Prayer Walk!

[Tony] Ryan and I have recently started incorporating prayer walks into our lives. We have gone on a handful of walks together so far and would like to have others join us. The idea of infiltrating the neighborhood with a body of people in prayer is a powerful and beautiful image of the Kingdom. We are planning a prayer walk on Monday night, Dec. 1st, at 8:30. We will meet at the house and then set out for the streets in prayer. Please join us! A prayer walk allows you to interact with God while also interacting with the world you are praying for. If you have never done a prayer walk before, I encourage and challenge you to try it. We will pray for our neighbors, for each other, and for anything and everything that may be on our hearts. Bring warm clothes and open hearts!

Fraternity

[James] Words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together

"I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we have one another, wholly, and for all eternity."

Open Units NOW!

Hello faithful blog readers! I want to bring this to your attention so that you can consider this or at very least spread the word. There are two units open and available ASAP here in the church. One is a two bedroom and the other a three. The units are going for $875 and $1,000 respectfully. Both units contain really incredible aspects of the church architecture including stained glass, wood floors and really nice updated appliances. Plus you'd be living next to us! His price has come down recently due to the inability to find good tenants. I know that each of my roommates would love to have kingdom minded people living among us. We have met a few of the other neighbors around us recently and we are getting so excited about this community.

Find a roommate or two and make it happen. If you are interested let one of us know!

Poetic City

[Tony]Its different for me here, living in the city. Instead of crickets and the wind outside of my window, I am learning to fall asleep to the constant drone of the interstate. The sounds here have become comforting. They are a constant reminder that this place is alive, that I am alive, and that humanity, in its endless string of tiny victories and errands run, is alive and always up to something.
My windows stay open in the fall-- the cold air helps me sleep. I like to wake up to the cold breath of the morning; the kind of air that snaps at your bare feet and makes you want to wear layers of clothes and drink thick hot coffee before a shower. I am still growing to accept the wake-up call of children being loud in the street, indulged in their playground games. I am still learning to not be alarmed at the sound of people talking outside of my window in the earliest hours of the morning. I am embracing the sound of pulsing car stereos as evidence that there is a culture here, and identity that is shared and that I will one day identify with.
I find that its harder to be romantic here in the city. By romantic, I am not referring to the Hollywood love stories of roses and chocolates, instead I am referring to the romantic that drives you to admire nature, to describe the normal in flowery and succulent language. Its harder to pretend to be an intellectual or to wear some scholarly or poetic façade when there is little to be defined by the abstract poetic imagination. Wordsworth would hate it here. Those poets of the sensitive heart, who bend words to bleed the sounds of their illusions would be lost. Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Shakespeare, Frost, Emerson, and Thoreau would find themselves alone in a place that had little use for their sonnets, symbolism, and pentameter. They couldn’t write about the way forests of fall red trees look like God’s blushing cheeks. They couldn’t personify some rare and beautiful flower or the color of the sunset or compare them to the colors of their lover’s eyes. They may decide their inspiration comes from the boarded windows of a lifeless foreclosed home, or maybe dedicate an ode to a stop light. But I feel their words would have still been too arrogant for this place.
Yet, there is a poetry here. It seems to walk to more deliberate beat of a bass line and drum tap instead of the melody of a mandolin. There is a mystery to be discovered here, but it may be less focused on the inward eye and more on turning outward to see your neighbor for the first time. In order to find the romance here, I am learning to see through a different lens. I must abandon my artist and poet eyes and exchange them with the eyes for a community. Its then that you see the smiles of mischievous children and fall in love with them. Its then that you catch the beauty of a simple greeting, hear angels singing from a corner church, and appreciate the sanctuary of a quiet prayer for a city.
I have seen joy here that I cannot quite comprehend and I have seen pain here at levels far beyond the words of books. I feel that I am severed from the quiet and stable world of Caribou Coffee and local newspapers. The people here don’t seem to need coffee. The idea of a lazy Sunday morning with a cup of joe, a newspaper, bacon and eggs and sleepy hellos does not fit completely. I watch as my neighbors seem to have mastered their chaos. It’s the chaos that seems to be the coffee, keeping everyone moving, engaged, excited and dramatic.
Love and hate here are raw and unwrapped. I hope to become as raw and unwrapped as that.

CAT update

[James] CAT woke me up this morning to kindly let me know that he needed out. I let him out to do his thing and decided to leave him roam for a while. I am sure he will find his way back here soon. He slept the whole night last night at the foot of my bed.

Neighbor mugged and moving to Prescott

[James] This morning as I was doing some laundry, I ran into our next door neighbor Matt. He and his family have been in the process of moving for about a week. I offered to help him with some things today if he needed it, which led to my first tour of his place. He, his wife and their 3 children have lived next door for a couple years at least but have now made the decision to move. A couple months ago Theresa was home during the day when she heard some people outside roughing around. It sounded serious enough that she felt that she should call the police. When the police asked where the disturbance was coming from, she decided to peak her head outside to see. When she went outside she discovered several youth to be the source of the commotion. One of them asked if she was calling the police, to which Theresa replied, yes they are on the phone right now. The girl rushed over to her and started taking swings. Theresa was able to dodge the throws of two girls and in fact ended up injuring one of them as she tried to defend herself. Within moments almost a dozen other youth from the area rushed out and were joining in. Theresa was actually forced to the ground as kids began kicking her head against the ground... She suffered a pretty severe concussion which made her sick for the next month. Theresa's father insisted that they move to a safer location. Even thought this was the first physical encounter that they had experienced, it was to be the last. Matt say's that they have enjoyed living here in this neighborhood and that they have felt relatively safe here for the most part, but once was too much.

Matt and Theresa have found a place in Prescott where they hope they will be able to raise their children in a safe and nurturing environment. I can't say that I blame them.

Each day it seems we learn something new about the neighborhood and the people. Today it got serious. We roommates can often have an ideal picture of what this is supposed to look like, but it is so important that we realize that we aren't there yet.

Hood Cat pleads for Sancturay.

[James] So, this evening we had some company over. And in the midst of the company Tony discovered a new friend out on our front porch. It was a small cat that seemed to be looking for some warmth and maybe a free meal. Well, it might not be a person, but we know that God cares for the smallest of the creatures right? So, "CAT" is living with us, at least for the night. We let him out and he followed me around for a little bit and then he wound up at our front door again.

So far he has enjoyed milk, water, oatmeal, a can of tuna and a few tostito chips. He is extremely inquisitive and he has found his way all around our house. CAT has made himself right at home, on our laps and on our couches. He seems perfectly content here. I'd like him to hang around, but I am not sure we boys are going to be responsible enough to do the cat food, litter box, and vet stuff. Maybe we will just let him in every once in a while. I mean after all, he might just be someone elses' lost pet.

We'll keep you posted on CAT's situation.