In leu of the 12 days of Easter I decided to focus on all the people I've met here and the mysterious ways God is working in my adventures, beyond my control and in ways I wouldn't. On the first Easter people saw the real face of Christ in some people they randomly bumped into. I want to write about specific people I've seen in Boston this time of Easter who are the hands and feet of Christ, and I see it in their faces. Also a few side notes on other cool missionary stuff in Boston might show up here.
#1 Black and Pink Guy
We usually eat dinner together, but Audrey and Libby had services to attend at their churches, and Kathleen was going to meet Libby at Harvard square to go with her. Harvard is where the bus takes us from our house to get on "the T" (or subway, like "the metro" in DC). I planed to go on my own to the University Lutheran Church in Harvard, near the Harvard Campus. They were finishing a Thursday night series of meals that involved serving communion at a table in the sanctuary as part of a potluck dinner. Two weeks prior I did it and we literally passed the bread and juice to each other around the table, and then the soup and salad, and wheat berry dish from Whole Foods, and glazed carrots, and chipotle nachos with lime, and then read the bible and ate cookies all at the same time. Our Lord's last supper for supper. None of this one little piece and a shot stuff we do on Sunday worship. God gave ALL of himself to for our sins, for ALL of us, to fill in our gaps and shortcomings, eat and be filled!!
So I was walking to this church when I walked past a particular guy on the bench. He looked familiar. I recognized him behind his glasses, but wasn't sure because his hood was all the way up, he looked at me too. When our eyes crossed we did the awkward quick look away as if nothing happened. But then I recognized his backpack and a white reusable shopping bag. I continued the awkward walk-away from the awkward look-away. Then I stopped. It hit me. On Monday doing the Farmer Dave's distribution, I had a conversation with this guy, close to my age. He comes into the church every so often to pick up food for Lisa ______ when she's out of town. This week he was packing it all into his red backpack and white shopping bag because he biked to the church. I remember talking to him about how crazy that road is for bikers. There are so many potholes and you often have to choose between hitting the pothole or hitting a car to dodge it, and if the bus ever comes by while you're biking there on rt. 3A, well all the angels this side of the book of Revelation better come to protect you or get ready to carry you on to heaven. I couldn't imagine biking there with the week's food bungee-d to your back like him.
I was at the end of the sidewalk when I did the creepy turn around to see if he was still there because I knew who he was now, and the internal battle played in my head; "do I say something to him or not." So I just did it. I walked back and asked, "do you pick up food in Burlington for Lisa ______?" He said yeah, and that he recognized me too. Funny how that works--ask that person the next time YOU see them on the bench.
I got his name, he lives in Burlington. He used to live in Allston across the river from me in Watertown. He stopped in Harvard on his way to Dorchester (a less affluent neighborhood on the south end of the red line train) for a meeting with a group called Black and Pink that advocates for incarcerated LGBTQ ABCDEFG people. They send newsletters, and coordinate pen pals with inmates as a ministry. He told me all about it. I could see his passion for the issue, he was almost as weird about it as I get with food sometimes meeting new people. He just kept throwing information at me because I know so very little about these nuances in our prison system. I was super encouraged to see this kid, probably younger than me, doing incredibly powerful work for so many people. We crossed paths pretty out of the way for our usual places, and he inspired me. Maybe I inspired him?
Just a side note about prisons, a few weeks back I saw a documentary with Libby called "The House I Live in" about the prison system and the war on drugs. Check it out. That one hit home since at home half my neighbors in Virginia work at the prison in Craigsville, and the other half got busted for cooking crystal meth (slight exaggeration). I know maybe 20 families that work there and maybe 4 arrested for drugs. Libby cares much more about the criminal justice system than I did until recently, and she's shown me a lot of Bread for the World's resources on incarceration (check out this one about Nate's story). Particularly how hard it is to get a job after finishing time in jail. Haley House where I volunteered the day after Christmas(see 2nd day of Christmas post) has a cafe set up by the Catholic Workers to train and employ ex-convicts in a restaurant. It helps the economy, people, and local farms where they buy the ingredients. Plus it's the only place up here I've found that serves cheese grits!
We spend so much tax money taking care of people who've messed up, or maybe have just been victims of our broken system. Why not invest that money into social work programs like Haley House, or Thistle Farms in Nashville, or Dismas House, or many other programs popping up that let them contribute to fixing the system that perpetuates crime and violence.
After the guy on the bench and I parted ways, --him to work for the kingdom, and I to worship in the kingdom--I decided to no longer go to the Lutheran church, but to meet Kathleen and Libby there at Harvard to go to Libby's church with them. I met them at the B.Good burger place and bought some dinner--A veggie burger with bacon (and got some funny looks).
The service was very reflective with lots of Taize music. It's music and scripture that repeats simple verses over and over and over and over just beyond the point where you get tired of the same words, but you move into actually thinking about what the words mean and what God's saying to you in them about the 19th time. The service ended peacefully after more contemplative music, verses of Jesus' final hours, and sharing communion (not with soup and cookies, but in the pews with the little shot glasses and identically cut squares of potato bread). God broke his body and poured out his blood for us. Maybe we don't need that other stuff, the soup, salad, and wheat berry dish from Whole Foods. God gives us enough, and he asks us to give it to others. What a special opportunity to have. This guy on the bench shared his blessings with others in Dorchester on Maundy Thursday.
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