thoughts from Judy and myself

"When I go to a book store I rarely go there with a specific mission. I go there for the joy of finding books I didn’t know I needed, reading chapters of books which if read in their entirety would bore me to death, and I go there to read titles. I love to travel down a row and read the spines of books and let their titles carry my brain in all sorts of fanciful and thoughtful directions.

Known and Unknown, Heaven is for Real, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, In the Blink of an Eye, The Inner Circle, Committed: A Love Story, and Three Cups of Tea. Just sitting with any one of these titles and meditating on their meaning can change the direction of my day. Last Saturday the book title that caught by attention was, Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You. It’s the story of a man who is a victim of the recession and who is pink slipped after 18 years on the job. The author’s writing isn’t phenomenal, but the title of the book can have a phenomenal impact if you meditate upon it even for a moment.

Nothing happens until it happens to you. This is the truth of how most of us navigate our lives. Until something directly affects us it’s as if that something doesn’t even exist. If we still have our jobs, the recession isn’t that bad. If we have healthcare benefits we feel free to vote against laws that extend it to others. If we can turn on the faucet and find water we feel free to use as much of it as we want without concerning ourselves with the fact that many have just enough to keep them alive. If we have never found ourselves in a particular bind we have all the answers for how someone should have extracted themselves from theirs. If we have not had the Bible used against us we don’t think about the consequences of how we use it against others. And if we have the privilege of a particular race, culture and class we expect others to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps in the same ways that we did.

Until it happens to us... and then we can’t believe that people aren’t willing to pay higher taxes on our behalf and we are aware of every ounce wasted that could have been offered to us. Until it happens to us....and then we understand that there is no easy way out of some situations and that hearing the right chapter and verse is not always helpful. Until it happens to us...and we find that we there are systems in place that cannot be conquered alone and that it’s difficult to pull oneself up by the bootstraps when you had to sell your boots so that your kids could eat.

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Cor 12:26)

This week I invite you to invest yourself in understanding one issue that has no direct connection to you. This week I invite you to work towards alleviating a wrong that has never wronged you. This week I invite you to consider that there are things happening to others that deserve your advocacy and investment even if they never happen to you." - Judy Howard Peterson, North Park University Campus Pastor 2/23/11

Every Wednesday at work, I get an email from HR titled Pastor Judy Invites You to Chapel. I never go to chapel, but I always read the email. Some weeks I just x out and go about my day, but some weeks the words really speak to me. This week was one where her thoughts seemed to be directly related to my own life.

Last Tuesday, Peter and I helped cook and serve dinner for 40 homeless people at Lincoln Park Community Shelter. Then this weekend, I saw the Van Putten's charity:water page. I realized that I want to pick one mission, one cause if you will, and stick with it. I am good at volunteering once in awhile, when it's convenient, and when it seems fun. But what i really need to do is be an advocate for someone who's shoes I've never walked in...

I'm sorry for this long post, I just wanted to get this thought out there. If I say it out loud it's real, right. And then you all can ask me about it from time to time and help me stick with this...whenever I figure out with the this is going to be :)