February 16, 2014
Our Hebrew scripture for today includes that stirring command, “Choose life.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20 says, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him.”
This is Moses speaking to the people of Israel, who are about to enter the Promised Land. It’s a solemn altar call with heaven and earth as witness.
There is no middle ground; an all-out commitment is necessary to choose life and blessing instead of death and curse. I have tried to imagine what went on in the minds of the people who were listening to Moses that day. After forty years in the wilderness, people were all hungry and thirsty for life in the Promised Land. But what is the change that Moses is asking people to make? It seems that he expects it to be a challenge.
However, I take comfort in Verses 11-14. “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say,‘ Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us that we may observe it?’But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”
I hear Moses saying that the answers to our questions and struggles are deep in our hearts. Obeying God is a matter of the heart.
“Life” is defined as loving God and keeping God’s commandments. How do we choose that life in the midst of our daily activities? More than thirty years ago, Gordon Cosby gave me a memorable pointer when he said: “Money is not important. Prestige is not important. Power is not important. What is important is to go to the point where the deepest desire of your heart meets the pain of the world. That’s where your mission is. It’s not important to be successful, only to be faithful.” I got excited about searching my heart for direction.
My purpose today is to shed some light on the Companions Mission Group. Until now, I have felt self-conscious talking about it because it has a very personal history. However, when David Dorsey asked me to share about our mission, I welcomed the invitation. It‘s time to talk about Companions and to invite others to join us.
The Companions mission is simply about building long-term friendships across the barriers of race, culture, social class, or disability.
I will begin by telling some old stories that led me to the Companions mission.
My first companion was Nora Hanson. One Sunday morning in the 1970’s, she visited our church in Minnesota. From the way she walked, I could tell that she was taking Lithium, which is a commonly prescribed psychiatric medication. I recognized the Lithium walk because my sister in Finland was also using Lithium, and I immediately felt drawn to Nora. Later the same day, I found myself at the kitchen table of her tiny cabin listening to her life’s story, and I felt I was on a little adventure. She had come from Germany and worked as a psychologist, but, through the ravages of her mental illness, she had lost her family and her income and was now living all alone on her social security benefits. We became fast friends and did different activities together, but the best times were the conversations in her kitchen. The darkness of Nora’s life caught up with us soon enough, as psychotic episodes blew in a couple of times a year causing hospitalizations and evictions. It was not easy for me to figure out what my role should be in the middle of all that upheaval; all I knew was that we were each other’s closest friends in spite of everything. Nora’s warmth nurtured my spirit, and the crises of her life were an antidote to the relative blandness of my middle-class life. After our family left Minnesota, Nora and I gradually drifted apart. Letters and phone calls could not substitute for the times at the kitchen table, and we finally lost contact, which has been a source of regret to me. However, I never forgot how much Nora enriched my life. Maybe my family background of an upper-class father, lower-class mother and mentally ill sister had stirred up a longing for different kinds of friendships.
Moving to Washington, DC, from small-town Minnesota in 1983 was a shock and enchantment at the same time. I remember asking people on the street what language they were speaking, and sometimes I hadn’t even known that such a language existed. I was quickly drawn into the lives of some of the Academy of Hope students. Many times I found myself saying, “Thank you God for bringing me here and letting me know this person.” I had never imagined that I could be so deeply nourished by the bonds of friendship.
A story that stands out from that time is that of Gloria, a powerhouse of a young woman who became a student at the Hope in the early nineties. She had her heart set on becoming a firefighter in spite of the fact that she was a single mother of four young children and only 5’2” in height. She had been volunteering and training with the DC Fire Department for many months by the time she enrolled in Academy of Hope. She just needed to complete her GED and pass the firefighters’ aptitude test. It was not an easy task, but in the meantime Gloria dived into the life of our school with all her vibrant self. The time Gloria cooked most of the fundraising dinner in her apartment in Anacostia turned into an indelible memory for me. The plan was for her bring the fried chicken and the mac and cheese to the Potter’s House by taxi. Neither she nor I had much experience with taxis, and the dispatcher certainly didn’t indicate that there would be any problem, so it was a rude awakening for us to realize that no taxi was ever going to pick her up at her home in Anacostia, no matter how many times she kept calling. Finally we had to change the order of the program for the dinner and send one of our mission group members to pick her up. That minor incident was a powerful lesson to me of the unjust structures that keep struggling people in their place.
