About Those Joiners: "How's it going? Are you 'doing it'?"

Our joiners--Matt, Marilee, Mira, and Lina--have been here for almost two months. That means they moved in right in the middle of the holidays (yup, that was pretty crazy). Even after that settled, they had to get a few details ironed out before doing too much posting about moving, so as I'm writing this, their presence here doesn't seem new at all. In fact, having them here has been so natural and life giving that I don't remember what life was like without them, except a vague memory that it wasn't as nice. It is so good to finally be "doing community" even as we are starting in a pretty low-key way.

A lot of you have asked, "Have they moved in yet? How's it going? Are you 'doing it'?" The latter two questions can be tricky to answer. Here's what it currently looks like within the framework that is outlined on this blog in the top right corner (pasted in here in bold).

"We are heading up a group of questioners, followers, seekers, lovers, and doubters of Jesus coming together to:"

As we get to know one another better, we are discovering which of these labels each person most relates to in personal orientation to Jesus. Of course, we probably all experience questioning, following, seeking, loving, and doubting on some level, but there is diversity among us in which actions are most poignant in our current experience. I love this about our little group. I love that we can be oriented around Jesus without insisting, for example, that nobody wrestle or yell or be infatuated with him. Jesus meets each of us where we are and works from that place, all the while shaping the rest of the community through the experiences of the "other."

1. live in close geographical proximity

We live in separate apartments in the same building, on the same floor. Our place is near the middle and theirs is on the end, which means when we're not together we use different exterior doors to enter the building (the building takes up almost a whole city block). They have a bigger living/dining room. We have a bigger bathroom and kitchen. To get to each others' units, we don't have to use any stairs or open any hallway doors, but we do have to walk by several other apartments and go around a little corner. There's a community room on the same floor, but as nice as it seems and as cool as it is to sometimes see neighbors there, our apartments work way better for our little ones.

2. support one another through regular community practices

In addition to a fair amount of spontaneous seeing of one another when we're just around or happen to be in the same place (especially mothers and daughters), twice a week we've been meeting to reflect on our day together over a shared snacky dinner, alternating locations at each other's apartments. A fancy word for this is the Examen--the ancient spiritual practice of sharing consolations and desolations with community members.

We begin by lighting a candle and depending on who is leading, you might hear something like, "We've had good times and bad times today," or "The light of divine revelation in our everyday experience," or "We light this candle because God has been speaking to us all day."

Then we make sure to give the children a chance to share their highs and lows for the day (often, they do!) and take turns doing so ourselves (when the girls are done eating, they run off and play as they wish). We are a very chatty group, so although we make sure everyone gets a chance to share, there's a lot of clarifying, expounding, getting off topic, sharing stories, and let's not forget--being interrupted to help the children with this or that. As a result of all this, we are getting to know one another better.

I'm interested to see what "regular community practices" will look like in the months to come, but only time will tell. There are several questions before us to sort out, such as:
What other practices will work well for all of us, including our children and our diversity in orientation toward Jesus?
How often do regular practices need to be for this community to gel?
How does a person remain part of the formation of a community when out of town or working long hours?
When can the practices really be if some of us stay up late (guess who!) and others get up early?
What is the purpose of "practices" and how are they different from other ways of being together?
How will the practices benefit from leadership without one person taking over, but also while honoring the different gifts each of us has?

3. connect ourselves and our resources to the people in the neighborhood

We've has a blast introducing Matt, Marilee, Mira, and Lina to other families in the neighborhood at the weekly potlucks that happen at the center across the street.

Marilee and her girls are getting connected to the streets of South Lake Union by walking completely across the neighborhood and back again three times a week in taking Mira to school. She's written about that experience here. While Josh and I have gotten pretty entrenched in helping the community center across the street get up and going, Matt and Marilee are (beautifully and complementarity) more drawn to Immanuel Community Services, which is also across the street.

The longer they are here, the more they are learning about the place and getting connected (and of course, this is all happening in the midst of "daily life," which has included not only cooking, diapers, and clutter control, but also sickness, birthdays, and extended travel!).

I'm confident that as time goes on we will discover even more about how our different interests in the neighborhood intersect and enrich each other.

So, that's "how we're doing it" right now. Hooray for the joiners! Thanks for your prayers and thanksgivings as we continue this formation.

Praying With Our Feet

A few months ago I had the privilege of being part of a team from Union church that designed a space where people could come engage in prayer for the church and the neighborhood in a variety of ways.

Here's the text for the "Pray With Your Feet In South Lake Union" guide, which included a map color coded with dots that corresponded to places you see here in bold print. Also available at the starting point was this video, to introduce the concept of praying with your feet.

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The most obvious part of Amazon’s new headquarters in South Lake Union is along Terry Avenue North--four phases stretching from Thomas Street all the way to Mercer. Some of the buildings are still being constructed, and some are already in use. Especially around lunchtime, you’ll probably notice a lot of people with blue badges!

