I have some friends who have some friends who call themselves DuckDuck Collective.
They recently traveled the country creating this project for Levis.
If you haven’t been inspired today, take the seventeen minutes to watch. You won’t be disappointed.
Short Film – Levi’s “Go Forth” from John Carl on Vimeo.
While waiting for the train last winter, I was leaning against the railing of an overpass that crossed the tracks that went to and from downtown. It was the one spot along the route you could get a nice view of the skyline; it also happened to be a semi-regular transfer point to get to wherever I was going. So, as any relatively new Chi-Town resident would, I was letting my eyes to bounce off of the buildings while I tried to forget the fact that it was well below what I would consider a tolerable temperature. My mind was floundering all over a lot of things–most of which don’t really matter anymore: Ex-lovers and ex-frustrations and obligations I am no longer under; Rapunzel with chopped locks.
While up there, some guy says to me as he passes by, “Don’t forget to look west. Pretty soon that whole place will be upside down.” (Chicago’s downtown is right alongside Lake Michigan and is as far east as the terrain allows. For the most part, the farther west one goes in the city, the poorer the community is. This isn’t completely true in every respect, but generally people don’t go to the west side for much. The west side was where this man was from. It was also where I was living.) Before I could respond, the man had disappeared down the stairs onto the platform. I looked away from the opulent buildings and looked behind me. It was dark and not at all appealing to the eye.
I felt like something profound had just happened; like I had witnessed some esoteric prophecy from the mouth of a man dressed in a South Pole hoodie and a green toboggan. Around that time, I was up to my neck in pseudo-intellectual philosophy and the subconscious mindset that everything should be picked apart like a church bulletin in a child’s lap.
During this time–probably from November until about February–a nearly unbearable onslaught of self-realization hit me like a jetliner. Under the excuse of the bitter cold, I read more and wrote more than I ever have in such a short amount of time. I processed and prayed through the Chicago winter. Christmas came and went in a blur and left me feeling like something was missing or unfinished; I expected (as has become annual routine) that the coming year would be eminent in this life of mine. I expected extravagant signs and defined moments of clear revelation and was given slow, sometimes agonizing lessons in humility and trust. Deep down I think I was hoping for the role of Humble Hero…To be made into this nomadic servant of Christ in famous stories who traveled the world leaving bettered lives in his wake. I was, instead, cast in a minor role because, in truth, there aren’t any major roles in this gig. That’s the point.
Around the time springtime came (which doesn’t actually come to Chicago until around late May) I finally stopped looking at the arrogant city lights. They were no longer romantic like they were in the winter and they pulled eyes away from the things that deserved to be looked at. I had my aspirations, but they were miserably irrelevant and misguided, even if they were, in a way, on the right track. I was trying to work for my Father like I worked for an employer: certainly for the betterment of the company, but, in a much more true and committed way, for my benefit.
Summer was joyful. I was shown in a very tangible way the rewards of hard work. Our yard was filled with people, food, and stories. Our clothesline was filled with wet clothes we washed in our bath tub and my heart was content. I breathed in the Spirit on my morning commute. It went by too quickly, and now I’m back in a place that is too familiar for my liking.
In a way that doesn’t matter much (but still tugs at me daily), I’m precisely where I do not want to be.
However, in every way that matters most, I’m afraid (and I do mean “afraid”) I’m exactly where I want to be.
I’m making friends who have hundreds of thousands of dollars and friends who live in borrowed rooms. I’m learning self-discipline and how to separate selflessness from arrogance, which is apparently very difficult for me. I’ve been given the responsibility that’s requiring me to give away a hell of a lot more of myself than I’m really ready for. But, as I’m learning, it’s really not relevant how ready I am. I am not strong, I am not brave. I am, however, under a good deal of mercy… And not only mercy, but grace.
Someone told me very recently, “We lack nothing.”
And that is the truest thing I have heard in a while.
