“How much do you make per month?”

“How much do you pay for rent?” 

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been asked this in our part of the city. 

In the suburbs where I grew up, where people’s struggles were mostly kept hush-hush, it was culturally inappropriate to ask someone this stuff.  It’s the financial equivalent of asking a woman, “How much do you weigh?”  You just don’t ask!

After living among the urban poor in Los Angeles for over a decade, I’ve learned it is culturally okay to ask people how much they earn and pay for rent.  And with the economy the way it is, I imagine it’s even more okay! 

Well, I can’t speak for everyone here of course, but let me put it this way.  A whole LOTTA people are perfectly fine with asking each other this stuff! 

I’ve learned not to be offended or judge.  99% of the time people aren’t being rude or nosy.  They are helping each other survive.  The idea is that if a neighbor asks you how much you get paid per hour, then he can tell you whether or not you’d make more money working for his boss.  Or if you ask your neighbor how much she pays for rent, then you can know whether or not you’re getting a good deal at your place, and if you should ask if there are vacancies in her apartment building.   

It seems like privacy gets defined differently when a community is feeling desperate to make ends meet and actually cares about helping each other.  I don’t always like having to answer the questions, but I like the intentions behind them.  I give praise to my community for this openness that is second-nature to them and foreign to me.  Some kinds of privacy are over-rated. 

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Here is a comment I made on a blog by Wes Woodell about the pros and cons of not having a church building.  (To Wes: Thanks for letting me share my thoughts on your blog.  I’m encouraged by your big heart for God and the college students of San Francisco!)

http://missionalconversation.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/no-church-building-pros-and-cons-from-a-simple-church-planter/

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Police and news helicopters and airplanes are hovering and circling over our neighborhood right now.  Crowds of people are marching just blocks away from our apartment to protest the passage of Proposition 8, which makes gay-marriage unconstitutional.  Police estimate the crowd at 12,500 protesters.

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Please pray about the heated situation in LA.  For days a growing number thousands of Angelenos have been protesting in the streets and outside church buildings after California Prop 8 (to eliminate same-sex marriage) was passed on Nov 4. 

Below are photos from the LA Times:

Sadly, in the name of religion some individuals have responded to protestors with mild violence and disparaging speech about homosexuals - thereby reinforcing the growing belief that Christianity breeds hate. 

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If you feel God may be directing you to live and work in a large city, and you have fears or questions about this, I would be honored to make myself available as a sounding board for you.  Feel free to contact me at our contact page. 

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Tonight was so fun.  We hosted fifteen college students from Pepperdine University who are earning their teaching credentials in Malibu, CA under the instruction of Professor Carrie Birmingham.  These future teachers sat at the feet of over fifteen of our neighbors - grandparents, parents and children who are living in and going to school in Los Angeles - to listen to what they are looking for in a teacher.  And to hear the benefits of teaching in the city.  This is the third time we have done this. 

The kids and parents shared the predictable downsides to LA’s public schools – you know, all the bad stuff you hear on the news.  This information I’m sure came as no surpise to the college students.  In my experience, college students don’t need to be convinced that it’s hard teaching and living in the city.  They’ve heard the horror stories and the city is the last place they want to teach, especially in Los Angeles Unified School District. 

I was glad Professor Birmingham asked my neighbors to also share reasons why it would be worth it to teach in Los Angeles.  (She made it no secret that her goal is to see some of her students move to the city and teach here.)  The grandparents, parents and kids were ready to answer this question.  My teammate Katie and I also chimed in on this one as individuals who have chosen to raise families in the city. 

I do hope some of these very capable teachers-to-be will move to LA and come teach at our schools next year. 

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I remember how scared I was the first time I shook the hand of a “homeless” person. 

It was 12 years ago.  Potluck Sunday at the Hollywood Church of Christ (the church who sent our families out as domestic missionaries).  The preacher at that time, Daniel Rodriguez, had asked us all to invite a friend to the potluck.  Using Jesus’ parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 15, Dan encouraged the church folks to invite people who don’t normally get invited to church parties.  For example, in Jesus’ parable the Master who is preparing a feast tells his servant to “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”  Later in the story the servant is even told to “make them come in.”    

So my newly wed wife said to me, “Phil, there’s some guys who look like they live on the streets hanging outside Radio Shack around the corner.  Let’s invite them to the potluck!” 

Nervous, I agreed, and we walked from the church building to go introduce ourselves to three men sitting on the curb.  One was flat on his back, passed out.  One I remember had a very swollen nose.  The other was old and feeble looking and went by the name Hollywood Al.  Hollywood Al and I shook hands – my first time touching someone I had labeled as “homeless”, and therefore feared.  God must have wanted me to overcome all my shock at once.  When I retrieved my hand it was covered in Al’s blood. 

Meredith and I took the three men into the church building and helped them get first and aid and clean up.  A lady got really nervous at their presence and wrinkled her nose at the aroma they had brought into the church kitchen.  Boy she watched them like a hawk as they filled their plates with food.  It didn’t help that the passed out guy was now wide awake, incredibly drunk, and began singing his own rendition of the Star Bangled Banner at the top of his lungs.  (“Oh-oh say-ay-ay-ay, can you see-ee-ee-ee-ee, BYYYYYYYYYYYY the dawn’s early liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….”)  I thought the lady was going to blow a gasket. 

That day was a beautiful day.  Friendships were formed.  News spread and more men came to church gatherings in the weeks and years to come.  One man named Kenneth became a brother in Christ and a dear friend, and was baptized there.  Another guy named Thomas liked to sit on the front steps and tell everyone how great the church is for loving people like him.  Today we are still friends with some of these guys. 

My whole perspective was altered from that one handshake and meal.  Something (or someone) that I had previously feared and averted my eyes from became a real person to me, someone I could learn from.  A human worthy of friendship not just my pity or my handouts.  I was forever changed. 

And it began with responding (or rather my wife responding) to a prompting from the Lord.  My wife simply took the Word of God seriously, and together we obeyed.  Fearfully, but we obeyed.  We loved.  My life hasn’t always been this way since.  But that’s what I keep getting called back to, and that’s what I want the rest of my life to be like. 

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There is so much suffering here, as there is everywhere.  Violence has picked up, too.  This week outside our public library a fourteen year old was shot several times.  Outside a school a girl was kidnapped.  These are not the reports that make it on the news but they are the reports from our neighbors about their friends.  Sometimes my heart just can’t take it and I detach, and then I rush back in to love people madly, sacrificially.  This pull-away and rush-back-in thing is a constant struggle within me.  Please pray in Jesus’ name for the peace and well-being of our cities.  

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