The poster shows a young girl, obviously street-involved, huddled in a doorway. She is wrapped in a twenty dollar bill the size of a blanket. The bold lettering beside the picture proclaims, “WE CAN’T HELP STREET KIDS WITHOUT YOU.”
There is at least one other poster in this series, this time it is a young man sleeping on the side walk beneath the shelter of a giant credit card that is leaning against the wall and stopping the rain from getting to him.
It’s series of ads for Covenant House.
I feel like we’re selling indulgences. We’ve given up on the general public actually caring about homeless kids, so we just try to get to their wallets. They may feel a twinge of guilt every now and again but it’s not enough to make them do anything… but it could be enough to get them to throw a couple dollars our way – especially with the help of a few eye-catching ads.
The slogan, at least, is true. We can’t help street kids without you. But it’s not your money that will make the difference. It’s you, your physical presence, that will make the difference. These kids need love, a listening ear, some sort of positive relationship. At the drop-in we would see 180-250 kids every day. There would be 5 staff to work with those kids. And we would try hard to love those kids, we would try hard to journey with them, to hear their stories, to get to know them all. But the odds were too overwhelming. The majority of the time you just end up doing damage control, making sure the place stays safe. It’s sort of like being the catcher in the rye… only there’s a stampede headed your way. We really can’t help street kids without you.
I mean, these kids are dying. When we pass them on the street we’re looking at a dying kid. Some die fast and others die slow but most of them never really have a chance.
Scene change: imagine yourself at the beach. You notice that there’s a fierce undertow, the water’s sort of choppy and it’s okay for the adults but you notice an unattended toddler has wandered into the surf. The child is drowning. What do you do? Pack your bags, write a cheque to help make the beach safer and then get the hell out of there? Of course not. If you see a baby drowning and don’t reach out and pull it out of the water you actually share in the responsibility for that child’s death.
It’s no different with street kids. Stop giving money to make yourself feel better. Start learning what it means to love. Start learning what it means to be a Christian.
“What are your multiple sacrifices to me?” says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed cattle. And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats… Bring your worthless offerings no longer… they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer I will hide my eyes from you, yes, even though you multiply prayers I will not listen. Your hands are covered in blood.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from my sight.
Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
– Isaiah 1.10-17
January 12/04: Night
I was on the south side of the Seine, a little to the West of L’Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame de Paris, where the streets connect at strange angles and just before broad thoroughfares disperse and narrow in the depths of Montparnasse and the Latin Quarters. I was tired from walking all day, my left shoulder was bothering me and my knee was swollen – and I was hungry, but after scanning the menus of the nearest brasseries I was looking for something cheaper. Night was already wrapping the city in grays and blacks. The street lights casting reflections from shop windows and the water that glistened on the cobblestones. One block south of the river I slipped into a McDonald’s and was engulfed in a neon glow. I felt like I had walked out of history and became a character in a video game. And yes, John Travolta’s character in “Pulp Fiction” was right, they do call a Big Mac a Royale with cheese. I sat by the window and tried not to notice the rotating posters attached to the locked-up newstand just outside. The French version of Maxim has no problem showing naked women, and the French, apparently have no problem putting those naked women on billboards. As I devoured my meal I noticed the girl sitting in the corner. She had her back to the window, maybe the same age as me, her hair down to her chin. She was crying, crying hard but trying just as hard not to show it. He shoulders shook every now and again and she deliberately tilted her head so that her hair hung in front of her face, her hands clutched in front of her mouth. I think the fellow across from her was breaking-up with her, or maybe she had discovered his infidelity. Once he tried – tentatively – to take her hand, and holding it, pull it away from her face. She jerked away from his touch. A second time he touched her cheek with his fingers, wiping the tears away. She didn’t move. She wouldn’t acknowledge his touch.
I remember feeling that way once, when the world seems to shatter and break and I no longer recognized landscapes that once seemed so familiar. I remember longing for such a touch and also not being able to respond to it when it came, knowing it wasn’t the same – the touch was no longer intimate, it was apologetic, not passionate.
When I left the girl was still crying, still sitting bolt upright, and the guy was still looking sorry, looking like he wished he could fix everything but knowing he couldn’t.
Paris, they say, is for lovers. A city full of beauty and romance. I guess the harsh neon lights of a McDonald’s end up being an appropriate setting for heartbreak. There you don’t see cathedrals and statues, parks and old winding streets lined with apartments that seem to lean toward each other. There you only have tiles and sticky table tops, bright colored uniforms and glossy ads for coffee and salads – and garbages that are in constant need of changing.
