Painting.

Last week, I spent a few days painting. I have developed a love/hate relationship with painting. Oil based paint drives me crazy - but, it's pretty well mindless. It's not fun, I don't get a kick out of it, I say that I hate it, but, it's really not so bad. It's just, really boring.

I've also been doing a stack of reading as part of my internship here and this last week, I revisited a book that, in many ways, began this whole journey: Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller.

The first time I read this, I shut myself into my Uncle's study, on the 2nd floor of his 100 year old house in Battery Point, Hobart. I nestled into a comfy chair and listened to Radiohead's Kid A. I read the book in less than 24 hours. I devoured it.

Given that I ate it in such a short period of time, I didn't process it as well as I would have liked - hence the revisit.

The book is basically a journal, Don's musings on Life and God. In one part he talks about his perception of God, a slot machine that he crosses his fingers, closes his eyes and pulls the lever with blind hope and how, that didn't do it for him. Also his thoughts on 'religion' - how he could walk around inside religion for a very long time and in that time, never understand on any emotional level that God is 'a person, an actual being with thoughts and feelings'.

"I could not tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me. I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing. And I wasn't experiencing Christianity. It didn't do anything for me at all. It felt like math, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn't mysteries; it wasn't God reaching out of heaven to do wonderful things in my life.'

This is where is where this journey that I am now on began. I had been searching for God. I was tired of the math and scales and the, dryness. Prior to reading Blue Like Jazz, I had also picked up Max Lucado's 'Cure for the common life' - the title is...somewhat self explanatory. I was searching for, an active God. Not a lever that I pulled when things got tough. But, mystery and joy.

Like Don says, God is a God who is reaching into lives here and now. This has been the tune for my year so far. So often we can limit God reaching down into our lives to things that fit into the category of 'miraculous'. But, God is so much bigger than that. Yes, bigger.

The everyday menial things are soaked with the presence of a living, breathing, active, passionate and loving God.

I was having a killer asthma attack one day, after being prayed for it was relieved.

A successful conflict resolution.

Watching a friend being set free of self hatred.

Being able to accept a compliment and not shrug it off...for once.

My friends watching blues brothers to fundraise for me.

Going for a walk out to a cliff and watching the sunset.

Successfully navigating a group on foot through a city I didn't know without a map.

The first sip of an ice cold beer.

A cup of tea.

A friend asking about my faith.

These experiences make me turn in wonder and cry out in, fearful awe to a God that, controls everything. A God that is far from a pokie machine. A God that shows up even when I'm painting.

On This Street

The other day, on a whim, I decided to catch a street car into the French Quarter of New Orleans. I spent a few hours around there, getting some peace and quiet in a cathedral and got some work down in a coffee shop.

On my way back to catch the car out of town - a homeless guy asked me for money. So, there I am, walking down a semi seedy street, a conservative white baptist boy from down under. I had my headphones in, walking fast anyway, knowing that this might just happen. But this guy looked me square in the eyes - I couldn't get past. Admittedly, I don't think I've ever given money to a homeless guy before. I'm not sure how I pulled that off - but, I did.

This time, in light of the previous days - I couldn't not give him money. I looked at him, shook his hand and said 'follow me man, I'll buy you some food.' As we walked down the street I asked him if he was New Orleans born and raised, he pointed to the road and said 'this is my home.' Further down, he asked where I was from, I replied that I'm from 'Australia.' He offered me another hand shake. He then led me to a stereotypical corner store - he remarked on how it looks suspicious having a white guy and a black guy together. As we entered the store, his body language turned anxious. He picked up a drink and some food, looking more nervous. I decided then, to just hand over the money. I had four bucks. I left, after he said 'God Bless'.

Chances that he actually spent the money on food? I don't know. Chances he spent it on cigarettes or grog? I don't know either. But, if he did spend it on cigs, what, he could buy one deck? If he spent it on grog he could buy what, 2 beers?

I could not, say no. In our short conversation, he mentioned that his family and home were destroyed in the storm. If it was beer he was after, I don't really blame him, I'd probably want beer too if I was in his situation.

