical employers. “Es solamente un patrón.” He’s just a boss.

We work in a culture these days where we have good reason to be afraid of our bosses. 10% unemployment is reality all across the United States. Wages aren’t even worth what they were back in the 1970’s. And for folks who work for the lowest wages, missing work for a week means not eating. Or not making rent. Or not buying medication for your children. But workers’ centers are fighting the fear.

Workers’ centers make up a movement of low wage-earning, mostly immigrant, often undocumented workers who stand up out of the shadows imposed by irrational laws and unscrupulous bosses and demand respect. They often work in industries that are intentionally excluded from labor laws—domestic workers, farmworkers, restaurant workers, day laborers—and far too often ignored by labor unions. They endure abuses that make your stomach turn, your eyes water, your fists clench.

But members of workers’ centers are far from powerless. They have made national networks that wield growing influence (NDLON, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, ROC United, and Interfaith Worker Justice) in local, state and even federal policy. Workers’ centers are on the front lines in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform, fighting against the scourge of wage theft, and supporting their sisters and brothers in formal labor unions. These often invisible workers leave the margins that dominant culture has left for them and then take center stage.

I am very blessed to work with the workers centers in the national network of Interfaith Worker Justice. The organizers and the worker-members of the workers’ centers continually inspire me with their creativity, courage, and perseverance.

 One of my favorite verses in the entire Bible comes from the first epistle of John, "There is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out all fear..." (1 John 4:18). Surely it is love - love of their families, love of their friends, love of their neighbors - that drives low-wage workers to support one another in their struggles for a life of respect and dignity. After all, I saw no fear in the "carwashero" on that chilly November day.

I pray that we all minister with no fear as we minister with our all of our neighbors.

Courage, Coalitions, and an Ethic of Love

For several months now I've wanted to write a blog post about alliances and solidarity with regards to LGBTQ issues. For those not familiar with the acronym, LGBTQ stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual/gender, and queer, and because of the controversy that goes with the discussion of LGBTQ rights, I have avoided making public stands on the topic. I am prayerfully changing my policy on that issue today.

Let me now be very clear about this. On this blog, "Red Poppy Fields", I express my own views, and they do not necessarily represent the views of either the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church nor Interfaith Worker Justice. These are my own musings and meditations, and I invite you to join me in musing and meditating in the Red Poppy Fields.

I both accept and affirm LGBTQ lifestyles, and as a heterosexual ally, I do whatever I can to support my LGBTQ sisters and brothers in the love of Christ. I did not always take this stance, but then again I also did not always knowingly work and live with LGBTQ folks either. My experiences working, residing, and sharing life with folks who do not self-identify as heterosexual has only edified my faith as a Christian and my passion for godly justice.

However, as a missionary and an organizer, I do not only represent myself. I was commissioned as a US-2 missionary last fall to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, so I do represent the United Methodist Church. I also work for the national worker rights group Interfaith Worker Justice, so I represent its efforts to organize and mobilize folks for living wages, good benefits and dignified workplaces. Neither of these bodies officially takes the same stance that I take on LGBTQ issues, which naturally disappoints and frustrates me as an ally.

Recently I read a blog post at Sojourners that helped me to understand why these two institutions may not share my own views on LGBTQ issues. Brian McClaren, a well known progressive Christian leader, wrote about how Sojourners does not advocate for LGBTQ rights in order to preserve the delicate coalition of mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, and evangelicals to fight against poverty and promote economic justice. The stance is difficult for Sojourners because it does alienate some folks who are invested heavily in the struggle for equality for LGBTQ people.

For IWJ, the question is even more difficult. IWJ is a network of people of faith, and it coordinates a national network of affiliated organizations. Recently a few organizations have lost funding due to the crackdown by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development on organizations that hold views that are not in line with official Roman Catholic doctrine. These issues are primarily LGBTQ rights and abortion. CCHD has long financially supported worker rights groups, but with the shift to a more conservative Vatican and greater influence by conservative Catholic groups, it has forced many organizations to make the painful decision to cut ties with LGBTQ-affirming and pro-choice groups. Or be cut off from your CCHD funding.

