Jolly Old St. Nicholas

The second Sunday of Advent falls on December 6 this year; this is also the feast day of St. Nicholas. For any non-liturgical readers, a little background: Nicholas was the bishop of Myra, located in what is now Turkey, back in the fourth century. Nicholas is traditionally considered the patron saint of (among other groups) the poor, children, and pawnbrokers, all familiar entities at Southwood—toss in a few parolees and some slightly imperfect Lutherans and you pretty much have the whole Southwood community. He was known for leaving gifts for children and needy families, and was largely deep undercover until his generosity was discovered, and then celebrated, and he was finally made a saint by the Catholic Church. Our modern legends of Santa Claus are partially modeled after the legends about St. Nicholas, even to the point of referring to Santa Claus as St. Nicholas. At Southwood, St. Nick is our kind of guy.

Our Advent activities at Southwood usually involve a more liturgically based view of Advent as a time of preparation to receive Christ, the Savior, anew, to prepare our hearts to celebrate this most amazing gift from God. Today, Angela reads a story about a town preparing for Christmas, but without candy. At the end of the story, a candy shop is opened, and its first shipment contains boxes of candy canes. The candy shop owner shares the candy with the villagers, using the candy cane to illustrate important points of the Gospels: the cane can remind us of a shepherd’s crook, and that Jesus is our Good Shepherd; the cane can also be inverted to make a “J” shape, for “Jesus;” the white can remind us of his holiness, and the red stripes can remind us of the wounds by which we are healed.

Listening to the story, I’m appreciative of the way the symbolism is worked into a story rather than being presented as factual history; this is symbolism that has occurred to people after the features of the candy cane were developed for other, more mundane reasons. I think St. Nick (both of them) would approve.

Angela and Sandie, her daughter, have a craft prepared that will remind the kids of the day’s story. Sandie is very accomplished at all kinds of bead crafts, and has devised a candy cane craft using pipe cleaners and red and white plastic beads. Angela has brought candy canes for each child as an extra treat, so they crunch away in sticky happiness as they thread beads onto pipe cleaners.



While the kids crunch and craft, Angela and I discuss a problem that’s come up in the last couple of days.

In the spirit of St. Nicholas, a Christmas party is being planned for the kids at Southwood. All four of the Lutheran churches in the collective will have volunteers there; there will be cookies, a bounce house, and a visit from Santa. The children are on gift lists at other area churches, and there were preliminary plans to have Santa give out the gifts, but we learned late in the week that the churches handling the gifts want to give them out in a different way. What will Santa give out? You can't have a Santa that doesn't give you anything, especially not for these kids.

Taking our inspiration from St. Nicholas, we settle on stockings. Angela thinks candy and some healthy foods like crackers, fresh fruit, and nuts would be better than a lot of small toys or party favors, so we agree on just a few small toys, oranges and apples, cheese and cracker snacks, packages of nuts, candy, and maybe some fancy pencils to show off at school. We have a little money in the church’s Social Justice account, and there’s a local craft store with a wicked sale on velveteen stockings. We’re set.

We check off our Southwood Christmas list: gospel shared, check; residents ministered to, check; bounce house, check; cookies, check; Santa’s gift problem solved, check.

Later, Angela is in a crowded craft store, arms laden with several dozen stockings, when another customer asks her if she’s making things for a holiday craft sale. Angela tells her what the stockings are for, and about the kids at Southwood. “I’ve heard of the motel kids,” the woman says. “I’ve never been able to figure out what I could do about them.” She’s a quick study, though; she hands Angela ten dollars before she leaves the store, then turns around at her car, comes back into the store, and hands Angela ten dollars more.

St. Nick (both of them) would approve.

Jesus, Our Brother

It’s the beginning of Advent, and liturgical Christians begin their seasonal devotions to prepare themselves to receive anew the promise of God in the form of a helpless infant.

At Southwood, Advent takes the more practical form of Christmas-themed crafts and stories, and an effort to bring extra food, along with jackets and other warm clothing donations.

Today’s craft is a Christmas ornament made of foam pieces that the kids can paste together with glue sticks. Most of the Southwood kids have trouble with complicated crafts; coloring and pasting are about all they can handle without extensive help. Bree, my adult daughter, has begun coming to Southwood, and together we keep the kids on track and make sure glue sticks are shared, everyone is listening to the instructions, no one is fighting or insisting that pieces are needed from another child’s kit, everyone understands the instructions, and everyone’s pieces are glued together the right way. This project has a number of pieces, and requires a little patience to achieve the desired result: a foam infant smiling from a foamy manger under a smiling star, with the caption, “God’s Greatest Gift.”

A couple of the kids express dismay that the serrated yellow pieces of the kit are meant to represent hay, not blankets. A few don’t know what “hay” is, so I explain that it’s a kind of dried grass that animals eat for food. I check on their understanding of “manger,” and that’s a good thing, because, although they all know the traditional story by heart, none of them know what all the words mean. A few of the kids think the manger is a kind of room or stable. A few kids understand that an “inn” is a place to stay; many of the welfare motels in Anaheim contain “inn” as part of the name. Of these kids, a few have “manger” confused with “manager,” as in “motel manager,” with the vague idea that Jesus was born in the motel manager’s office.