What I have noticed lately is this: I hate going from zero to one hundred. I long to learn WHY I do something the way I do, or WHY I should be doing something. This translates like this: guilt, is a bad motivator. Love however, is a good one. If guilt was my motivator for giving this guy a piece of my time and money - all I've done is appease that negative feeling (selfish?). If LOVE is my motivator - I have given in thought of his needs, not mine (selfless). Synergy of body and soul occurs. A cycle is borne, the more my values and true thoughts on an issues, such as this, progresses, the idea is that, my actions would progress also.

I may have got played, he may have bought booze. But, hey, for my first time at giving a guy money, I stopped, walked with him and talked with him. That's a long way from what I used to do. Who knows, next time, I'll be more confident (I'll admit that I was a little scared that he was going to try and mug me), so something 'more' might happen.

If I had, any, I mean, any trace of love, then I had no excuse for knocking back this guy's plea. At least, the very least, I didn't lie to him again.

Prank Calls at 2am

I'm enjoying sleep. Getting some nice R.E.M when, I am woken by my phone.

I pick it up, look at who's calling and see the ever annoying 'private number'.

So I answer, with 'what?'

Some annoying slurring fool asks 'are you awake?'
Well I answered the phone! Wingnut.

He then asks me 'what are you wearing?'

I reply with 'I'm wearing a bear suit.' He then asks if I'm wearing any draws.

So I say 'I don't know, you'll have to ask a bear' and then I hang up. He then calls me another 5 times - to which I did not reply.

I have to say, for 2am after being woken up by this plebe; I'm damn impressed with my reply.

Complexity.

Yesterday I came into contact with something I've never seen.

Urban poverty. A poverty exacerbated by western culture. A complex beast.

As I walked the streets with a pair from InnerChange through the neigbourhood of St Roch, New Orleans, the sights began to wear me down. Houses with still broken windows after Hurricane Katrina. Houses that had not been gutted or that had been squatted or trashed. Houses half standing. This was just the surface.

As we walked down the social hub of the street we were greeted by a stumbling man, carrying a brown paper bag (most likely containing the stereotypical alcohol) with bloodshot eyes slurring out words barely decipherable. We continued down and met a man previously known by the InnerChange folk. We began with the token conversation of where we were from but things progressed very quickly. He began to recount how he was woken by rising flood waters during Hurricane Katrina and his 81 year old mother is living in a wreck of a house in which he has tried to repair, but doesn't have the funds for a contractor. We were interrupted by another man, who brought beer from the corner store for him and another man sitting by.

10 feet down the sidewalk a young girl runs up to another group of men, sitting, having a jolly male time to collect a man - 'din't yo' hear you is getting called'. She takes him by the hand and bossily strolls down the street. We depart from our current conversation and continue walking down the street.

One of the beautiful things about the city of New Orleans is that you can strike up a conversation with anyone about anything. As we walk past a stoop, with an older woman, a roughly mid 20's women, with two toddlers and an infant we say 'how ya'll doing?' Being the 4th of July we talk about how they are celebrating etc. As we talk to the older lady, her daughter holds her own infant and feeds her a lollipop. A teething infant, being fed a lollipop. Her two younger children play on the stoop as the younger lady's partner rides his bike past and she cuss' up a storm at him. We farewell these folk and continue on. Around the corner the partner is hanging out with crew, having a good time.

The scene weighs so heavily upon me. The complexity began to unfold.

Things that I have so taken for granted: education and health care. You would think, that these people living in America would have these things. Take the 3 generations on their steps. The mother giving her infant a lollipop. My jaw drops, it seems common sense to me to give infants the right foods - high sugar foods on baby teeth? The western culture contains so much, excess. Westerners that have grown into excess, have an amount of knowledge on how to handle it. But when these things, such as alcohol and sugar are thrust upon a culture without the provision of education and health services, how can you expect them to adjust?

In another neighborhood of New Orleans, a few months ago now, a young man gets bullied at school. He comes home and alerts his mother to the situation, she hands him a gun and says 'kill those -expletive-'. The young man then kills two others.

When I sit here reflecting on that family on the steps, the young man, it pains me to think, that without intervention those kids will be in the same situation that their parents are in. There is poverty and culture. They are not together. Any solution to poverty that doesn't seek to understand the culture quashes the unique, beautiful culture that exists.

The complex question, how do you execute any solution to poverty that respects and upholds a culture, once poverty has been defined in that culture?