Baptism, a call of a new life

There is this guy named Rocky who lives in my neighborhood. I say lives in the loosest sense of the word. I am not sure where he sleeps, but he hangs out in our neighborhood, the Richmond. You can find him in the mornings on the bench in the Rose Garden of Golden Gate Park. Rocky wears this very old army jacket that covers him from head to toe. He smokes a lot of pot, he smells of it and I have seen him light up on a regular basis. He looks very anxious and I wonder if he is self medicating for some sort of anxiety disorder. I asked him his name one day and he said his name is Rocky. Now that I know his name I see him everywhere. I recognize him by his coat. It makes him stand out from the other folks whose home is the street.

Easter Sunday was amazing. Having all of us together celebrating Resurrection Sunday together is awesome enough, but then to cap it all off with the Baptisms of Mike, Jim, Jake, Grace and Damon, that was perfect. When we baptized everyone we said to them that, "the old is gone and the new is come."

When Paul writes to the Galatians, he writes: "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." This has me thinking a lot about my outward expressions of faith. What does clothed with Christ mean, practically speaking? When I think of Jesus, I think of a man who was compelling, attracting others to him by his love and acceptance. It is remarkable to me that the only ones that Jesus seemed to condemn were the religious leaders who went around making others feel bad and less than. To be clothed with Christ means to wear love and grace and hope in all circumstances.

Here is my prayer for all of us this week.

"Father, help us to wear the new clothes that you have given us today: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let these be the garments that I wear and that people see. More of you, Father less of me. Amen"

NIV

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I don't know if this is just me or if many of you feel the same way, but I feel like lately we have forgotten how to behave in public. What I am thinking about is what we say and more importantly the words we choose to utter. It seems like this week everywhere I go, I hear profanity. Not simply some expletives when someone is hurt or angry, but the big boys: F-bomb, S-bomb and G..D… and the worst of it, I hear them coming out of kids' mouths.

I started thinking about this when I was at the Skate Park with Jake and Ean on Sunday morning. It was perfect outside and there were not that many skaters. There were a couple of guys with their little kids teaching them to skate. There were folks cruising around and then there was this group of about 7 or 8 young teens. And they were swearing at the top of their lungs and I was uncomfortable. Crass speech by itself does not really bother me. What bothered me was that these young men had no idea that what they were doing was inappropriate. There was no consideration for those who really did not want to hear it.

I can remember the first time I heard an adult swear. My mom never did around me. My dad would yell out J____C___ when he would get really riled up, but that was it. I knew all the words that there were to know when my dad took me to work one day. My dad's office was right next to the restroom and water fountain. Sitting in his office waiting for him to get done, I would overhear many conversations. This one guy came up, a retired admiral or some such of a thing and every other word was profane. Even at a young age I thought that this was really dumb. Dumb to be swearing in an office and dumb to be swearing when you weren't even mad and dumb to be swearing in front of someone's kid. I thought then that this was really bad behavior and I was not that good of a kid.

This sense of courtesy is still with me I guess. As I was talking to one of the guys with his two year old son at the skate park I could see that he too was bothered by the kids' language. But neither of us went over and talked to the boys about it, although now I wish that I had, simply to make them aware that their words were bothering someone. When I go to Jake's school I hear swearing by all the kids. I am told that the teachers and staff also carry on their day with a regular use of profanity with no concern for the listener. This is troubling to me. I think it is telling that in our society common civility is deteriorating.

I am not a prude, or maybe I am, but I really don't want to hear foul language. It does not shock or offend me, I simply don't want to hear it. I remember when everyone used to smoke with no concern for those around them, how times have changed. I wonder what our world and our city would be like if we made an effort not to clutter the air with destructive sounds. What would our city be like if we decided to fill the air with words of encouragement, words that lifted up and did not tear down?

I think I will start with me. This day I will choose what I say carefully and hopefully that will become contagious.

 

Ps 19:14

4 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

NIV

A Cold Glass of Water

Saturday was such a beautiful day. Sunny with a nice breeze, but when the breeze stopped it was pretty warm. I was with my friend Luke Burton and his wife Courtney and their twins. They are part of Inner Changes Outer Circle. It was an honor to spend the day with them to get a feel for what they are up to. We also had a guide, Suzanne and her two dogs. We started in the panhandle not far from our old Oak Street House, we were about a block away when we started our talk. As Suzanne was talking I looked over and there was a water fountain for people's dogs. A dog was drinking out of the nice clean fountain designed for dogs at the right height with a catch basin so it would pool so the dog could lap it. It was a thing of beauty.

As we went walking Suzanne began to describe her life on the street. She is one of many street kids who live in the parks and on the streets of our city. She is twenty-two years old, Caucasian, with what sounds like a good education. She has family that she keeps in contact with, but she lives on the street spending most of her day drinking beer and hanging out with her friends and taking care of her two beautiful dogs. Suzanne takes a great deal of pride in the health of her dogs and to her they are her kids.

As she was walking, she was talking about some of the challenges of being on the street. How last night four guys came out of a bar and started to harass her when one of them finally started to beat her. She showed the bruise under her left eye where he had hit her. She went on to explain how her dog had run off last year for a week or two and how distressing that was. She talked about how she had to plan ahead where she was going to sleep and eat and clean up.

The thing that took me by surprise was when we were walking up the street in the Haight, she stopped by an apartment and there was a water spigot. She said that the owners were the best. They allowed the street kids to use their water whenever they wanted to. She said most people get a locking handle so no one can use the water, but these Greek guys (her words) let her and the others who lived on the street have their water for nothing in return. They also allowed them to store stuff in the crawl space under the building so she would store her dog food there because it was hard to carry around a forty pound bag of dog food everywhere you went.

Suzanne went on to explain that access to water, showers and toilets is a constant problem and that she was so thankful that these guys let her have water. I thought of that juxtaposed to the dog water fountain not a block away. It is interesting to think about it. Suzanne has made some choices that have kept her on the street and she continues to make choices that keep her there. That being said, I think that it is weird that she has to depend upon the charity of strangers to get water and society provides water for people's personal pets. Now don't get me wrong, I am happy to have a drinking fountain for my dog, Frisbee, when we go to the park, it just seems like maybe we could treat the other humans on our planet better than we treat our pets.

Mark 9:41

I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

NIV