Actually, that’s not too far off the mark.

As Bree and I work around the table, making sure each child is able to complete each step of the craft project, we help the kids understand the words in the story. The inn is like a motel. There wasn’t any room there for a lady about to have a baby, so Mary and Joseph ended up with the animals in the stable, sort of like how sometimes people end up having to sleep in someone’s garage when they can’t afford a motel room. The manger, we explain, is a food holder for animals to eat from, so it was filled with hay, the animals’ food.

This brings a surprising flurry of disagreement from the kids. Jesus is God’s son. How could God’s son sleep in the middle of pet food? With no blankets? Didn’t Mary have baby stuff with her? Couldn’t they buy some?

“Well,” I explain, “Jesus was poor.”

The shock is evident on the kids’ faces, and they start to argue. No way! Jesus was rich! Kings brought him gifts. He could do miracles—why wouldn’t he have anything anyone could want? The Southwood kids are poor; they understand the difficulties of life on the downward spiral. Jesus chose to come here. Who would choose to be born poor, to worry about food and shelter on a daily basis? Their reaction reminds me of a quote from Carolyn Chute, who has said that her writing about poverty was “involuntarily researched.” Chute said:

"I have lived poverty. I didn't choose it. No one would choose humiliation, pain, and rage."

But, that’s exactly what Jesus did. We go through some parts of the story of Jesus’s life that the kids aren’t so familiar with: how he said he had no home, no place to lay his head; how he had to get his tax money from a fish; how he loved and defended the poor every day of his life. He could have chosen to be rich, but he didn’t. He chose to be poor.

Slowly, it dawns on them. Jesus was one of them.

Jesus, our brother, strong and good,
Was only born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around him stood,
Jesus, our brother, strong and good.

Once in a Lifetime (Part Two)

You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

According to a 2003 study by the OC Partnership Research Support Service, 80% of homeless people residing in motels become motel residents through financial hardship. They remain motel residents because they are unable to save the deposit amount necessary to get into a conventional apartment or because credit or eviction history keeps them from renting an apartment.

There are a lot of stories behind that statistic. We don’t ask the Southwood residents how they came to live there, but many of them volunteer their stories. Talking to people who work in other projects and ministries, stories are exchanged. That’s how I heard the curious term, “Love Eviction.”

I’d heard about love evictions before, but hadn’t known there was a term for them. A love eviction occurs when two people are living together in an apartment or house belonging to one of the partners, then there is a fight or breakup, and the person with the right to remain in the home kicks out the partner. A love eviction might leave a parent and child without any shelter if there is no notice given that a request to leave is forthcoming.

The same sort of kickout, informal eviction could happen between roommates, but in that case it’s not a love eviction. It’s also not a love eviction if someone leaves because of danger; for example, if one person in the home threatens or commits violence against another resident, and the resident flees. These kinds of situations contribute to something we see a lot at Southwood: people who arrive at the motel with nothing but the clothes they’re wearing and maybe a wallet or purse. No toothbrush, no toiletries, not even a change of clothes.

There are other reasons for people to become trapped in motel residence. They’re formally, legally evicted from a rented home; they are asked to leave or locked out by family members who are fed up with them; they have to leave a sobriety program; or they get out of jail or prison and have nowhere else to go—or their parole officer placed them there. For some, the motel is an upgrade from a homeless shelter or halfway house, or sleeping in their cars. And now, with the collapse of California’s economy, some motel residents are people whose homes, either rented or mortgaged, are in foreclosure.

Southwood is a meeting place, a turning point where the destinies of many different lives converge. For some, it’s a step down; for some, it’s a step up; for some, it’s a place to express gratitude for the grace of God; for some, it’s a place of despair and desperate prayer.
So, where is God at Southwood? Definitely present, though perhaps in some surprising places.

In his book, Simply Christian, NT Wright addresses the issue of God’s presence in the world. According to Wright, in the Judeo-Christian worldview, earth, God’s creation, and heaven, God’s home, are two separate and distinct dimensions that have the ability to interlock. Where they interlock can be variable or fixed.

Under the old covenant with ancient Israel, God could show up at various times and places. He met with Jacob, with Moses, and with Adam and Eve in Eden. He traveled with the Israelites through the desert. But the main fixed and dependable location for God’s presence on earth was the Temple. God could always be counted upon to be there.

One of the most striking things about the ministry of Jesus was that he greatly expanded the idea of where God could be located in the world. While Jesus was alive, and during his resurrected appearances to his friends after his death, God was present in Jesus. After Pentecost, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s dwelling place changed to individual believers; Paul calls believers, “temples.” Jesus himself began setting up this idea prior to his death by instructing his followers, “…where two or three of you are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” His last recorded words, according to Matthew, are “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Under God’s new covenant in Christ, God’s people are the dwelling place, and God is present wherever his people are present.

Those aren’t the only times Jesus spoke of his presence in and among people. Also in Matthew, he speaks of being present in people in need, so much so that our good deeds to help those in need are credited by God as having been performed directly for Jesus. So, where is God at Southwood? Definitely present, in those in need as well as in those there to help meet those needs.