The question is also very live in the United Methodist Church. While many congregations join the "reconciling" movement, many others, particularly in the American South and outside the United States, hold a hard line in a conservative interpretation of scripture regarding LGBTQ issues. Especially as we approach the 2012 General Conference, the only body that can change the content of the Book of Discipline which governs the United Methodist Church, there is much anxiety that the United Methodist Church could suffer a split similar to that which the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Episcopal church recently experienced. No one wants the United Methodist Church to go down that path.

At the same time, the Methodist Church has experienced this before--over the question of the rights of non-Whites, especially African Americans. Methodists split between North and South, just as the entire nation did during the American Civil War, a violent, 4-year long conflict that resulted in more than 600,000 lives lost. Praise be to God, we are nowhere near that magnitude of violence, but even one life forever altered or lost due to bigotry and oppression should move anyone who follows the path of Christ. When oppression is institutionalized, prophets appear.

 I have read that one of the great challenges that progressives face is that the front is plural. Worker justice, gender equality, environmentalism, the peace movement, racial equity, LGBTQ rights...the list goes on. Some groups are "multi-issue", but usually folks organize around one set of issues and then make coalitions when the opportunity arises. Organizing for social change does involve seizing opportunities when the present themselves, but I feel that people should also work based on a system of ethics. For Christians this system of ethics is based on the teachings from the Bible and the wisdom of the saints. It is an ethic of love. 

Here is the problem that I see now. Do we compromise that ethic of love due to the risk of fracturing the coalition and losing our funding? Or will we have the moral courage to integrate our ethic of love into our institutions as well as our personal lives?

Dear friends, as I write this a sister in Christ is facing a trial in Wisconsin in which she could suffer defrocking, that is, losing her ordination as a United Methodist minister, because she married a lesbian couple and then got married to her woman partner of 15 years. Will we, as Christians, follow a legalistic road in which we condemn courageous people like Rev. Amy DeLong or will we embrace an ethic of love in which we are all truly one in Christ (Gal. 3:28)?

I pray that you will join me in the Red Poppy Fields as we sow love and reap justice.

A Mother's Day Reflection

Arise then...women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by

irrelevant agencies,

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with

carnage,

For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity,

mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up

with

Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice…"

Julia Ward Howe, Mother’s Day Proclamation, 1880

 

We in the United States observe Mother’s Day this Sunday, and I can’t help but recall how I’ve tried to honor my mom on past early May Sundays. I would get up early and make breakfast, just like she taught me years before. I did that several years. I remember that when I was senior in high school I bought her an artisan glass kerosene lamp from Gatlinburg, Tennessee. As it so often happens, those acts changed to cards and phone calls as I went away to college, and now being 700 miles away, that will have to suffice again (barring any sudden bursts of creativity).

But this year’s Mother’s Day is positioned in a rather unique period of time. Not only am I employed full time as a worker justice organizer, but it is less than a week after the death of the demagogue and global warlord Osama bin Laden at the hands of American military forces. My experiences as an organizer in Chicago have heightened my sensitivity to what true justice is, and while I am relieved that bin Laden will not be inciting more acts of murder, I cannot see this act truly bringing justice to a broken world. I recently tweeted (yup, you can follow me at Missionworker on Twitter) that “justice does not occur in the death of one man, but justice only occurs in the rebirth of many people”. This is my reaction to the vengeance killing of the former leader of al Qaeda.

Now how do I see Mother’s Day, situated in a time when young people have flash mobs to celebrate the demise of bin Laden? Well, I have to think about the lessons that I’ve learned from my mom. Mom is a bookkeeper for the Perry County Office of Aging, quietly making sure that funds get to the senior citizens of the much-mocked rural area northwest of Harrisburg. She is also a cancer survivor and long-time Sunday school teacher for 5-6 year-olds at our Methodist church. Maybe most importantly, at least to me, she is the mother of my older brother, younger sister, and me.

