CityServe Middle School Mission Trip - Day Two

Our group had another wonderful day learning, encountering, experiencing, and observing on our mission trip.  It was hot, but the group had a great attitude, even when we were uncomfortable.

This morning, we had the chance to visit and meet the volunteers in charge of the feeding program at St. Luke’s.  It is truly and impressive and inspired ministry – serving over 100 people each day.  It is completely volunteer run and is the primary mission of this church to the neighborhood.  Ballard is an interesting place.  It is a hip, urban spot in the city – complete with thriving, trendy restaurants and bars, and enormously expensive housing.  Yet there is a substantial homeless population that calls Ballard home as well.  There is a park directly across the street from St. Luke’s that is a gathering place for many of the homeless people during the day.  The public library (also across the street) is another place that many homeless people spend their time at.  When we are aware and paying attention to who is around us, the contrast and diversity is very apparent.  I wonder how much we choose not to see the majority of the time.

We had the opportunity to spend some time with a gentleman who has been coming to the St. Luke’s feeding ministry for about a year.  His name is Robert and he has been homeless for about that long.  Robert has a college degree, had a successful corporate career, and owned a home in Ballard for a long time.  Three years ago, he had 6-way heart bypass surgery, for which his insurance paid less than half of the $500,000 bill.  That catastrophic medical event caused him to lose his job and his house.  Robert’s story showed us that people are homeless for a variety of reasons – reasons we oftentimes don’t know unless we take the time to listen.  Robert encouraged us to not make assumptions about people living on the streets.  We spent some time thinking about our stereotypes of homeless people.  We thought of things like: dirty, addicted, they did something wrong, they made bad choices, they’re dangerous, unfriendly, lazy, or scary.  And then we thought about Robert.  Words we used to describe him were: smart, friendly, educated, employable, outgoing, kind, and normal. 

After our time with Robert, we went on a walking tour of Ballard with the Rev. Britt Olson from St. Luke’s.  She showed us a sobering memorial in the park across the street.  There are gold leaves in the sidewalk with names of all the people who have died while living on the streets of Seattle.  Robert told us that being homeless is lonely and scary.  It is also dangerous.  Our walking tour took us down to the Ballard Locks.

Names on the sidewalk in Ballard of those who have died living on the streets of Seattle. 

Our group at the Ballard Locks

This afternoon, we planned and shopped for the dinner we prepared for Union Gospel Mission’s women and children’s shelter in Belltown.  In the vein of our learning about and discussing the issue of homelessness, we spent some time thinking about poverty and how someone could possibly afford basic things like groceries.  Although all of our youth have been grocery shopping before, many had never thought about food prices and how they choose the things they (or their parents) purchase.  They did all the shopping, and did it on a tight budget.  They had to make choices and realized that food costs money and comes from somewhere besides their refrigerator.

Grocery shoprring!  Parents, your youth can be thoughtful about what they buy :)

After we prepared our meal, we loaded up in our van and headed to the shelter.  The shelter was hot and chaotic with dozens of children running around.  Our youth had a great time playing hide and seek or reading with the kids.  Their ministry was simply one of presence and laughter.  We received incredible hospitality, even though we thought we were the ones going to serve.  We can’t imagine what it would be like to sleep in an open room with only curtains dividing families into “bedrooms.”  But hopefully, our experiences today have helped us think differently about those who end up without a stable place to call home.

Serving the meal at the women and children's shelter. 

Our group outside of the shelter in Belltown.

CityServe Middle School Mission Trip - Day One

Four of our middle school youth left home today on a local mission “trip.”  Joined by youth from Holy Cross in Redmond, we’re encountering and serving Christ Seattle.  We’re calling this CityServe.

During the week, we’re staying at St. Luke’s in Ballard.  St. Luke’s is a congregation truly in the middle of the action.  Ballard is a mixed neighborhood with expensive condos, massive new development, a thriving business district with trendy restaurants and boutiques…and people sleeping in their cars or on the streets.  St. Luke’s has been here a long time and has had its share of challenges.  In the late 90’s, the church almost died…and it would have if it wasn’t for a dozen or so faithful saints who stayed put because God had called them to this neighborhood and to serve those in need right here.  For over 25 years, St. Luke’s has been feeding breakfast to the hungry and homeless each and every weekday morning out of the basement kitchen.  It was the breakfast cooks who were the church during trying years.

Our group with the Rev. Britt Olson and Barbara Wilson at St. Luke's

Our experiences of service and encounter begin tomorrow when we’ll join over 100 people for breakfast at St. Luke’s before preparing a meal for the women and children at Union Gospel Mission’s Belltown shelter.

Today, we had dinner at a Seattle institution – Dick’s Drive-In.  Most of the youth had never been to Dick’s so we were glad we could introduce them to greasy drive-in burgers and fantastic milk shakes.