You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

At any point in our lives, we stand at a juncture created by some combination of circumstance and choice. That we are often as surprised by our choices, and their consequences, as we are by our circumstances is part of the human condition. Our comfort, at every point in the times of our lives, is that God is invariably present. He is present in our need, he is present in our despair, and he is present in our gratitude and joy. Life may take all of us by surprise. God’s presence, our constant, shouldn’t.

Once in a Lifetime

As I crank over the car and start backing out of the garage on the short trip to Southwood, the radio comes to life at an interesting point in an old song:

You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

Indeed.

I have a much better idea how the Southwood residents got there than how I did. Or, maybe not. Maybe our stories are all variations on a theme.

I’ve been a Lutheran since the early 1970s; I was confirmed in 1972. I went to church pretty regularly, too, and was very active in mission work, until a personal tragedy left me unable to attend church. And I mean, “unable to attend church.” Literally unable to keep from bursting into tears long enough to make it through a service. Like Hagar, I ended up in the wilderness, outside of the organized religion world for a long time. And then, one day after thinking about it for a few years and checking out various Lutheran congregations for a while, it was time to start making my way out of the desert and back into spiritual civilization.

The Orange County motel situation had been bothering me for a long time, ever since I’d done some therapy work with a little girl who lived in a motel and had seen, through her eyes, what motel life was like. I would drive by motels and think of that girl. As I said, I’d been checking out Lutheran congregations in the area, reading newsletters online, and one congregation, Lamb of God, not only had a motel ministry, but was recruiting people to work in it. I had chosen my victim.

I was expecting to attend a service, sit in the back row, and leave quietly afterward. Best laid plans and all that aside, I was quite pleasantly mobbed by friendly and hospitable people who insisted I stay for coffee and were not the least put off by my heresy (Lutherans’ nearly worshipful love of coffee is legendary) when I had a Diet Coke instead. Of course, the question was raised, “What brought you here to Lamb of God?” and when I answered that, in addition to my car, the motel ministry had helped bring me to church, I was immediately put in touch with Angela. And so, on a bright Saturday morning many months later, I’m off to meet God, disguised as the residents of a rundown motel, and all of us there will be transformed in some way by that meeting.

Sea of Joy

The economic problems in the US have hit the folks at Southwood very hard. Food donations are in greater demand than ever before; we rarely leave with leftovers these days, and people have been asking about where they can eat or get food during the week. We’ve been referring a lot of these people to the church for the Wednesday meal program as well as the larger food pantry there.

The usual residents have been joined by a few families who have been displaced from their homes by job loss and forclosure; either they could not pay the mortgage or rent, or were renting from or living with someone who couldn’t. One of these new families consists of Nadira, her husband, and their five children, of whom we’ve met Darya, who is eight; and Azan, who is two.

Things have been pretty bleak.

But not today. Azan bursts into the play area with a vigorous, joyful roar. "Raaaaaaaaaaaaaawr!” He rips into the toy bag with gusto, pulls out a ball, and begins tossing and chasing it all over the parking lot on stubby toddler legs. His older sister, Darya, follows, skipping. She heads straight for the jump rope and asks for rope turners. Angela and I are happy to turn the rope for her. “I want to try jumping in,” she says. We turn the rope as Darya tenses, watching the rope carefully. She’s never successfully jumped in before, but today she makes it, and everyone cheers.

Marisol arrives, crashing into Angela and jumping up on her to give her a giant bear hug. Marisol also has been struggling for months with learning to jump rope, but today she not only jumps in successfully, but makes it through most of a jump-rope chant before missing and having to turn the rope over to Shoshanna, who has also had some kind of rope jumping epiphany; she also jumps in and is able to jump through several rhymes before losing her turn. In the meantime, Azan has grabbed another single jump rope and it trails behind him as he jumps and screams joyfully, “Eighteen, nine, nine, NINE!”

Angela’s daughter, granddaughter, and grandson are helping today, and they make beaded bracelets with the kids when the enthusiasm for jumping rope dies down. A few of the middle-school-aged boys start up a board game, a group of smaller kids are playing with toy cars, and the play area is filled with happy chatter. People arrive to pick up food, and everyone is in a very good mood.

And then, something even more wonderful happens.

It turns out that the county food bank, which has been running very low on supplies and has been turning people away for months, has had a sudden uptick in donations. The motel handyman approaches us to announce that they have boxes of groceries for all the families with children. The joy increases as parents cross the parking lot from the office to their rooms, hauling boxes of food. For Southwood, the sun has broken through the clouds.

Shakedown Street

Angela looks worried as I pull into the parking lot at Southwood. As I heft the crate of food donations toward our site, she meets me halfway. “Please tell me you brought a snack! I can’t find the snack I brought anywhere!” I didn’t bring a snack, but offer to set up while Angela goes to a nearby grocery store to get something.

The motel janitor has already marked off the play area with traffic cones, so I begin setting up our tables. I’m arranging the food on the donation table when a police car drives by, slows down, backs up, then turns into the parking lot. It stops a few yards from where I’m setting up and a police officer emerges.

“Are you selling things here?”

“No, these are donations.”