We read psalms in the mornings and we
rode our bikes and ate food grown by Mennonites
with beautiful people with dirty feet
and very peaceful hearts
We gathered grass on our backs and hair
and played music while person
after person stopped to sit
and sing and ponder your questions of
what makes music? and your
bold proclamations of Jesus’
hairstyles and your very intentional
questions that made each of them feel special
We spent the sabbath morning and afternoon
in your friend’s house with plenty of windows and stories
and fresh breezes and a spring that
ran through the the basement. That night
we sat on the floor and you
rubbed my back as we listened to
a brother read something from that book that
hit me a harder than I really saw coming
We listened to stories and songs and
a trio made of a clogger, a guitarist
and a cellist who held a baby in her belly
while we sat with the family you found there, who
fights mountaintop removal,
the whitewashing of scripture, materialism,
militarism, and the urge to live for themselves in
a world that demands just that of each of us
We drummed and spoke of your child soldiers
and tattoos and how God gives us our daily bread
of direction–there’s no need for abundant plans
when you’re being led by His hand. It seems
we’ve been learning similar things in
very different places with very different
people who, in the long run, have the same
needs and desires as every other person ever made
[While we were singing
he stole the bike I borrowed
I just didn't care
I'd come to a point
where the material things
were nugatory]
But this morning I woke up with the same uncertainty as last night, only with a starving recklessness.
In those days,
we finally chose
to walk like giants &
hold the world in arms grown strong with love
& there may be many things we
forget
in the days to come,
but this will not be one of them.
–Andreas
———-
| Sun, you woke me up with the most insistance I’ve seen from you in a long while.
It led to believe that something rather different would happen today. Different from restlessness; different from merely anticipation. |
———-
I apologize for the lack of material. There’s some pretty exciting stuff going on, and as much as I want to write about it, I feel it would be done prematurely. However, things are falling into place quickly and it should not be too much longer before this writer’s block is lifted.
Also, I have another project in the making. This hopefully means more updates, posts, whatever you call these things, with the help of a very good friend. More on that later.
One Love.
We were given a place where we can toss rocks and ideas, watch storms, have Kingdom talk and wave to the women in the shelter across the street well above the unsuspecting folks two stories down. This Terabithia in the middle of everything we know was impeccably timed. Everything’s changing, everyone’s changing. There needed to be a place where it all could be harmonized with each other and with God, so we were given a sanctuary equipped with heating units, a bench, chairs with broken backs and a beautiful view of the southern sky.
I was given a secret by a stranger today about how to walk away with enough free food to throw a party on a weekly basis. I’m finding out tonight whether or not it would be doable to throw a family dinner for everyone who wants to enjoy a meal and some conversation. Black folks, white folks, rich folks, not rich folks, churched and not. We’re all poor in some regard; it’s about time we celebrated our likeness and started building up what the world has broken down.
I was reminded recently (through someone who is, no doubt, yet another godsend. I needed someone with a like mind to bounce thoughts and frustrations off of before my unrest and unspoken passion seeped out of my ears.) the beauty that sparks between folks sharing meals. As much as I’m trying not to, I seem to forget the things that I learned in the city.
(And no, dear sirs, I don’t expect to shape my ministry around the intent of helping people. In most respects, I don’t help people. I’m typically a subpar helper. I do, however, see the wealth of spending genuine time with people and striving to love and disciple radically. It takes lots of time, patience, love, mercy, and as I’ve observed, lots of food. I invite you to peer outside your boxes. I’ll be more than happy to cut a peephole. Perhaps you can join me?)
——–
There’s a lot going on all at once. I traveled 2,500 miles this month and slept in five different states. I’ve started school and I’m rather frantically looking for a job, as I’ve got about a hundred dollars in total in my name.
I’m reading, studying, and praying through what a lifestyle looks like when taking on the politics God’s been telling us to live since the beginning. (Curious? The ultra-consolidated version is in Numbers 23:9.)
I’m still deciphering what I need, and more importantly, what I don’t. Simplifying my life makes room for the Big Guy. Less distractions, more focus. More focus, clearer understanding. Clearer understanding, radical response. It works every time, I swear.
Pray for me? That would be fantastic. I don’t want to lose steam, nor do I don’t want you to.
I want to encourage, but I’m very unsure how.
I wrote these on index cards I found the other night when I realized I was well over four hundred miles away from my journal. They they all came at a very late hour in a very short amount of time. They aren’t especially ground breaking or wonderful, but I found myself interested with what was in front of me when I finished.
[Lucy, I apologize. I was a thief. I owe you three orange index cards.]
un.
When they were younger she had thick brown hair
that took the longest route possible from her scalp to her waist;
the route a leaf takes when it’s trying to make its way to the ground.
But even now he allowed his fingers to mindlessly meander
over her bare head while he watched her sleep in a very familiar way:
her breast rising and, with her right half slightly following her left,
falling again.
