Taking Back Networking

Earlier this summer, in a phone conversation with a good friend who lives in Miami, we discussed our various pursuits of connecting different organizations and people with common interests. In her year-long stint with Americorps, she got a lot of opportunities to line up city projects and to find volunteers to help out. She also became more involved with her church, and combined the two groups to do things like tree plantings and all sorts of community service.
I shared her excitement as I talked about my recent foray into the neighborhood around my church in Greensboro, praying to join whatever work is going on there and to be good neighbors and to have some kind of impact in the area. On the first walk, I wrote down the phone number on the side of a ministry van parked at a home, but it took a while for me to be ready to call.

Just after my conversation with J in Miami, I talked with another friend who is also interested in working with Americorps, and looking into an assignment that would push her to develop skills to talk with strangers and ask them to create jobs, or at least leave some jobs open, for her clients in Nashville housing projects. We realized that what she would be doing is Networking, and that it's a task that we actually enjoy, although we detest the term. To me it implies grasping, greedy, grimy, self-serving, suited, smiling yuppie-young professionals who are out to squirm and squeeze their way into the market and then strategically build relationships that help them climb that corporate ladder and avoid the nasty spills of sliding down the chutes and winding up at the bottom again. But I have hope that we can take it back! Networking doesn't have to be about me; I want to be a "kingdom networker", connecting people and groups with complementary talents, resources, and passions to do God's work of restoration on earth.


I finally got up the nerve to call the number, and had an encouraging talk with a woman of God who lives just around the block from the office building where my church meets. Later, some friends and I went to meet her. We sat on the porch and listened to her stories for about an hour. I feel that she is an answer to prayers for connection with the community, and opportunities to get to know people and join in what the Holy Spirit is already doing there. She and her husband are pastors, and they have consistently provided help to needy people in the community who came asking for help over the past seventeen years. Their church occasionally provides meals for local homeless people; they have taken families in their home who needed a place to stay; they have cared for and even adopted children whose parents could not care for them. In short, Mr. and Mrs. S have climbed up on the altar as living sacrifices to be used in the Lord's work.
Currently, their church is interested in renting a large house to provide a place for girls to get off the streets, and bring their babies and small children with them. As she shared her heart to see these young women know true life, I felt myself inspired and grateful for indigenous workers who our church-goers can work alongside. We hope to do so. At least, the four of us who are involved in this so far.
Now we've got to figure out how to network within our own group to find people who are interested in getting involved and willing to submit to new leaders and leadership styles.

purge

what am i going to do with all this STUFF?

I need to be packing for my move. Moving has been a yearly (or sometimes twice-yearly) event for the past five. I should be better at this, better at motivating myself, better at getting down to the task, better at ruthlessly throwing out or giving away, better at avoiding accumulation!
I am planning a yardsale. Let me know if you would like to make it a joint effort!

Saint Basil's words are rolling around in my head like it's a pinball machine, though: "The clothes that you store in boxes, belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you, belong to the bare-foot."

I want to get rid of as much as possible before leaving The Green House. I'm tired of packing and unpacking the same stuff every year that I don't use or enjoy. And when I go to Colombia, I want to only keep the minimum of things that I want for my return (whenever, and to wherever, that may be). It is a problem that I like kitchenware, and furniture, and books.

But maybe I can loan these items out to friends in need? And maybe I can, with naked honesty, challenge myself to give away clothes that I never wear and that I won't be taking with me to Bogotá. Refugee resettlement organizations in this area always need donations to help new families set up house, and that feels in line with St. Basil's admonition.

Rumblestorm

I stand staring through the blinds at a train passing by, to count the cars and see what type they are. First, three engine cars with the tiny engineer in the lead. This will be a heavy load, and it is: all gravel, or coal. Car after car of it, each piled in the same way, to the same fullness, weighting down the engineer heading north. No, west. Why was north my first instinct? But there is a romanticism to the West, toward mystery and the unknown. I remember counting 64, then I keep counting in my head as I my periphery vision takes in the violence of the wind on the branches of trees and bushes in the side yard. A flash of lighting and I count on my fingers the seconds between the sight and the sound. Six. Suddenly I am at 91 in my train-car count. Is that possible? I think not, but I cannot stop. The last car comes in at 104, but I estimate 84 in reality, wondering how my mind skipped ahead a possible twenty digits.

The thoughts in my head are in a strange voice; it must be because I read poetry and then fell asleep, waking up half an hour later to a sound like my mother's old electrolux vaccuum dragging down the hall, banging into baseboards. I return to lucidity, but the sound persists.
Out on the stoop, it is the clouds, banging into each other as they steadily slide eastward, toward the coal-train I do not yet know is on its way to pass my house for me to count it and wonder at.

Seven In One Blow

Do you remember that story about the little man who killed seven flies in one blow? Well, I may beat him yet! Our apartment has been overrun with houseflies. Twenty to thirty of them. Just since yesterday.
I have personally killed four so far. Fly paper and a naturally short lifespan are currently taking care of the rest. Oh, and one escaped through the door today. Good for it.

just a summery note

The weather has been beautiful since I got back to Greensboro. Breezy, with afternoon and night thunderstorms, sunshine and clouds... close to perfect! I miss the West Virginia weather and lack of humidity, but this is a great week, weather-wise at least, for me to be on vacation from work.
Yesterday I ate junk food and then read on the steps for hours. Last night I stayed up way too late with friends, playing cards and then going to jazz night at a local college house to enjoy the live stylings of local musicians. Today I went for another prayer walk near church with some friends, and now I'm sitting on the stairs again listening to the guys on the porch downstairs with their guitars, hand drum, and didgeridoo. (alternate spelling: didjeridu. Thank you, Wikipedia.)
The Greensboro Days may be coming to an end, and this may be my last summer in North Carolina for a while, but I'm really enjoying it in this moment. I don't want to yearn for these days while they're still occurring. To, in the midst of having a great time, wish that these good time didn't have to end.

*News Flash* We interrupt this programming to inform you that Emily has just filled the house with smoke, due to negligence, oftentimes called "forgetfulness".
In brief, I put my lentils on the stove, where they were to boil for 2 minutes, then sit and soak for an hour. I promptly forgot them and decided to go blog outside on the stairs, where, of course, I could neither hear nor smell the beans.
M and A, this was waaay worse than the time with the tortilla (but somehow the alarms didn't go off this time). Just another proof that I should not be allowed to multi-task.
So I've just spent the last 20 minutes trying to air out the place, steel-wool-scrub the charred lentils off the bottom of LJ's pot, and generally replace the smell of smoke by, ironically, lighting candles.

I think this post's life has come to an end. What will I eat for dinner now?