“Well, it looks like you’re selling things. You can’t sell here. You need to clear all this stuff away.”

“They’re not for sale; we’re here from the Lutheran church down on Sweet and South, we run a ministry for the kids and families every Saturday, and these things are donations for the people here. We’re going to give them away.”

“What church is that?” I repeat the name of the church, and the location.

“That church is pretty far away. What are you doing all the way over here?”

The church is six blocks away, and while he might not know the church, he knows the intersection. I’m starting to get annoyed with this cop, but am determined not to show it. “Well, it’s really only about six blocks away, and this is just the motel our church was given to work with by the city’s homeless program."

“Who told you you could be here?” I give the name of the man who runs the city’s homeless outreach program, and explain he’s the city’s homeless coordinator and works at City Hall. “Really, I assure you, we’re supposed to be here. We run this ministry every Saturday. The motel management knows we’re here. We’ve been doing this nearly a year.”

“Who’s ‘we?’” I explain about the Lutheran church collective in our area, and how my partner just ran to the grocery store because we forgot to bring snacks. I explain about the crafts, Bible story, and handing out food and clothing.

“I don’t see any kids around. If you have something here all the time, how come no kids are here?” “Probably because you’re here,” I want to say, but don’t. In the past, a woman from church brought her dog to play with the kids, and some kids told us later that they thought the barking meant there was a police dog there, so they were afraid to come out. “It’s early,” I point out. “We set up early and the kids start coming out around 10:00.” He looks at his watch. I take a look at mine and am pleased that it’s only 9:50. “Yeah. About 10 minutes to go,” I say.

“Well, the problem is this stuff is a hazard, and you can’t have all this stuff in the parking lot here. You can’t just take over a parking lot.”

“OK, I understand that. But this is the spot the motel manager asked us to set up in, and we use it every week. What if you come with me to the motel office and we can explain this together and get the manager to give us another spot, maybe back there on the grass.” There is a grassy area, but the motel owner doesn’t want us setting up back there for some reason. Angela has asking to use that area, rather than the parking lot, for months, and I’m hoping this cop can maybe be an unwitting accomplice in getting us a healthier place to run the ministry.

Judging by the extreme look of distaste on his face, the officer doesn’t like my suggestion to go talk to the manager together. “The manager knows you’re here?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to sell any of this stuff?”

“No. It’s all donations and will probably be gone in about an hour. We wouldn’t sell to the poor.”

He looks around and makes one last try. “You can’t have those cones there.”

“OK, no problem. They’re not ours, though. The motel management puts those down. I’ll go tell them they need to come get them.”

“The motel put those there?”

“Yes.” He’s beaten, now. The motel management has the right to do whatever they want with the motel, since it’s private property, and we both know it.

“OK. You have a nice day. Remember, you can’t sell stuff here.”

“No danger of that, Officer. You have a great day, too.” Finally, he gets into his car and slowly backs out. Angela passes him in the driveway. “The police were here? What was that all about?” I fill Angela in, and we laugh at the overly officious officer. We both wonder, too, if the motel residents have to put up with the same kind of police attention to their daily activities. It was obvious the police were present while the officer was there; he left the car’s radio on and it was loudly broadcasting police radio traffic throughout the parking lot. Although the parking lot is a social gathering area and there are usually some people out going about their business while we’re setting up, this morning there is not a soul astir.

A few kids come out after a while, but it’s a very slow day.

Livin' on a Prayer

As the months pass, more Southwood residents venture out of their rooms and cruise the donation tables. Angela and I are pretty sure the food is a big draw, but we also think the residents are starting to trust us. As they approach the table, most strike up a conversation that quickly moves to the topic of the “cost” of the food. The ghosts of ministries past can be seen in their questions; most residents, when told the food is free, then inquire about what’s required to get it—prayer, listening to a Bible story, what? Their amazement when they learn that the food is truly free betrays their experiences with ministries that require prayer or listening to a gospel pitch prior to eating. Quite a few of them self-identify as Christian, and it seems really important to them that we know they are Christians and that we accept them as our brothers and sisters. Even after we’ve explained that being a Christian isn’t a prerequisite for getting food, that it’s God’s food and it’s free to everyone, people still want to connect, to talk about where they went to church growing up, what they were taught, what they believe, where they worship now. They tell us their stories; stories of lives touched by Christ, but stories, also, of lives that don’t fit the stereotypical, “Jesus took my troubles all away.” Their stories are of lives of struggle, of hardship, of repeated grappling with familiar problems.

Karen

When I first meet Karen, she has already been coordinating with Angela for a couple of months; Karen is operating a casual community center out of her motel room. Angela has been able to hook Karen up with some local community resources, and with the motel management’s support, Karen has planned a couple of community barbecues and is hosting an evening Bible study, run by another church group, in her motel room.