She wasn’t as beautiful by fluorescent bulb and paper gown
as she was by candle and skin, but they, as people, were.
And that fact alone altered the course of their mourning.
deux.
…but there inevitably comes a time when a seasoned sailor yields
not to some obstinate zephyr, but to the defeat
of limp and lifeless sails.
Nothing prepares a master to take a pause in his trade.
The hardest thing isn’t the pursuit of my most difficult goal,
it’s knowing the only thing to be done is to
not act at all.
trois.
[Home is becoming
the place where I meet the ones
that I love the most]
[Chicago, Lynchburg
mothers, sisters, and brothers
now in Atlanta?]
[What good is a roof
if it keeps us sheltered from
our long-lost fam'ly?]
I don’t know how to “want not.” I don’t know what it means for God to be “my portion.” We all know the concepts, sure. But holding fast to concepts without living them or experiencing them is what turned Christianity from a revolution to a religion and from religion to a political statement; A tool of the state rather than the its conscious.
I haven’t arrived, but I am learning.
—-
[Half of my wardrobe
to make room for God and books
First change of many]
—-
I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. (Reoccurring theme? It certainly seems that way.)
I’m going back to a place where convenience and my vices are as common as church buildings. What’s more horrifying is that I’m not going back by accident; I’ve been given a lot that isn’t to be kept to myself.
I’m absolutely brilliant at doing the wrong thing. I could write a book of my poor decisions and ways I should have done things. But the most hopeful thing I’ve ever known is the fact that He doesn’t seem to care.
Here it comes:
the breaking from self,
the elongated list of failures,
the clearer Face,
the beginning of a ministry,
and the struggle of the building of The Church.
O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, hasten to my help!
The ink from his pen had, as he subconsciously knew it eventually would, made its way through the breach in the plastic barrel and dripped into his mouth. He touched his fingers to his tongue and, after affirming that his taste buds were not deceiving him, got up from his desk and into the bathroom, pen still in hand. He stared at himself in the mirror–looking at his faded brown eyes, then at his over-sized nose, and then, finally, his lips. His barely existent upper lip mashed somewhat unnaturally into his very existent bottom lip with an unsightly explosion of blue ink, which resembled a lipstick do-up of a toddler. He dropped his maimed Bic to the ground and glanced down at his hand; had the ink been red, he thought, he may be mistaken for some carnivorous beast, a notorious murderer or at the very least, a liker of red meat. He was not exciting enough for these things; he couldn’t stand the sight of blood, either.
He lifted his hand and smeared the ink across the mirror, over his face’s reflection so that all he could see looking back at him was his ink-smeared, half-open mouth, from which spoke the most truth he had spoken in a long, long time:
“You need to get help.”
And all of the weight he’d been collecting over the past year–from those people and those vices and those thoughts–dropped, rather violently, from his shoulders to the floor.
The first, cold half of June in Chicago was broadsided by a heat wave in the middle of the month that didn’t even offer so much as a glimpse of a transition. Cold to hot; cold turkey. Our apartment, which houses five people, one box fan and no A/C unit, has hovered steadily at 95 degrees for the past few days; my bedroom (until we finally buckled down and bought a couple fans yesterday) was uninhabitable as it hit over a hundred degrees. Pretty miserable, given the consistant 65% humidity. Lots of folks on our street go through the exact same thing.
So what do people do to make this bearable?
They open fire hydrants, of course.
["Hey Steve, we're goin' up to the fire hydrant. You wanna come?"
"Yeah man. I'll be right there."]
The fire hydrant our neighbors open is on a very wide two lane street that sits away from the apartments and across the street from a warehouse. Further down the street is the train overpass that separates the Black community where I live from the Latino community called La Villita. The hydrant-fountain is a common place; a neutral ground for all races, genders and ages. Toddlers, kids, teenagers, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, all together for the same reason: to flee from the heat.
And as friends, we jumped, ran, danced, laughed, shivered and joined together in triumph over the late June swelter.
It’s amazing how far a hot day and a highly pressurized source of water can bring a community.
The nine of us walked back to our block with our shirts in hand while we watched our sopping shoes squirt water. After I came back outside with dry shorts and wet hair I sat on the back deck with my brother and sisters and talked as we tied our clothesline. We didn’t talk about the increasing violence or the neverending loud music or the drugs or the bad this or wrong that… I think the exact words were, “I love our neighborhood.”
