I have found something outside of seminary that I love and look forward to each week. The Center on Halsted. It's a community center in the grandest sense. The building is environmentally friendly, it's a safe space for everyone, and there are endless possibilities there. I am a volunteer with the youth program there. I'm still in my training, which is long... An 8 week program to be exact. 'Why?' you ask, well because these aren't just any youth, they are youth without a home. Youth that have been turned away from their families, friends and often times have been made to feel as though God is even against them simply because they are different. My place in all this: I get to be with these youth and I don't ever even have to say God or Christ, yet I can share it with them. I can let them know that people care and are there to empower them.
I'm lucky. I have a warm home, bed and a fridge full of salad, milk and the occasional Ritter Sport bar. I have dogs to welcome me home and I have a safe neighborhood to walk home through. I have a Starbucks on the corner from my apartment and a fresh produce market two blocks from my place that has the most amazing pink lady apples and sourdough bread. I have shoes galore in my closet and plenty of laundry to be done on a weekly basis. I even have a heated mattress pad. I live a great life. But these kids live a different kind of life. Squatting in abandonded houses and buildings to sleep at night, eating whatever they can get from anyone, waiting for something to happen.
So who on earth rejects people like this? Who forces people to live like this?
We do. Those of us that turn our backs against each other and on those that are different than us. Seriously, where is the love? I'd like to believe that love is there. We're just seeing different shades of it.
One of the most amazing philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, writes in his Works of Love, that love is simply love. There is nothing greater and it is all encompassing. I think he's right and when we only love a little bit or we cut off love when we find out something we don't like, then it's not love. Love never was there. We need to learn how to love. We're not paying very good attention. We twist things around so that the messages of love we have in front of us are suddenly used for opression of something we might not be comfortable with.
They say that in several generations things will change. Each generation becomes more accepting and open-minded. I say, why on earth do we have to wait that long? The excuses of "that's how we did it back in my day," or that people "aren't ready to change their ways," are simply a big old crock-pot. We can change, but no one wants to. No one wants to try. Until we start trying, we'll never begin to truly love. We'll just be caught somewhere in between love and what we want love to be.