Karen is the daughter of a local minister whose conservative church is known for helping the poor. Karen has been disowned by her family because of her struggles with depression and substance abuse; banned from Eden, she surfaces from bouts of what she describes as “not doing so well” to carry on the family’s work in exile. Right now, Karen is doing pretty well. She’s clean and sober, planning a luau to welcome spring. Angela works with Karen to set up borrowing some tables from the church. Karen assures her she knows from helping at her father’s church what a loss it would be if the tables were damaged, and vows to take good care of them. Karen tells Angela about some new families in the motel to whom she has extended a greeting and conducted an assessment of their needs: diapers, baby formula, sanitary napkins, baby and toddler clothing, socks. Angela is a fount of blessings; she has the items stockpiled in the church donation center, and takes off to get them right away.

While we’re waiting for Angela, Karen talks a bit about her family. She understands why she’s been exiled from the family; she’s hurt and embarrassed them many times, and, more importantly, has not lived according to God’s law. In her family’s eyes, and in the eyes of their church, she has fallen from grace and needs to be re-saved. To her family, her continued struggles with depression and substance abuse indicate that she wasn’t truly saved any of the multiple times she has “been doing well” and responded to an altar call to accept Jesus as her savior. Karen has been moving away from the idea that God leaves her when she’s “not doing well,” and resists her family’s insistence that she’s somehow lost her salvation.

Kirk

Kirk is a bit of a mystery. He lives alone and doesn’t volunteer more than a few sentences at a time about his life. Kirk appears to be anywhere from 25-35 years old, is rail thin, and has some of the facial changes that could indicate methamphetamine use. He’s frequently without a shirt, and has some prison tattoos. Kirk has trouble finding work. He always apologizes profusely for taking food, explaining it should all be left for the kids, but he’s very hungry. He takes very little, and refuses to take milk, saying it definitely should be left for the kids. Kirk was raised Holiness Pentecostal. He’s taken down our church address several times, and asked about the dress code for services, but if he’s come, I’ve missed him. He asks for the address, goes over the dress code, and asks the service times today. Angela and I keep encouraging him to come. Maybe one day, he will.

Dave and Don

"Hey, have you got anything for a couple of working men?” Don and Dave approach the table. Both are African-American. Dave is tall and snaggletoothed, Don is short and muscular. They ride bicycles to which they have rigged baby strollers converted into makeshift trailers. I’d seen these parked at the motel bike rack and wondered whose they were and what they were used for. Today, the trailers are filled with garbage bags stuffed with bottles and cans. They both carry lunch boxes and it’s clear they are professional recyclers. As we talk, Dave shares that he gets occasional casual construction jobs, as well, but times are tough lately. Construction is down and there are a lot more people competing for the cans and bottles that Don and Dave pick up off the street to recycle, especially in the motel district. Sometimes they end up riding pretty far from Southwood in the pursuit of recyclables. Dave and Don attend our church’s Wednesday homeless meal project, and they compliment Angela, who bears most of the credit for the project, on the quality and dependability of the meals.

Amelia

Amelia is frail and elderly, walks with a cane, and her speech betrays a history of stroke. She, too, is firmly Christian. She’s also on a limited and fixed income, not mobile, and a victim of cuts to programs that bring food to senior citizens.

Rebecca

Rebecca is a beautiful, bright African-American girl. She, Marisol, and Shoshanna are friends and playmates, and make up the core of the motel program. Unlike her friends, Rebecca is lucky because her mother has a steady job, one that pays at least well enough that Rebecca and her mother don’t have to worry about scraping up the weekly rent for their room, and they rarely need donated food. In Southwood terms, Rebecca and her mother are rich. It’s obvious someone has spent a lot of time with Rebecca; she stands out from the other Southwood kids. She’s an ace at jump rope, knows how to roller skate, is familiar with popular children’s games, and can catch a ball. She knows the Bible well and fights Angela for control of the Bible story, interrupting Angela with, “I know! I know what happened next!” Rebecca and her mother attend a local megachurch.

Southwood is full of many other indicators of Christianity: the small number of crosses made of horseshoe nails that were snapped up and are still worn, a year later, by the recipients; the quoting of Scripture, attendance at Bible study, and mention of church affiliation or attendance; the good works, putting others first and treating others as one wishes to be treated.

I think a lot of people think of ministries like the Southwood ministry as ways to preach the gospel with the intent of saving souls. What’s surprising at Southwood, though, are the number of people who have received part of the gospel. They’ve received the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. What’s lacking for them, though, is the part of the gospel that Jesus himself called, “good news for the poor.” The things in life that help people get a leg up, that ease the rough spots, are missing. Even so, many Southwood residents cling to faith even when so little of it is left that they are mistaken for those who have never heard the gospel. They are the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks that Jesus spoke of, that he said he would not break or put out. They are the ones he promised never to give up on. Nor should we.

Ripple

When the Southwood project first started, there was a huge kickoff party with a bounce house, food, games, and lots of people. It had been announced ahead of time, so turnout was good. But, as the project settled down into a weekly routine, the residents seemed a little wary of joining in. Three girls, Marisol, Shoshanna, and Rebecca have been mainstays, though; they were the first kids to show up, and have attended consistently.