She taught me the importance of hard work, honesty, and persistence from her, and I also learned about sacrifice and boldness from Mom. Though Sarah Palin has claimed the “Mama Bear” title, I feel that my mom could run circles around her. She would be relentless in the pursuit of justice, and looking back, God help any folks were in the least bit unfair to us kids.

Though Mom and I no longer share a lot of the same views on politics, I can see how these lessons woven into my personality. I am not afraid to confront authorities or approach strangers, and maybe I can trace my endurance runner mentality (particularly useful for 8- and 10-k races) to these lessons. These traits are very useful in organizing and in ministry, and I’m sure that they will only manifest themselves further as I continue to pursue the intersection of ministry and organizing for social change.

I suppose that is one of the truly amazing about Mom. When it was becoming evident that I was diverging from the conservative politics of my upbringing, Mom still encouraged me to seize any opportunity that caught my eye. She helped me navigate the process of packing to live in South America for a semester. And I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have made it this far in my time as a missionary and organizer without her help. This is the greatest lesson that I learned: love transcends all causes, campaigns, and ideologies.

It is this love that guides me through the complex world of worker justice and community organizing. The world is not so simple to divide folks into good and evil camps, therefore I constantly fall back to the foundation of love from which grows my faith. I came to know this love through the life and behavior of my mom, and I still look to her to know this love in its most tangible form.

Thanks, Mom, and I love you.

Power, Amibition, and the Path of the Cross

"A lot of people thought Cesar was trying to play God, that this guy was trying to pull a saintly act. Poor Cesar! They just couldn't accept it for what it was..."
- Dolores Huerta in Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa

A few weeks ago I had the incredible honor of helping with the interviews and days of discernment for the next classes of US-2 and mission intern young adult missionaries of the United Methodist Church. First off, April is a beautiful time of year in Manhattan. I wish that the flowers were blooming in Chicago now like they were in the West Village then. Next, it is always a pleasure to interact with the wonderful, very capable folks at the General Board of Global Ministries who work tirelessly on the third floor of the Interchurch Center on Riverside Drive, just across the street from the famous Riverside Church. But really, the thing that will make those couple days stay with me is interacting with young adults who had converged from all over the United States to offer a few years of their lives in service to God and their fellow people. Those folks blew me away with their passion, their intelligence, their imagination.

And their ambition.

After returning from a night out, a few of us settled into the basement lounge of Alma Matthews House just because we knew that we wouldn't see each other again for a long time. Discussion wandered everywhere from liberation theology to infallibility of scripture to how we could lock out the guys who were smoking outside. For whatever reason, however, we kept returning to how we, the so-called Millennial generation, would soon step into the leadership structure of the United Methodist Church, especially with general conference approaching in spring of 2012. We were aware of the power of our voice, and I for one found both hope and at least a bit of panic at that thought.

See, I grew up with the saying, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Especially by my junior of college, I had all but rejected most bureaucratic structures that concentrated power, and I had flirted with Christian anarchism. I still have many friends who remain on that far left edge who reject nearly any form of organized power because of how it is often abused.

I no longer see that philosophy as feasible. The problems of the world are too great, too complex, and too often perpetuated by people with much more organized money than I have to follow such an ideologically pure path. In order to unleash the streams of justice, people must pool their power until dams of oppression finally break. I did not understand this even last summer when I first was introduced to my current placement site, Interfaith Worker Justice, and I felt incredibly uncomfortable claiming any power for myself when power from God alone. Then I started learning about organizing for social change, about different strategies and some tried and true tactics to put pressure on the power brokers who keep so many in chains. I came to understand that organizing is another form of the Holy Spirit, and, just as some folks speak strange languages and supernaturally heal the sick, this form of the Holy Spirit is righteous power.