After dinner we played with a puzzle together.  But when we play, we play with a purpose.  Puzzles are great ways for us to think about community, diversity, how we see the world, and how we are connected to those around us.  We each chose a puzzle piece to study.  Some puzzle pieces are certainly more interesting than others.  Some have faces, some have clues as to what the bigger picture is – and some are just really boring or plain.  We each described our puzzle pieces, what we liked or disliked about them, and how they made us feel.  “Empty,” “lonely,” “isolated,” and “joyful” were some of the words used.  While we could make some educated guesses about the picture, we realized that we actually needed other pieces to learn more.  So we put our pieces together as best we could, without having all the pieces to use.  The picture was certainly more clear.  Within our small group, we had enough to get the general idea.  Sounds like a lot of communities we are a part of, right?  Whether it is our churches or our group of friends, there are enough people present to feel like we can see everything…that is until we realize what (or who) is missing.  When we added the rest of the puzzle pieces, we realized that there were things we hadn’t even imagined present in the picture.  Small details like a flower or the look on one of the characters’ face all helped define the picture.  Out challenge is to take a step back and ask who is missing from our communities.  If the groups we associate with truly were representative of the people who call our places “home,” who would be a part of them?

During our time in Seattle, we will be encountering people who are different than those we normally hang out with.  And that is a beautiful and wonderful thing.  It might be uncomfortable (we realized that when we choose our communities and which groups we will be a part of, we often gravitate towards people who think like us, believe similar things, look like us, or have similar things), but we grow when we are uncomfortable and stretched.  We are also able to receive what others have to offer us when we take the time to sit with them and get to know them.

Our time this week is about more than service.  Sure, we will be doing some work that will hopefully help someone.  But we are open to receiving as much as we give, to being served as much as we serve.  That’s the beauty of the puzzle…each piece has something to give and, as one of our youth pointed out, we are not fully ourselves without the others (granted, he was talking about a leg being cut off on a puzzle piece…but that is a deep statement).  Even our service is something deeper than just helping someone.  As another one of our youth said, we’re serving God.  How true that is.  When we sit at a table to share a meal with a stranger, we’re sitting with Jesus because Jesus is in that person.  When we give food to someone who is hungry, we’re giving food to Jesus.  So we are waking up tomorrow, excited to have breakfast with Jesus.

With that in mind, we ended our day today with Compline at St. Mark’s.  We took time to sit in silence and say in our hearts, “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.”

More Love: Sermon by the Rev. Karen Haig

Sermon preached at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Medina, WA, by the Rev. Karen Haig on the Fourth Sunday of Pentecost, June 21, 2015.

Response to the Shooting in Charleston

Our hearts are broken.
We are deeply grieved by the horrific shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and offer our deepest sympathy and most heartfelt prayers. We stand with the people of Charleston. We ache with them, we mourn with them, we pray with them. And while we are angry and shocked and grief-stricken, we remember that we belong to a God who would never return violence for violence. In the face of this violence, we are called to greater love. In the face of this violence we are called to greater forgiveness. And in the face of this violence we are called to greater action. We cannot simply wish for peace or even only pray for it. Each of us has something unique to offer in bringing God’s peace to the world, and this is surely a call to offer ourselves to that call. May God grant us the grace to do so.

The Rev. Karen Haig, Associate Rector 
St Thomas Episcopal Church, Medina

Three Things You Should Know About the Trinity, Part 2

By the Rev. Jim Friedrich

You can’t make this stuff up

Early in the twelfth century, a German monk named Rupert of Deutz went into a church where mass was being said by a white-haired bishop. At the offertory procession he experienced a vision of the Holy Trinity:

On the right at the edge of the altar stood three persons of such revered bearing and dignity that no tongue could describe them. Two were quite old, that is, with very white hair; the third was a beautiful youth of royal dignity …[iii]

A century later, Hadewijch of Antwerp, one of those remarkable women mystics who flourished in the late middle ages, also had a vision of the Trinity. But instead of three white males, what she saw was a dark whirlpool, which she described as “divine fruition in its hidden storms.” Hovering over this whirlpool was a spinning disc, on which sat a figure wearing the countenance of God – the face of God – on whose breast were written the words, “The Most Loved of All Beloveds.” [read more...]

Three Things You Should Know About the Trinity, Part 1

by the Rev. Jim Friedrich
I’ve heard a lot of clergy say they hate to preach on Trinity Sunday. It seems too abstract, too complex, too heady a topic for a Sunday congregation, especially in a culture where thinking theologically is not a widely practiced art. It’s like trying to explain quantum physics to non-scientists. It took centuries for the ancient church to shape the doctrine of the Trinity. How can anyone explain it in 15 minutes? Besides, people look to the preacher for inspiration, not explanation. They want a sermon to make sense of things, not to make their heads explode. [read more...]