Beyond any "fix": Driving toward understanding

Fixing Things

The trouble with people is that they’re busy fixing things they don’t even understand. We’re always fixing things, aren’t we? It never strikes us that things don’t need to be fixed. They really don’t. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood. If you understood them, they’d change.

Anthony de Mello
Source: Awareness

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Personal mantra anyone?

Spend some time on Google with "personal mantra" and see what turns up for you. 

Apparently, mission statements, at both personal and corporate levels, are becoming passé.  Something to do with length, actual utility and impact. 

The new move is toward the shorter, more focused and memorable personal or corporate mantra--one to four word commitments that shape life, value and action consistently. 

One way to understand this notion is to consider how work and life are not only ordered, but what is the fundamental value proposition relative to how daily life and work roll out.  What is the fundamental commitment of my organization?  What about my own life, day by day?

The video below gets at the organizational mantra.  I think you'll find it challenging.

But, on a personal basis, what is the one indispensable commitment, truth, action or goal that I bring to every day and to every situation and encounter inside every day, no matter where I am, who I am with or what I am doing?

Here's mine:  Listen carefully.  Listen constantly. 

What's your personal mantra? 

In the battle. . .

This clip from Henry V could be applied to our battle against the forces, the seemingly unrelenting forces of poverty, despair and oppression.

Still, the speech by Henry calling his band of brothers to fight, against all odds the battle they were called to fight, fits well with our own struggle in the city.

As Matt Lair, board member with Urban Connection--San Antonio, who sent this to me said, "We few.  We happy few!"

No poor

The sacred writings of Judaism point toward a society devoid of poverty.

Consider this short meditation from Deuteronomy 15:4-5:

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.

Not knowing what to do with a radical Jesus

If you read the teachings of Jesus and observe what the Gospels claim that he actually did, you must conclude that he lived a radical life.  This conclusion appears especially evident when you stop to compare his lifestyle and expressed values with the ordinary, run of the mill U. S. Christian. 

Luke 4:16ff reports on an early speech that Jesus delivered in the synagogue in his hometown.  Many consider these words the basis of his first sermon.  During that address, Jesus outlined his understanding of his personal mission in life.  It is quite the litany, especially when compared to the apparent mission understandings of most churches and most church members these days. 

Here's the mission statement Jesus shared with the crowd who gathered in the Nazareth house of prayer:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

I've been pondering during the past few days how the church has rewritten that mission statement in America.  Here's what I believe is an accurate mission statement for many congregations in the mainstream church today and for typical members of such congregations:

"The requirements of common sense are forced upon me to bring a word of direction to the disaffected middle-class materialists among whom I live and with whom I identify so strongly.  God has sent me to proclaim release to those imprisoned in unsatisfying relationships and held captive by basic negative self-images; to unlock the chains of self-imposed limits and open every eye to the possibilities bound up in a life lived to the full, to set free slaves to unrestrained debt by means of creative 'work outs' and to proclaim the year of infinite possibilities, especially for our children."

I'm certain that there are other ways to rewrite the mission.  But this one will have to do for today. 

There is a reason why most churches don't act as if they share Jesus' concern for the poor, the impoverished, the economically distressed, as in "po folks." 

There is a reason why most churches don't reach out to the prisoners, those locked up in need of compassion, love, mercy and liberation.

There is a reason why the church is not positioned near the blind, and by implication the unhealthy, the uninsured and the cast offs of our culture.

There is a reason why most church members don't know what the "year of the Lord's favor" is all about; why they don't really know what the Year of Jubilee involved or why Jesus embraced it as his defining mandate for his entire life. 

It's all about mission and self-understanding; purpose and reason to exist. 

Of course, there are exceptions to my critique.  You easily can prove up the fact that your church falls into the exceptional category.  Just check this year's budget. 
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So, I'm a thief. . .

Not long ago on a Monday evening after work, I broke into the Central Dallas Food Pantry.

Big time no-no, I'm telling you.

Place was locked up tighter than a drum.

No staff.

No interview process.

No forms to document output or outcomes.

Just me, using my key to get inside the food storage area after hours.

Total disregard for policy, protocol and process.

So, I'm a thief.

The saga began when I noticed an extremely skinny, as in skin and bones, Willie Nelson looking fellow climbing out of one of the trash dumpsters back of our building.

In his hands he cradled a discarded mess of shredded cabbage packed in a plastic bag.

Must have been near 100 degrees. No telling what the expiration date read on the package.

I approached him and introduced myself.

"Where did you get the cabbage?" I asked.

"Out of your trash," he replied.

"I just got out of the hospital this afternoon and I'm not doing so good," he added. "My stomach is hurtin' something awful."

"Gee, I'm sorry to hear that," I said, wondering what his plans were for the evening.

"Could you get me a few cans of food from inside?" he asked.

"Inside"--there's the term. After hours everyone who comes by because their hungry knows that "inside" is where the relief is to be found.

"Sure," I declared without much thought.

Immediately, an internal conversation got underway in my head, as I reviewed our "rules and regulations" about how to use and access the Food Pantry.

The way I figured it, I was in violation of about 100 rules and procedures.

The word "thief" rose up in my throat. I quickly pushed it back down and encouraged my new friend to follow me.

He rode a bicycle weighed down with plastic bags filled with soft drink cans for recycling. Guys like this keep our neighborhood cleared of all such trash.

"You can park your bike inside the back door and we'll go up and around back down to the Food Pantry," I laid out our plan of attack.

Luckily my keys worked! I've done so little in this part of what we do over the past many years that I wouldn't have been surprised if they had changed the locks on me. The Food Pantry was our only hope since I was flat broke!

The door opened and we were in!

I had to urge my buddy to fill up two shopping bags.

"I don't want to be greedy," he told me.

Now the guy is flat killing me.