I, like some of those of young adult missionary candidates, have ambition, or better stated, ambitions. I have ambitions to eventually obtain a master's of divinity and perhaps the white collar of ordination. Though the concept seems a bit far-fetched, I also can see how I could land in other positions of power and authority within or outside of the structures of the United Methodist Church. God help me if that happens.

Which makes me think of Cesar Chavez, whose biography I am currently reading. Despite the fact that he never even graduated high school, Chavez came to embody the farmworker movement and interacted with some of the most powerful men in the country. There are pictures of him with United States senators and even the pope. And naturally many people view him as something of an egomaniac. From what I have heard and read, there is some truth in that. It is also true that to wield power, one must also have a strong ego.

Thus, I don't think that we as Christians should flee from power. Hiding away in a cloister can be as insidious a temptation as controlling the masses from the bully pulpit. We, as Christians, must claim and then utilize our power in a fashion that honors God. The problem is that many Christians disagree about what honors God. Therefore, we must constantly stride the path of the cross and center ourselves in Christ's love. The path of the cross is sacrifice and nonviolence and hope. The path of the cross is ambitious because the cross has unimaginable power.

It is the power of love.

I Thirst: a Reflection for Good Friday

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.'
-John 18:28

It was one of those blisteringly hot days back in July. The previous day had been Independence Day, though we had started work earlier than usual, we still only worked a half day. I didn’t particularly like being denied a half day’s wage because of some silly nationalistic holiday, so I was determined to earn it back by working an hour longer each day for the rest of week.

            At the golf course nestled in the narrow valley, I worked as simple laborer on the grounds crew. Because I had started later in the summer than the rest of guys, I didn’t have the skills of my peers, and I was given the most manual labor. In this case it was removal of nine months’ worth of compacted leaves on acres of flowerbeds. That involved going between a leafblower and a rake and flat shovel. Usually working in pairs, we would load up the big Chevy pick-up with leaves, dump it behind number 13 tee, and repeat. It was good “honest” work.

            On this hot day, I was working alone. I was in the shade, and I thought that I was keeping well hydrated. I don’t know if I just didn’t drink enough water or if the extra hour in the dust put me over the edge. I was feeling extra tired and a little dizzy when I got home that day, and I just went to bed and tried to drink as much water as possible.  The next morning I got up at 4 AM as usual, tried to eat some breakfast, and nearly vomited. Something was wrong with my body.

            Up on the cross Jesus was thirsty too. He’d already lost a lot blood from the flogging, and the physical exertion is more than I can imagine. I feel that we talk a lot about Jesus’ perseverance in the church, as we should, but then we use it affirm to our “Protestant work ethic” as well. However, in Jesus’ admission of thirst, I see the embrace of human frailty, our bond to the physical and physiological. Jesus didn’t keep a stiff upper lip. Jesus didn’t try to show up the other guys hanging with him. Jesus took the path of humility, recognizing his humanity when he was so close to the revelation of his greatest divine glory.

            This is the Jesus I know. Born to poor, refugee parents, raised in a marginalized and oppressed culture, working as a tradesman and a teacher, then persecuted for political agitation. Jesus loved. Jesus wept. Jesus ate and drank, so that means that he also peed and pooped. Jesus was human just like you and me.

            I missed two days of work that July due to heat exhaustion, and it wasn’t for some grand cause. I was constantly thirsty for those two days because I tried to deny my humanity. I thought that I could justify myself through my work. That’s not the path of the cross, not the path of Christ. Today as we remember Christ’s divine nature, may we also remember his human nature. Today as we remember our liberation from thirst, may we also remember our liberation to thirst.

Amen

Intentionally Communing

Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each others' faults and failures.

-          -Mother Teresa

The story of how I came to live in community is a little convoluted. I did not intend on living on the Near South Side of Chicago, an hour’s commute via public transportation to the office of Interfaith Worker Justice. In early August of 2010 I had thought that I would live in an intentional community made up of mostly seminarians in the Far North neighborhood of Rogers Park, but I learned, quite accidentally, that the community was exclusively for seminarians. And someone forgot to tell me. Oops. That set me off on a panicked effort to live at another intentional community also on the North Side. Through the generous help of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, I spent the last weekend of August in Chicago hoping that I would be accepted by the residents of that community. I learned in the parking lot of Baltimore-Washington International Airport that they hadn’t accepted me. 

