Not gonna lie: I'm starting the summer burned out. Literally. Last Friday morning, we received a call that our storage unit was burning down. This was filled, mostly, with baby clothes, baby furniture, and other appliances from our downsize three years ago. Photo albums miraculously survived; refrigerator, not so much. Think: Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazi's face melting upon seeing God. We lost about 75% of what was in there.
Matthew 6:19-20 keeps floating through my thoughts. If I'm honest, it's really annoying me:
Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. Yes, I agree, but unfortunately, it still hurts to lose. It still hurts to throw away toys that meant a lot to your daughters. Darcie's original artwork and my personal song lyric workbooks, gone. And all because of a very chance accident with linseed oil in another unit. A costly lesson, indeed.
Amidst this, we have also learned that one of our Dwellers has been diagnosed with a cancer, and while it is promisingly very treatable, that treatment must start immediately and not here in LA. The emotional burn is painful to all of us: Marvin, the Dwell community, the neighbors. We pray for her, pray for God to move the mountains of fear and pain. And this week, I think we all started to feel the physical loss of someone very dear to us.
So, launching Discern and Discover this week seems impossible, and yet, here we are. Last week, Silverlake Presbyterian, a local group, came for a day and really engaged with our Discerners. And, last night with our new friends from Laramie, Wyoming, was maybe a piece of the "treasure of heaven."
Toni & Albert, our regular speakers came to share experiences with homelessness. After this, Toni turned to the idea of racial reconciliation, asking folks to consider if we see a homeless white man different than we see a homeless black man. The answers were honest and troubling, but opened a massive, 90 minute discussion on race in general. Toni asked everyone in the room what they thought about brown-skinned people in general. We asked what we all thought about pinkish-orange folks. Luis, a new Discerner shared experiences of assumptions made of him as a Mexican-American. "Why are white people afraid?" "Why do we shy away from talking about racism?" "Why does CNN ask if Donald Sterling is racist or not (of course he is!) but it misses the bigger truth that we all have aspects of racism within, and it's not whether we do or not, but how we will process, handle, and build bridges despite that...."
I even got to be called out: as we study single stories, I made a comment while a Wyoming teen was telling us about an experiment his teacher conducted in middle school to simulate racism. As a sort of "amen," I said, "go Wyoming." The Wyoming leader pointed out to me that my statement suggested a single story of his state as being incapable of caring about diversity, caring about the ongoing damage of racism. He's right. Touché, and amen. I asked forgiveness, we all moved on.
Marvin brought it home when he asked, "pink people in the room, have you ever had an African-American ask you how you feel about black people?" The conversation was generous, honest, and deeply moving. Felt a little like the stirring of the Spirit, apropos a day after Pentecost.
Which is why I love this work, even exhausted. Marvin's point: DOOR allows these kinds of spaces to exist, these kinds of conversations to flow, these kinds of kingdom moments to spark. And to find grace when we say the wrong thing.
It's this kind of treasure that recharges and fires me up. Not gonna lie, pun very much intended.
Peace,
Matthew