"No chance of that here," I reassured him.

He told me that he had a small trailer parked over on Good-Latimer in South Dallas, so he wasn't without a roof over his head.

"I sure wasn't looking forward to that cabbage!" he exclaimed.

He finished packing away the loot and we made our escape.

No one saw us.

But, I had to get it off my chest.

We broke several rules, I'm sure.

I just can't stand seeing a man fishing "food" out of our trash.

Maybe I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court!
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Madeline Reedy's Mission Year

No surprise here. At least, not to anyone who knows Madeline Reedy.

Madeline has worked at Central Dallas Ministries for the past four years. Her focus has been on youth who "age out" of the foster care system here in Dallas. She has done a great job at everything under her charge since joining our team.

Now she is about to embark on a year-long mission assignment with Adventures in Missions. The project, "The World Race," will carry Madeline around the world where she will work in 11 nations before returning home next year.

Madeline's question to all of us is simple: "Will you choose to love the world with me?"

Madeline tells me that there are three ways we can help her.

1) Provide encouragement

2) Pray for her and her work

3) Provide funding

Take a look at the brief interview I shot recently and then, go to this website where you can learn more about The World Race and sign on to be her partner in loving the world!

Finding New Focus

While I love the excitement and the "feel" of the calendar turning off into a new year, resolutions have never been much help to me.

What I find myself needing most has to do with, well, I suppose you could call it "focus."

Energy runs right up against focus though! Maybe the way to put it is I'm looking for the energy to discover a new, motivating focus as I move out into what we call 2009.

Today I am thinking that the dimensions of my new focus won't be very complicated.

Whatever I do, I want to be more inclusive, of people, of new ideas, of different opinions, of new ways of working. Ironically, in order to get clearer and more precise about matters, I need to mess things up even more by including lots of other factors, relationships and data. I need to find new sources of information, developed from a different context and perspective. I need to find new friends who work in fields that are unknown to me. I need to see, to witness new developments, events, happenings.

But then, I want to be more on task in the day-to-day stuff. I'm determined to waste less time, to spend the hours I have in more productive ways. I mean, I don't have to be distracted or concerned about everything!

Again, there is a tension here. Sometimes inclusion butts heads with mission. But I know that if people become more of a priority for me, this conflict will sort itself out in some very surprising and creative ways. I' ve been here before!

So, I want to be quieter, more reflective, more eager to listen and to understand; and not just ideas, but people. If at this time next year I am feeling any satisfaction, even a measure of renewed contentment, I know it will be because I have found new ways to be with the folks who define the focus I'm out to discover.

How about you?

Happy New Year!
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Mission

This year Central Dallas Ministries (CDM) celebrates 2o years of service, community building and advocacy in the inner city neighborhoods of Dallas. It likely will be an exciting year.

Turning the page on two decades--14 years of which I have observed up close and personal--has me thinking about the nature of our mission as an organization.

Our official mission statement reads:

"The mission of Central Dallas Ministries is to share the love of God in word, action and attitude while building genuine community in the neighborhoods where we live and work."

Our logo attempts to communicate our strategy graphically.

We believe the primary institutions necessary for community creation/renewal and sustainability are homes, schools and churches. We work on a daily basis with the people who populate these important institutions to see them grow stronger, healthier and more effective. When you look at our logo, you will see these institutions represented clearly in the forefront.

We also know that neighborhood folks must connect with one another and with the "background" institutions that make a city work--business, markets, higher education, health care, government, employment. You'll see those institutions depicted in the background of the CDM logo.

Our logo attempts to tell the story of our values, our focus and our daily work.

But, what do we really do day-after-day?

In thinking about it, here's what I believe is true about what we actually do.

At CDM we EMBRACE. We stop and we try to pay attention to what people are saying about themselves, their lives, their pain, their fears and their hopes and dreams. We welcome folks and we love them where we find them and where they find us. Stopping and welcoming leads to lots of hugging and acceptance!

At CDM we GATHER. We learn the value of taking seat for deeper conversations, for the nurturing of relationships and friendships. As we sit together, as we visit, we come to know what is possible and how we can get on with life in Dallas together. In our gatherings we share resources, provide training for lots of people and we receive wonderful benefits from the community around us--both the poor and the rich.

At CDM we CHALLENGE. We often reach a point where we stand up, almost always with the partners we've made while visiting. We take a stand together to challenge unfair systems, to undo things that are put together in a way that benefits the few at the expense of the many. We also have learned to challenge one another to simply be better, do better and realize the higher good.

Our values inform our mission.

We embrace.

We gather.

We challenge.

As we persist, community forms, lives change and the city grows stronger in terms of the health, well-being and hope it extends to every resident.

This is our work.

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Commander's intent

Recently, I attended a seminar facilitated by an ex-Marine. He told us a couple of stories from the first Gulf War in Iraq.

A take-away I won't soon forget had to do with what he called "Commander's intent."

In battle fronts like Iraq troops face situations that are both highly volitile and filled with uncertainty and chaos. The Marine told us that every soldier was trained to understand the irreducible mission and intent of their leaders. Simply put, when in doubt, follow this clear command:

"Go north and always defend the river."

In this case he referred to the historic Euphrates River.

If separted from the larger force, if distracted or attacked, no matter what, this was the one command everyone knew they could fall back on as a mission statement for next steps type action.

This information left me wondering about our mission and work in the city.

There are so many distractions, so many setbacks, so many interruptions, so many great opportunities and so much chaos.

What would be an equivalent statement for me and for all of us who work in urban renewal organizations, no matter what our specific functions or our unique objectives?

"When in doubt, remember the poor and always stand with the community."

That's a statement that has been rumbling around in my head since I heard my Marine buddy talk. I know there is more here to think about.

I'd love to hear what you come up with.



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