That night I sat for a long time on the Pont Neuf watching the river carve a black path through the heart of the city.
Christian Snuff Films
I detest the movie “The Passion of Christ.” It grieves me; it makes me feel sick. I would not suggest that anybody, Christian or non-Christian, should go and see it.
As far as movies go I think it's comparable to “Irreversible” a French film that came out about a year ago. “Irreversible” is a movie about rape. It contains a graphic rape scene that goes on for nine minutes and ends with the attacker kicking the woman's face in. The director defended his film saying that all the details of the event had to be displayed in order for the audience to realize the horror of rape. He argues that we have been so desensitized that we need something to jolt us back to reality. I say that he's a liar. It just shows how apathetic our culture is. A friend once said to me,
“It's one thing to know that there are monsters out there who commit such acts, it's another thing to realize that all sorts of people are going to the theatre and paying money to watch those acts performed in front of their eyes.”
If we really cared, we wouldn't watch such movies. After all wasn't the proliferation of violent sex in the entertainment world one of the causes of desensitization? It doesn't make much sense to then use that exact media to try and do the opposite, “let's make it MORE violent so people will start carying”… while charging people money to view the result. If we really cared we would realize the impact that even whispering the word “rape” has; viewing a movie that exposes all the details would be preposterous. But we don't care.
And all this leads me back to “The Passion.” All these Christians that are going to watch Jesus be brutalized, all these Christians coming out of the theatres weeping, “Oh, I didn't realize it was so hard.” For some it's the whipping that really did them in, especially all the parts in slow-motion. It's like some sort of Christian snuff film – all these Christians getting off on the suffering of the one who speaks of himself as their Lover. We just love violence, we love gory details. We love the horror they arouse in us, we love to discuss them over coffee afterwards. Maybe they make us feel like better Christians, “Oh, look at the way I wept over Jesus' death.” Little do we realize that by paying to see such things we are actually doing the opposite. Going to see “The Passion” is tantamount to joining the crowd in yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
So I won't go and watch “Irreversible” to try and understand what it was like for my friends who were raped (oh, and we all have friends who have been raped – look at the stats. We just don't know because they've never felt like they could trust us… probably because we continually betray them by watching things like “Irreversible”…). What I will do is enter into relationship with them as best I can, I will learn from them, laugh with them, and cry with them.
And I won't go and watch “The Passion” to try and understand what it was like for Jesus on the day that he died. What I will do is enter into relationship with Jesus, I will learn from him, laugh with him and cry with him. And I will enter into relationship with those who are being crucified today, with those who are broken, those who are abused, those who are betrayed. I will journey with those people and there I will meet my Lord and my Lover. There I will discover my complicity in their crucifixion. There I will learn true empathy.
You want to get a feel for what Jesus went through? Stop watching Christian porn and start following him.
Fire in the Wilderness and God in Exile
It all goes back to an experience I had late last December.
I had taken the bus back from London, where I had spent a few days with my family. The bus got in early in the evening but winter was full-blown and the darkness of the night had already settled around the city. I decided to walk home, since I was still living downtown at that time. I started walking on Dundas street passed lighted restaurants and Christmas decorations that hadn’t been taken down yet. Over Christmas I had spent a lot of time thinking about the glory of that moment, of what it meant to have God break into history in that manner. I had spent a lot of time longing that God would break-in again in the same way. That another exodus would occur. The verses I couldn’t get away from were in Isaiah 63 and 64:
Look down from heaven and see from your holy and glorious habitation; where are your zeal and your mighty deeds? The stirrings of your heart and your compassion are restrained towards me. For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name. Why, O LORD, do you cause us to stray from your ways and harden our heart from fearing you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage. Your holy people possessed your sanctuary for a little while, our adversaries have trodden it down. We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who were not called by your name. Oh that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence – as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations might tremble at your presence. When you did awesome things which we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a god beside you, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for him. you meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name who arouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
But now, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; and all of us are the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever; behold, look now, all of us are your people, your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful hose, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire; and all our precious things have become a ruin. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD? Will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?
Powerful words. Words that I felt (and still feel) define our experience as the people of God today in Toronto (in Canada, and even North America).
