Making music with Farley

This past weekend I had the privilege of serving lunch at the Bissell Centre in the inner city. I've always wanted to do it, but every time our church was invited by the Inner City Pastoral Ministry to provide lunch, other things prevented me from going. This time it worked out.

It amazed me how organized the people at ICPM's Community of Emmanuel are, but then, they've been doing this for years. As volunteers walked in carrying the food donated by our church, we were given different tasks. I really enjoyed making dessert trays and take-away-bags of cookies alongside Annie and her friends, regular workers at the centre who know the ropes and helped me understand how things were done. Listening to the women's gossip, I felt like one of the gang because they certainly didn't hold back on my account!

Serving the meal was also interesting. People picked up plates of sandwiches, a few sweets and cups of coffee and sat at round tables. A few "runners" were given the task of taking trays of fruits and vegetables around the room, and folks would point at what they wanted from a tray. The favourite items were tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and grapes, strawberries or pineapple chunks, things that our homeless brothers and sisters don't often get day-to-day. Carrots, celery, broccoli and apples can be too hard on teeth that rarely receive dental care. Next time I'm invited to help with an ICPM lunch, I'm going to bring grapes and strawberries instead of salmon sandwiches!

The inner city folks who came to lunch were many and varied, but I would guess that 60% were Indigenous, with the rest being immigrants or low and no-income caucasians, several with disabilities. There was a couple that reminded me of my grandparents, asking if I had taken guitar lessons. There was a woman whose head kept nodding toward the table until she finally put her head down for a nap. One cheerful fellow's face looked as though he had been in a series of fights, and there was a group of guys hanging out near the bathrooms that I would be afraid to meet in a dark alley. All of them, my brothers and sisters, all of them prophets, reminding me that my life isn't as secure as I imagine, and that community is the place where we are most fully human.

The part of my time at the Community of Emmanuel that touched me the most was the worship service. I joined Farley, the community's musician, to play some music on our guitars. The first thing Farley said to me was that he liked my name, and I told him the same. He actually looked sort of like Farley Mowat, a famous Canadian author, except with curlier hair and a fedora sporting a small, irridescent peacock feather. A very gentle soul, he gave me the sense that he can really relate to the folks at the Bissell. We agreed that music is invaluable in worship because it touches places deep in the soul, places where words don't reach. Farley commented that often, while watching the people as he sings, he'll catch someone wiping their eyes, and it makes him happy that they can feel safe enough at worship to cry, especially when they have to be so tough out on the streets.

Farley is a masterful guitarist, and following his lead was easy, except when the tears filled my eyes. Praying the New Creed with the inner city family choked me up:

We are not alone.
We live in God's world.
We believe in God, who has created and is creating,
Who came in Jesus,
Word made Flesh, to reconcile and make new,
Who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the church,
to celebrate God's presence,
to live with respect in creation,
to love and serve others,
to promote justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.
In life,
in death,
in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.

As the service ended with Farley's much quicker and folksier version of "She Flies On" than the one below, I couldn't help but think that -- of all the churches in Edmonton and area -- the worship at Inner City Pastoral Ministry and places like it is where Jesus would likely attend most regularly...

Sticking with the prophets

For every new dollar generated in Canada since 1999, 66 cents of that dollar has gone to the wealthiest 20% of families. For every new dollar in real wealth generated in Canada since 1999, the upper middle class captured 23 cents, while the bottom 60 percent of families had to settle for the last dime.

-- David McDonald in Outrageous Fortune: Documenting Canada's Wealth Gap, p.5. 

(Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 2014)

I woke up this morning to my usual radio show announcing that the wealthiest 86 individuals and families in Canada have the same net worth as the poorest 34% of Canadians -- and it was enough to make me want to cover my head with a pillow. But I got up and looked up the report above (click on its title and you can see it for yourself) because I wanted to know how it was possible. After reading bar graphs compiled from Stats Canada information and skimming the rest of the report, my heart was heavier than ever. Knowing that those wealthy 86 could buy all of the privately held assets of several Atlantic Provinces and still have billions to spare (p.10-11) isn't something to brag about in my books. Basically, it means that too many people are living below the poverty line while too few are living the high life. What about solidarity and equity?

The report goes on to recommend closing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying taxes on capital gains and increasing income tax in the higher tax brackets. But my recommendation would be that every one of those top 86 wealthiest families and individuals could meet and hang out with someone like Maria, a client who came into the Clothing Room when I was volunteering there last week.

Maria and I hit it off right away because, of course, we both have the same name. She hadn't been into SSVP's clothing room for over a year, and she came because she and her man had defaulted on rent and been kicked out of their apartment. Because all their possessions had been left behind, she stopped at Sobey's to get a few grocery bags to bring to SSVP to fill with clothes... and while at Sobey's, she spotted five gorgeous roses that she "just had to buy." As I helped her find things she needed, I noticed the floral package and commented on it, and she said, "I just needed something pretty today, so I bought them." She opened the package so I could see her roses: white, yellow, coral, pink and red, and I oohed and ahhed appropriately, and called another volunteer to have a look. 

That's when Maria decided to give the flowers to me. "No one appreciates them at my rooming house. They all judge me for buying flowers. They don't understand how I need beauty. So you have them." I protested that they were hers, that her rooming house needed beauty too, but she was insistent... and how long does a person protest a gift before insulting the giver? I gave her a hug and found a vase for the roses, setting them out on the registration desk for everyone to enjoy. "They look nice there," she said, stopping to smell them before taking her bags of clothes and heading out the door. "Be sure to enjoy them."

The top 86 wealthiest Canadians could use some people like Maria in their lives. Her generosity even in her poverty is a sign that we shouldn't hoard what we have, but share it to the best of our ability. She reminded me that relationship is more important than possessions, and that though wealth is often a wedge that divides people, solidarity and love are the glue that hold us together as a human family.