Other events were not so minor, like the time when Gloria started having $500 electric bills because neighbors were stealing her electricity and the time when other gang members locked her oldest son into a basement room with the idea of flooding the room and putting a live electric wire into the water. The plan failed, but after much heartache, Gloria ended up relinquishing her guardianship of her uncontrollable son and sending him to Boys’ Town in spite of the angry objections of other family members.
We finally had a chance to celebrate Gloria’s GED-graduation, but we could never figure out how to help her pass the firefighters’ aptitude test. In the end she became certified as an Emergency Medical Technician and moved to Virginia where she was employed by the highway department for more than a decade. Today she is happily married to one of her former colleagues, and she is now the matriarch of a large extended family. Financial problems and health and family crises keep pursuing her, and she says, “I’m still struggling, but it’s better to struggle together with Larry.” Gloria and I haven’t seen each other in a while, but I continue to be grateful for her hearty laughter, in spite of everything, at the other end of the phone line.
Tom Brown could tell the story of another charismatic Academy of Hope student who, after reaching most of her goals, contracted a horrible brain disease that affected every part of her, except her mind. Tom visited her in the nursing home every week for years, even after her speech was largely unintelligible. Most of us found it too painful to see her perfectly lucid mind struggling to be understood, but I am grateful that Tom’s heart was more open to her than the hearts of the rest of us.
Now we’ll finally get to the creation of the Companions mission.
After the Academy of Hope Mission Group ended in the nineties, my free time was mostly filled by my relationships with my former students and their families. It was really more of a lifestyle than a mission. However, as a covenant member of Eighth Day, I was supposed to be in some mission group or other, so I decided to call what I was already doing the Companions mission. I couldn’t be a mission group all by myself, so I was grateful that Eve joined me. John Mohr was also a member for a while. Companions is not a corporate mission according to the traditional teachings of the Church of the Saviour because we don’t really work on projects together. It’s rather a support group for people who feel called to be companions to others.
So what do Companions do? Helping is often the beginning of these relationships, but the important part is the mutual friendship that develops. Talking on the phone and at the kitchen table is naturally the mainstay. My companions have also taken me to picnics in the park, to hospitals and DC jail, to crabbing in the Bay and lounging on the beach, to hiking the Billy Goat Trail and attending dance recitals and a large variety of free events. And we have done lots of praying together.
Companions is not about setting goals and reaching them. It is about walking alongside another person and hanging in there for better and for worse and, when possible, having a good time. One of my companions, who is slightly mentally handicapped, has taught me a lot about enjoying life. First I thought it rather childish of her to always be chirping, “This is so much fun.” But then I realized that it helped both of us relax and enjoy ourselves, so now I chirp too, and I am better off for it. Some life lessons are very simple.
Our mission group meetings consist of sharing scripture, reporting on our journeys, and praying. Eve has led us in finishing our sometimes feeble and desperate prayers with “Amen and alleluia!” and there is power in that.
The question of money in our mission has often been troublesome. In my mind, the basic principle is that if we are friends and I have more money than I need and my friend has less money than she needs, I will share.
I John 3:17, “But whoever has the world’s goods and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”
We all know that it gets complicated. What is “need” in our culture? Do young boys “need” $160 tennis shoes and professional haircuts every two weeks? Or do people “need” to pay sky-high heating bills to make their homes so warm that they can wear t-shirts all winter? I have had shouting matches with my companions over these types of things because I can’t support expenses that seem unreasonable to me. Yet I try to hang in there and not let these irreconcilable differences destroy our relationship.
I have experienced lots of discomfort and annoyance because of sharing money, and I have learned some things the hard way. One of the terrible times was being subjected to extortion. A quote from Gordon Cosby speaks to that, “The hurt I sustain from others becomes gift because it drives me more deeply into God who is love.”
Recently, I came to a conclusion that after helping somebody with her bills for many years, I should stop doing it. I am very grateful that our friendship survived. However, I think that sharing money is often necessary, and it is joyful to be part of good things happening.
Every Sunday, Tom Brown offers the same prayer, “Lord, I want to be more welcoming of the other. Help me to be that.” Hearing that prayer again and again has caused me to meditate on my calling. It really is as simple as that. Being welcoming is a matter of the heart, so again and again, I must ask God to open my heart to the newness that is waiting for me.
Eve and I invite you to join us if you feel drawn to this kind of a journey. The only requirement is that you want to deepen your relationship with others who are different from you and that you want us to pray with you.
Thank you for listening to me.