As I neared my home I walked passed the housing projects at Dundas and Spadina. As I was passing them I noticed a fire breaking-out on the sidewalk about twenty feet in front of me. I quickened my pace and discovered a cardboard box stuffed with paper. It had only just started to burn and was only really getting going by the time I stood beside it. So, I stomped it out and kept on walking.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was strange that a box would be burning in the middle of the sidewalk. It was especially strange that I didn’t see anybody light the fire and then run away – I was close enough that I should have seen somebody. I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was trying to teach me something.
It wasn’t until a few hours later when I was sitting at home on the couch that everything clicked. The key was the story of Moses and the burning bush. I started thinking: what if Moses had reacted differently? What if, instead of approaching reverently, Moses had spent all of his time trying to extinguish the fire? He would have missed God’s presence, he would have been so preoccupied in doing the right thing, doing damage control (who knows, maybe that fire could have spread and damaged his flocks or their grazing lands…) that he would have missed what God was doing. And then I thought about how I had just stomped the fire out and kept on walking feeling like I was being a good citizen – look at me, putting out fires. That’s when I came to a realization: I was so preoccupied with thinking about exile that I just couldn’t see God’s presence at all. And that’s when it hit me, that’s when something huge clicked:
God goes into exile with his people.
And that, well, that changes everything.
"A little Piece of a Memory of You"… and Hints of a Love to Come
There are ghosts from my past that own more of my soul,
Than I thought I had given away.
They linger in closets and under my bed
And in pictures once proudly displayed – Jennifer Knapp.
Sometimes I feel like Russel Crowe's character from “A Beautiful Mind.” Only instead of seeing fictional characters I am stuck in a city full of ghosts. Ghosts of a relationship. Everywhere I go is full of memories of her, memories of us, things that used to be but are no longer. We were here once, we sat in this place, we passed through here, I once traveled this way knowing you were my destination. And I feel like I'm taking a step back to come out and admit that. I feel like I'm losing the battle by even acknowledging their presence. So I stumble through, try my best not to make eye contact, try my best not to remember, not to let old emotions flood back into me. I mean, how long has it been? Shouldn't all these things have dissipated long ago?
This weekend at camp was a lot harder for me than I thought it would be. I didn't expect everything to hit me so powerfully. Here is her house, here we sat and talked, here we first walked beside each other, here we kissed and she rested her body against me… the memories fly passed my eyes as I lower my head and try to feel like I'm free.
It's funny that I once prided myself on being a good lover. I really thought I was good at all that, at sacrificing, giving, devoting myself to another. I did all those things eagerly. I thought it was one of my greatest strengths. It's only after I've moved into trying to know God as Lover that I've begun to question myself in that regard. It's only now I've begun to realize how much I need to grow in that area. When I met my second girlfriend all thoughts of the previous one disappeared. There was no longing, no wondering, no wishful thinking. I was so passionately in love that such thoughts were completely foreign to me. So what kind of lover am I to God when I am so suddenly moved by a chance encounter with the ghost of a memory? How is it that so much rushes back on me and I'm left feeling this longing?
I've got to be honest. As long as I refuse to face these ghosts they will gain a substance they do not truly have. Once I look squarely at them I may notice that I can pass right through them. In the midst of it all I feel like I've only just begun a journey. It's as if God gave me hints in Paris so that I would have the strength to push through the rough beginning, so that I would have strength to truly get to that place I glimpsed. Like a honeymoon – a beautiful moment of sharing, of passion of intimacy, the memory of which can go a long way to get you through the first year(s) of marriage. I will not always be unfaithful.
Firelight through the Trees
Last night I dreamed this dream.
I was in a forest. Not an old growth forest but a new one, full of alders, the undergrowth was thick, the ground was treacherous. It was night and the foliage was so dense that no moonlight was able to makes it way through to the earth. I was struggling to find my way through the trees. Every now and again I caught the flicker of firelight in the distance. I knew that I had to make it to that fire. I knew that the person I was looking for was waiting for me there. So I rushed on, branches whipping across my face, brambles cutting my shins. Sometimes I fell down, sometimes I stepped into bogs of water, but always I picked myself up and carried on. Gradually the firelight became more visible until I finally broke free into the clearing.
Jesus was sitting by the fire. There was a meal he had cooked for me, and something warm to drink. He looked at me and smiled. It was gentle, and knowing, welcoming and sad all at the same time.
“Sit down,” he said. “Rest your head on my shoulder, talk with me, let my run my fingers through your hair.”
And I wanted to so badly. More than anything I wanted to… but I couldn’t.