Marisol lives with her father, whose physical appearance betrays at least a history of methamphetamine use, if not current use. He always has a cigarette, and often a beer, in his hand. We don’t see him out very often, but when he is around, he’s invariably very sharp and critical of Marisol. A confusing array of female motel residents takes turns being responsible for Marisol. She refers to them as her “aunts,” though ethnically and in age they are a bit of a motley crew, and it’s difficult to tell whether there are any blood ties between Marisol and the women. Where her father is harsh and critical, the aunts seem to be very indulgent, promising to buy Marisol nail polish or toy jewelry from the dollar store down the street, advocating for her in tiffs with the other girls, and making sure she gets her share of anything being given out during playtime.

Marisol is a pretty little girl with shiny blonde hair and deep blue eyes set in an elfin face. She invariably shows up in the kid version of being dressed to the nines: very girly skirt and top, usually in some shade of pink; hair band or barrettes, usually sparkly; and lots and lots of shiny plastic bangle bracelets and rings. She is sharp, and crafty in an almost instinctual way. She likes to take charge, definitely of the other kids, but sometimes of the adults. Marisol seems indomitable; if one adult tells her, “No,” she sets her sharp little chin and approaches another, or just ignores the “No” and seeks another way to whatever she wants. Marisol struggles with some of the things that the other children find easy, but is competitive nonetheless. She struggled with learning to jump rope, but fiercely insisted on jumping in and attempting tricks that were way beyond the skill of a child who’d never played with a jump rope before, even though we encouraged her to take her time and offered individual help. She is usually last to finish a craft project, but will demand a second project if the other girls do. She is the only one of the kids who will stand up to Rebecca, another girl with a strong personality. All the girls try to take extra turns in games, talk one another out of some of the books and other small gifts we give out, or take control of a story or craft project, but Marisol rarely loses out; she is already, in second grade, tough and streetwise.

Today, though, Marisol arrives late to playtime, her tough exterior cracking. She’s not interested in crafts or looking through toy donations, rare behavior for Marisol. She doesn’t want to play games with the other girls, instead choosing to color alone, so I color with her. Every few minutes, after looking around to assure no one is watching, she fiercely wipes tears away with her hand. Thinking this is one of the times when my skills as a therapist can be useful, I take a chance: “What’s wrong, Marisol? It looks like you’re upset.”

Marisol wipes tears away, angrily. “I can’t call my mom.” One of the aunts has materialized and joins us at the table. She eyes me, warily.

“Do you usually call your mom?”

“Yes. On Fridays. Last night, I can’t.”

Not sure of the situation, I investigate gently. “Can you leave her a message, or call her another time?”

“No. They don’t let her call.”

The aunt breaks in, “Her mom’s in—“

“—prison!” Marisol hisses. “I want my mom!”

“Wow,” I say. “I’m sorry, Marisol. That’s very hard for you. You miss her a lot.” Marisol nods, wetly.

“Can you visit her?”

“No. She’s in…someplace that sounds like ‘hamsters.’”

“New Hampshire,” the aunt volunteers. “New Hampshire,” Marisol confirms, “It’s far away.” She begins crying in earnest. It turns out Marisol’s mother has been there for a couple of years, and will be there for a few more. I learn this from the aunt, who also tells me that there was some kind of problem at the prison last night, and the prison staff stopped calls for inmates. I’m sad for Marisol, almost on the verge of tears myself, but having worked for years with kids in state foster care, many of whom hadn’t seen their parents for years, at least I’m in familiar territory.

“Marisol, I know you’re really sad, but you know your mom loves you, right?”

The fierceness flares. “My mom loves me!”

“Right, she just can’t be here now. She’d be here if she could, and she’d call if she could. Sometimes parents just can’t be with kids.” Marisol nods.

“She loves you and you love her. Nothing can change that.”

“But now I can’t call her.”

“You can’t call her today, but can you do something else for her? Can you send her a picture?” The aunt confirms that they have an address for Marisol’s mom, and, just as important, a stamp. Marisol writes, “MOM” across the top of the page she’s coloring, then adds some hearts and writes “Marisol” across the bottom. She’s very good at coloring, and finishes the page with her usual meticulous job. The aunt leaves momentarily, then returns with an envelope. The colored and dedicated picture of a mother cat and her kitten is carefully torn from the coloring book and placed in the envelope, prison-bound.

Ordinary Miracle

In the weeks following Shoshanna’s announcement about needing food at her house, Angela and I begin collecting and bringing food. Angela, saint that she is, is a social justice veteran and has lots of contacts she can call in. We put out the word at our church, whose 40 active members are already donating to a number of social justice programs, and they come through with a vengeance. When I was freshly divorced and fresh out of grad school, and receiving no child support, I was very poor and became good at finding inexpensive food. I revived some of those skills and started visiting bakery outlets, dollar stores, any place where food can be got on the cheap.

On our next trip to Southwood, we’re loaded for bear. We set up one of our tables with an assortment of food: macaroni and cheese, boxed dinners with canned beef or tuna to add, cereal, bread, canned vegetables, and the ubiquitous peanut butter and jelly. At this point, many of the residents are still wary of us, but word gets around that someone is giving out food, and we have lots of takers. Throughout the morning, people come every few minutes, and though we take some food with us when we leave, it’s not much.

A few weeks after we start bringing food, more of the residents begin to come out and interact with us. People who haven’t talked to us before come and stand a short distance from the table, and after “Hellos” are exchanged, the question: “So, are you selling this stuff?”