That was 6 days before I was to move to Chicago from central Pennsylvania. Oh dear.

Luckily, the office assistant of the IWJ office had also done a Google search for “Christian intentional communities” in Chicago. That was how I got into contact with First Trinity in the near-south neighborhood of Bridgeport. I had visited First Trinity during my short weekend stay in late August, but I had figured that it was too far away from the office. Suddenly, I had little choice but to live there...or live with the family of a second cousin of my father whom I had never met.

First Trinity it was.

I moved into the second-floor apartment of the community center across from the old Lutheran church over Labor Day weekend after a 12-hour car drive via the Pennsylvania Turnpike and flatland-crossing interstates of the Midwest. My room was threadbare. The walls were decorated with blue-and-gray streaks and aquatic plant scenes. The paint was chipping. I slept on a roll-away bed mattress for about two weeks until I brought home the mattress left by my US-2 missionary predecessor.

But the folks there! They were such an odd assortment of folks. Bohemian artists and musicians, immigrant students and workers, and a few guys who had lived there since the late 1970’s. On Labor Day we had a big barbecue where we ate hamburgers around a big table and then played Uno. I felt pretty accepted pretty fast.

But I also learned that community is a difficult thing to perpetuate without any structures or organized effort. One roommate left three months after my arrival; he and his girlfriend needed more space than the little apartment could provide. True story. Shortly after Christmas another roommate left for a construction project at O’Hare, and though all his things remained at Trinity, I have seen him maybe twice since the beginning of the year. Three more “roommates” who lived in the old parsonage across the driveway also left by the end of February. The musician who shared a wall with me was the next to leave in mid-March, and it is likely that one more roommate will leave by the end of May. 

We call that “transistioning”.

With the absence of folks with whom I had only begun to develop relationships and the appearance of new folks with whom I had no relationship, I finally got proactive in my community-building. One of the newbies had lived in an honest-to-God coop for a few years, and so we worked together to make a proto-coop out of our mismatching neighbors. We sent out e-mails and knocked on doors, and then repeated it. Last Sunday we finally had our first Trinity Community meeting where 10 of the 13 current residents showed up. 

Hallelujah.

We have a long way to go before we function as an actual community and instead of just people who live in the same space. Because the community consists of two buildings, we have to organize separate meetings to go over things like cleaning common spaces (bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms), provision of communal resources (toilet paper, sponges, pots & pans, etc.), and respecting each other’s different schedules (no violin after 11 pm, please). In lieu of active and organized residents, the church board of trustees and deacons had been interviewing and admitting new residents. It is my neighbors’ and my hope that soon we will at the very least have a stronger voice in that process. And lastly, maybe we’ll actually, you know, like, hang out together every once and while?

Community is a hard thing to practice in general, and it is even harder when the community is as diverse as the one at First Trinity. We are co-ed, represent four different nations of birth (and thus four different native languages), are between 20 and 65 years old (though mostly under 30), and have jobs ranging from full-time student to missionary to software engineer.  Deciding issues through consensus will be fun.

But I don’t think that the beauty of community can be captured by demographics. It comes to light in short narratives. Stories like helping a love-struck roommate make an unplanned trip to Phoenix. Stories like sharing impromptu birthday cake on a Wednesday night. Or everyone singing along with music from a laptop as the night drags on. While community takes some very intentional organizing and planning, community also just…plain…happens.

While I was in college, my closest friends and I had been struck by the account of the community of believers from the book of Acts. Our community at Bucknell didn’t look like that, and Trinity Community won’t look like that either. Maybe that’s because every community looks different, and that’s cool. But what remains constant is the sharing of resources, of space, and of life.

I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else right now.