Suddenly I was filled with rage.
“What are you doing here?” I cried. “What are you doing preparing a meal, resting yourself, sitting by a fire, when so many people out there are bleeding and suffering and dying? Why aren’t you out there? How can I sit down and rest when I know there are so many who are desperately lost around us? No, I can’t sit down. They need somebody, and I will go.”
And so with tears of anger, desperation and confusion streaming down my cheeks I raised my arm in front of my face and rushed back into the trees. I ran further and further from the fire, until I was once again surrounded by brambles and twisting vines. I plunged so deep into the darkness that no matter where I looked I could no longer see the light of Jesus’ fire. Only the darkness, everywhere the darkness.
Then I woke up.
I guess this all goes back to my question of exile – where is God in all of this? – and my question of vocation – how are we, as the people of God, to be used to bring light to the world? I think I’m still learning what it looks like to trust God with other peoples’ lives. I’m still trying to learn how to rest. And in the midst of all this I think there is a warning – beware of the road that leads away from the rest God offers. How easy it is to say we are serving God, sacrificing for God, taking up our cross, only to discover we have traveled a road that rejects God’s rest. How easy it is to say we long for God’s presence, only to discover we have been so focussed on his absence we can no longer recognize when he actually breaks in.
False Cops, False Prophets
And he [Jesus] was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out. You hypocrites. You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?” – Luke 12.54-56
Recently there has been a lot of press about an apparent clean-up in the Toronto police force, particularly the notoriously corrupt 52 division. And I talk with Christians who tell me this is a sign of God breaking in, a sign that God is moving in Toronto.
I disagree. I cannot agree.
It’s all related to analyzing the present time. How do we discern a genuine inbreaking of God from a human patch job? Well, I don’t know the hard and fast rules (after all it seems to be a contextual exercise) but I think the case with the Toronto police is pretty clear. We’ve seen this kind of clean-up before. A scandal leaks out that can’t be covered up (although they certainly try to do so). After the cover up attempts fail then a few low-ranking officers are pegged to take the fall (unless the scandal gets really big, then a major official may have to go down). Of course, those officers only go down after a lengthy hard-fought battle (where they are supported by tax-payers’ money). Of course at the end of it all the system that produces corrupt police stays firmly in place, as do all the serious players. But the media has put on a show that appeases the general public and so it’s business as usual until next time (the book “The Story of Jane Doe” has some great insights into the workings of the Toronto police, especially in this type of situation – Jane Doe sued the Toronto police and, after 11 years, won her case).
And this is God breaking into our city?
“They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace. Were they ashamed of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; they did not even know how to blush.” – Jeremiah 6.14-15a
There, I believe is the appropriate Christian response to the ‘clean-up’ that is occurring right now in 52 division. And really, the verses that follow scare me.
“‘Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be cast down,’ says the LORD.”
It all goes back to repentance. Repentance that results in personal and systemic transformation. That is what is lacking. On one hand it is what is needed for God to break in, on the other hand it is the first sign that God is already breaking in.
To Our Glorious Dead*
Recently a suicide barrier was erected on the Bloor Street bridge. It’s a monolithic structure of glass and cable and steel girders that look like crosses. They span the length of the bridge. Both sides. There was some outcry about building the barrier in the first place, something about the bridge being an historical landmark, something about the barrier being an eyesore. But the city went through with it anyway. There had been too much bad press about the Bloor Street bridge being the hottest spot to commit suicide in the city.
To me the barrier seems a sort of tragic memorial. Giant steel crosses speaking of lives lost and hearts broken. It speaks of a busy city, full of people, everywhere people, yet in the midst of it all there are those so overcome by loneliness that the find themselves on the edge of a bridge ready to jump into the Don river… or onto the highway below. The crosses mark an uncountable number of anonymous graves and unknown lives. It is not intended to be a memorial for those we wish to remember, but it has become a memorial for those we do our best to forget. That after all is why the barrier was built in the first place. Not to prevent suicide but to force it out of the public eye. “Take your life, but take it elsewhere.” And so they go and we forget about them. Not only in their dying but in their living as well. “Too needy, too raw, too broken, too awkward. There are professionals to deal with people like these. Not me.”
Yet I will call them glorious.
Not because of what they have done but because they are children of God.
And I will call them beautiful.
Behind the too eager conversations, behind the awkward silences, beneath the scars, they are the handiwork of God.
And I will call them Beloved.