“No, it’s free for everyone. Do you need food?”

“Well, I could use a little…”

And some interesting things happen. Single people tend to wait until after the families have picked up their food. Several people tell us, “No, don’t give me any milk. Give it to someone with kids. I’ll just take some cereal.” Some people bring things out and place them on the table: boxes of cereal, cookies, and clothing. Other people go and get residents that they know are in need, but who aren’t out of their rooms yet or who are still too shy to come out.

I start wondering if I’m witnessing a story from the Bible being acted out in real life. I’ve always wondered if the miracle in the feeding of the five thousand occurred because Jesus magically made food materialize out of thin air, or if his example of taking his own food and passing it around to everyone didn’t inspire people to bust out their own stash and also start handing it around. Was there really always enough for everyone, but no one could see it because people were hoarding what they had, afraid there wasn’t enough? Is the reality that there’s always enough, if we just share?

Cheeseburger in Paradise

It’s another Saturday at Southwood, this time gloomy and damp. The ministry takes place outside, all year, and though we have a canvas pop-up for shade in the summer, there isn’t much we can do about winter weather. We almost called it, today, fearing rain, but decided to risk it; after all, it’s early in the year for rain, and we can always pack up if it starts getting too wet. Our shabby card tables and folding chairs are loaded off of Angela’s van and set up, kids see us and start coming out. The residents are a little more used to us, now, and three little girls have been showing up regularly for a few weeks.

There’s a little bit of rivalry between the girls (okay, a lot of rivalry, sometimes). Offered three different books so that each can take one home, they invariably all insist on the same one, fighting over it, somtimes viciously. Angela and I have discussed what to do about this, but there isn’t much we can do. What’s donated is what’s donated, and we rarely get batches of identical things. Most people are either disposing of their own children’s books, or giving a variety so that there is at least the semblance of choice. There’s nothing for it but to sigh a little and explain again that there’s enough for everyone and no need to fight. The Cluster (what our associated churches have decided to call ourselves) has met to compare notes on Saturdays, and we’ve made a decision to de-emphasize donations quit bringing so much stuff to give away; because of the rivalry, we don’t want getting things to become a focus of our visits. No one wants to take away from the food pantry at the church Angela and I belong to, so we decide that other than snacks, we’ll divert any food donations to the church.

This time, Rebecca, who has been showing up each time lately eating some kind of food, has to be cautioned not to spill cereal and milk all over the books. Shoshanna is listless and sad, very low energy, and has been for a few weeks. Book choices finally are made, and the girls decide to color. Rebecca places her cereal bowl on the table and everyone has to color as well as choose crayons from the communal tub around the bowl, now filled with soggy cereal as Rebecca stopped eating it almost immediately after she appeared with it. Marisol and Rebecca begin fighting over crayons and coloring books. There are at least two boxes of 64 crayons each in the tub, and half a dozen coloring books. More inward sighing. More reminding them in God’s world there is enough for everyone. Shoshanna’s quietly coloring. Maybe she’s getting it.

We’re getting to know the kids, but don’t know them very well yet at all. Their parents are wary of us, more so than the children, and aren’t around. I don’t blame them. They are hassled by a near-constant stream of social workers, probation officers, police, people wanting to convert them to various religions, and motel management. Who’s to say we’re not more of the same? Not having talked much to the parents, and still trying to build rapport with the kids, we’re cautious about correcting the kids, so ”Kids, please, there’s enough for everyone” is pretty much the strongest reprimand we have, and neither Angela nor I feel comfortable saying anything about the annoying cereal bowl.

Angela pulls me aside. “Listen, we’ve got this huge donation of peanut butter and jelly. There’s no way we’ll use it at church, why not give it to the kids? I want to quit driving so much stuff around.” I usually defer to Angela; she’s older and wiser, and she started the ministry. “Okay, sure.” I start getting the crayons put away and the snacks out for storytime, and Angela hauls a box of peanut butter and jelly out of the van. “Okay, who could use some peanut butter and jelly at home?” Marisol and Rebecca start vying over how many jars each child can take home.
Shoshanna, so quiet, stirs. She speaks in a near whisper, but it cuts through the bickering like a laser, steady and intense. “We need food at my house. Really bad.”

It feels like a thousand thoughts hit me at once. How ridiculous we must sound, telling them God has plenty for them when they clearly don’t have enough to meet their basic needs. Is there some darker meaning to the annoying cereal bowl? On a perpetual diet, I’d secretly congratulated myself for not eating any of the snack–how hypocritical. I’m a relative newcomer here; how many people am I going to piss off when I do what I’ve already decided, in that instant, that I’m going to do? How bad is it for the families here, how can we reach them, and what do they need? Can we begin to make a dent in what they must need?

I don’t know.

I do know, come hell or high water, we’re bringing food with us. Every time we come.

Where Do the Children Play?

Life at the Southwood is hard for everybody. The rooms are tiny, meant to accommodate, at most, a small family for a few days of vacation. They’re not designed to house anyone, definitely not families, long-term. If your roommate is drunk or your kids are noisy, there’s nowhere to go.
And children aren’t allowed outside of their rooms.