On that final day we will be much more to blame for their actions then they. A child beaten, scarred and driven out, abandoned and exploited, jumps from a bridge. Will such a child be condemned? I think not. Such a child will finally discover comfort. Such a child will finally discover what it means to be home. Such a child will discover a God defined by love, a warm embrace and a gentle hand that weeps away all tears and heals all wounds.
—
*Taken from a memorial in front of Old City Hall dedicated to soldier who died in both World Wars.
Loving Money and Slaughtered Sheep
It’s funny how I can find out little things that seem to add a whole new sense of coherence, depth – and even urgency – to my understanding of some of the things the New Testament says.
One of the most famous lines from the Bible, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Well, I’ve always thought, “Okay, that’s really pretty obvious. You know, I should be careful about loving money cause then I might become greedy, I might become proud, I might become self-absorbed.” As if the entire range of evil spoken of here refers simply to the range of personal vices. But now I’ve begun to think that “all evil” here refers to ALL evil – that is, it is addressing not so much personal vices (although these are certainly included) but rather systemic evil. Read a book like “No Logo” (Naomi Klein) and you start to realize that not only does the love of money produce greedy self-absorbed egos, it is also responsible for genocide, the destruction of ecosystems, slavery, child labor, and pretty much every form of oppression and exploitation whether of people, animals or the natural environment. Suddenly there are concrete social, political and corporate references that make this verse hit home with a magnitude I’ve never really considered before.
The other (famous)passage I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the verse that speaks of Jesus looking out and the crowd and seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. I’ve tended to interpret that as meaning that the people were sort of lost, sort of confused, sort of helpless (you know, in a cutesy kind of way). Then (and here I am indebted to N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God”) I realized that that passage is actually a quotation from a prophet in the book of “Kings.” Looking at that passage I realized that “sheep without a shepherd” refers not to people who are sort of lost and confused but to people who are being slaughtered, absolutely massacred. In it makes so much sense in light of my experience. I talk with so many kids at the drop-in, so many adults at the shelter and they’re trapped in a life-style that is killing them – and they don’t need us to tell them it’s killing them, they know, they feel the effects in their heart, mind and body. What they don’t know is how to escape, how to do anything different. Like sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. Then last winter when I was doing my sign campaign at Union Station I realized that the Bay Street crowd, the big shots in corporate business in downtown Toronto are in a similar situation. One day I held a sign that said, “Are you free?” and so many people stopped and talked to me about how they didn’t think they were. “Maybe I was once upon a time… You know the ball’s rolling and I can’t stop it now…” And they also know they’re trapped, but they don’t know how to do anything different so they keep doing the same thing day in and day out just living for those moments when they escape. Just like the street kids. Sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. It breaks my heart. Where are the shepherds?
Somewhere along the way the church has gotten off track. It’s become intimately involved with a culture that loves money, it has become just as guilty as anybody else out there, and as a result it can’t prevent the slaughter that ensues. And sometimes it makes me furious but mostly it makes me want to break down and cry.
Here Be Dragons
Last week I had a dream.
I was standing by a lake in an underground cavern. The water was fierce, the waves were foaming and crashing and a dragon emerged from the chaos. There was a sword in my hand and I knew that that dragon was trying to eat the person who was with me. And so I fought. I remember it well, the swirling darkness, the swirling water, flashes of teeth and scales and fire. I don’t know how long the battle lasted by eventually the monster retreated back into the depths of the lake. Well, the dream progressed and the cave was left behind up until the scene after the last scene (can a dream have an epilogue?). I was older, a lot older, and once again found myself by the underground lake. Only this time things were totally different. The air was still, and light had penetrated the darkness. The water was as smooth as glass and just as clear. I could see all the way to the bottom of the lake and there was no sign of any dragon. In fact there had never been a dragon at all. At that point I realized: all the things I had thought were my greatest victories were only figments of my imagination. For a moment there was a sense of sorrow (“Oh no, I’m not the hero I thought I was”) but that was quickly replaced by an overwhelming sense of calm. Although I had lost my hero status the monsters had not only lost their power but their very existence. This cave was not a battleground, it was a place of beauty, a place of peace.
And then I woke up.
Somewhere in there I think there is a lesson about what it means to be humbled by God. It’s a liberating humility, one that is accompanied by a sense of peace a feeling that, “yes, this is okay, this is how it should be” because it recognizes God’s sovereignty. It frees us from carrying the world on our shoulders and allows us to recognize that God is, after all, in the business of making all things new.