It’s not that getting outside of your room is any fun; there’s pretty much only the parking lot outside. Or that getting out of your room is a particularly good idea; parolees, including registered sex offenders, are placed at Southwood.

Kids who live at the Southwood tend not to have many books or toys. Life at the Southwood is about getting food for the day, about having enough money each week to pay the rent. It’s not the kind of child-centered life that many Orange County children enjoy.

Enter Angela.

Angela is a living saint. She loves God and God’s justice with the same passion as Jesus. She has that numinous quality reported of people like Gandhi; you can feel God just being around her. At least, I can. She’s busy with a mind-boggling array of charity projects, when she’s not, at 77, shuttling some of her fostered or adopted children around. A year ago, Angela was able to convince the owners of the Southwood to allow a bunch of Lutherans to have a children’s time on Saturday mornings. And so, every Saturday, small groups of people from several north Orange County Lutheran churches take turns going to the Southwood armed with toys, books, and games. The kids get to play, they get a story and a craft, and a snack. People have donated clothing, toys, and books that the kids have been able to keep. Go, Angela!

Southwood: Here's the Story

Southwood is the story of people living in a residence motel in an affluent, resort area of California. It’s also the story of the people from the community who volunteer at the motel, about how those two groups interact, how they mirror some aspects of first-century Palestine, and what all this has to do with a man who was killed way back when for suggesting we should all treat each other nicely.

The story of Southwood Motel is intertwined with the story of one man’s dream to build a magical and most delightful place on Earth, and to place this wonder in the middle of some fields in a little town called Anaheim, in Southern California. Anaheim is about 150 years old, originally settled by German immigrants who named it, heim, German for “home,” and tacked on “Ana” in a nod to their Spanish-speaking neighbors in Santa Ana, and to acknowledge the nearby Santa Ana River. With the founding of what is probably the best-known theme park on the planet, the fortunes of tiny Anaheim were changed forever. For one thing, it stimulated other area theme parks, and a booming tourist industry. Anaheim is now among the largest cities in the United States, in one of the most affluent counties in the United States: Orange County, California.

The man with the plan for bringing ultimate delight to sleepy little Anaheim wasn’t the only one who showed up in Anaheim packing dreams. Dozens of little Mom-and-Pop motels sprang up around the theme park, taking advantage of the financial churn provided by tourism. It was the 1950s, and dozens of subdivisions full of pastel, fairy-tale-styled houses sprang up, too. Things were good until bigger dreamers, packing bigger dreams, started showing up in Anaheim a decade or two later, also hoping to take advantage of the tourism dollars: large hotel chains easily bought up property in prime locations, close to the theme parks. Closer to the theme parks than independently owned motels like the Southwood Motel.

The Southwood Motel is a large motel, with over 100 rooms. Like many motels that sprang up in the golden era, four decades later it’s a victim of affluence: slightly shabby, its 10′ x 10′ rooms, each equipped with a tiny galley kitchen, are no longer attractive to tourists; instead, it houses parolees, sex offenders, and the despairing. People who cannot get housing anywhere else. Many of them with children. The Southwood is a tenement, West-Coast style.

Parolees and sex offenders come to the Southwood because their parole officers place them there. For everybody else, the route is more of a spiral, of the downward variety. People evicted from better digs, jobless, poor and new in town, kicked out of some other living situation, or otherwise down on their luck end up filtering through the various levels of living spaces in Orange County, washed up like driftwood on the shore, at the Southwood.

Not far from the Southwood is a tiny Lutheran church. Lutheran churches aren’t as popular lately as they once were. Their more introverted style of Christianity has trouble competing with the dozen or so nondenominational, fundamentalist Christian style megachurches in Orange County. The congregation is small. Lutherans aren’t door-knockers or Bible-thumpers; they don’t fit into the image most people have nowadays in their minds when they hear the word, “Christian.” Lutherans tell people about Jesus mainly by showing them what Jesus was like and trying to do what Jesus would have done.

Jesus would be spending Saturdays at the Southwood. So, a group of several Lutheran churches in Orange County do just that.

Orange County is interesting in that it’s made up of a very dichotomized population. There are the affluent, the very affluent, the obscenely affluent; they are the subjects of movies and television programs centered in Orange County. Receiving far less publicity are the poor, the very poor, and the despairing; these people may have jobs in the tourist or service industry, neither of which pay well, or they work in agriculture, or they can’t get work at all. This sort of dichotomy exists in a lot of places in the world. It existed in first-century Palestine. A lot of people in first-century Palestine weren’t content with this dichotomy, but one person in particular was extremely skilled at stirring up those at the bottom of the system and at challenging those in power. This person, a Jewish mystic who shared God’s passion for justice and mercy, ended up dying for his own dream: the dream that we could create a kingdom of God, full of God’s justice, love, and mercy, on earth.

Some say that long-ago Jewish mystic didn’t really die, or, to be more specific, that he didn’t stay dead, and that God resurrected him. His dream isn’t dead, either. It’s resurrected every Saturday morning at the Southwood Motel.

Twenty centuries later, in the land of dreams, as they say, “Oh…it’s on.”