As you walk around part of Amazon’s new headquarters, look and listen. Pray

• that life giving amenities will move into the ground level spots in these buildings, bringing more pedestrians coming and going and filling the streets with life.
• that the multitude of Amazon (and other companies’) employees will be aware of their presence in and impact on the neighborhood and bless it with their respect and engagement.
• that the diversity of people who live in or are connected to South Lake Union will feel welcome in Amazon’s plaza, which is designed for public benefit.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

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Cascade is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Seattle, and now finds itself as part of the larger and newer South Lake Union neighborhood. A wide variety of people, from elderly to homeless to condo owners to refugees to artists to low-middle-high income families call Cascade home. The Cascade People’s Center, which is located in the middle of the area along with the park and P-Patch, is in the process of becoming a place that offers “dynamic programming to strengthen connections between all residents, businesses, and workers of the South Lake Union neighborhood.”

As you walk around Cascade, look and listen. Pray

• that the continued development of South Lake Union as a place where many people live will stand on the shoulders of Cascade, which is more rooted in a history of residents.
• that the leadership of Cascade People’s Center will work effectively, helping it be a place that helps people experience and appreciate one another in their differences.
• that long time residents of Cascade will experience belonging as well as new life and energy even in the midst of dramatic and confusing change.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

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South Lake Union’s western boundary is

Aurora Avenue--a corridor long plagued by the sad reality of prostitution. Federal experts believe Seattle's many points of entry make the city one of the nation's top human-trafficking hot spots. A trafficked young girl or woman forced into a life of prostitution and under the control of a powerful male pimp may be unrecognizable to the untrained eye.

As you walk part of the Aurora corridor and it’s side streets, look and listen. Pray

• that the exploitation of people on these sidewalks will not simply be moved to another location, but that real healing and transformation will take place.
• that as neighbors intersect with victims, they will experience love, compassion, and safety
• that everyone involved will be disrupted by the reality that they were created for better things and are absolutely worthy of love and respect.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

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From an expense standpoint, South Lake Union housing falls into three main categories: market rate new buildings (mostly apartments to rent but also condos to purchase), low income subsidized and supported buildings, and places that are inexpensive to live because of their age or collective nature.

As you walk past different housing in South Lake Union, look and listen. Pray

• that all residents--with or without homes--will find community, meaningful work, and authentic relationship with neighbors.
• that residents who have been invisible because of fear, loneliness, or resources will become visible.
• that 415 Westlake will be a place where this great diversity of neighbors can intersect and rely on one another’s strengths.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

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South Lake Union is home to five faith communities: Cascade Neighborhood Church, Denny Park Lutheran Church, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Seattle Unity Church, St. Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral and Union Church.

As you walk past different church buildings in South Lake Union, look and listen. Pray

• that people connected to South Lake Union will experience the Church as one church working together instead of many churches working in isolation.
• that we will see ways that God is at work to make the churches in South Lake Union eternally connected, internally alive, and externally focused.
• that God’s people who do church in South Lake Union will be aware of their impact on the neighborhood and listen for ways God is calling them to bless it.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

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Seattle has the 5th largest biotechnology industry concentration in the nation and South Lake Union has been identified as Seattle's biotechnology center. Our neighborhood includes both profit and non-profit medical organizations for research as well as treatment such as Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Group Health corporate headquarters, UW Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, ZymoGenetics and Novo Nordisk.

As you walk by some of these key medical/biotechnology organizations, look and listen. Pray

• that their researchers will better understand the causes of the world’s most serious diseases (including cancer, malaria, arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS) and work in true collaboration to find effective new treatments and cures.
• that patients, families, and caregivers (especially those far from home) will experience relief from disease, deep love and care from the people around them, and magnified awareness of God’s hope and peace.
• that we as a congregation of Union Church will discover new connections and ways to serve the medical staff and patients in South Lake Union.

Keep looking and listening. What stirs your heart? How is God at work here? How might we be a part of it?

Joiners

We have some big news. It's so big that, even though like all healthy things it will start small and with love and nurture grow into whatever it was created to be, I am writing with some trepidation.

Ever since we articulated a framework for the kind of intentional community we wanted to be the catalyst for (and wrote it down here) a year and a few months ago, we've been hoping for some joiners. "God, please--send your people to us!" has been a raw cry more than a few times since then.

We didn't really want to move here and do what we're doing outside of that kind of community, but we didn't have it where we were, so we came on down to SLU, hoping that others would join us.

And while it's been a great year and two months, and God has surprised us with community in many amazing ways, we haven't had any joiners. Nobody has said, "Yes, I'm a questioner, follower, seeker, lover, and/or doubter of Jesus and I'd love to come together with you guys to live in close geographical proximity, support one another through regular community practices, and connect ourselves and our resources to the people in the neighborhood."

Well (drum roll)....we have some joiners! Matt and Marilee, together with daughters Mira and Lina, found us on the Intentional Communities Directory, and wondered if what we are trying to be in SLU would be a good fit for their family. After a lot of emails, a few gatherings, continuous prayer, and a pretty sweet apartment vacancy in our building, they're selling their house and moving in! You can read more about their process on Marilee's blog.

Needless to say, we are totally thrilled and looking forward to working out what this intentional community will really be like for our two families (while being open to other joiners as well). Not only do we have affinity for each other, but we've also all felt an overwhelming peace about the idea of doing this together, even though we don't yet know each other well. God is at work here, no doubt about it. We are thankful and humbled by the intersection of our lives in this peculiar way.

Together with the excitement, there's a vulnerability for all of us in this that sometimes feels a little scary. What if something really bad happens? What if we get close and one of us leaves? What if we have conflict (that's not a "what if"--all people in community have conflict)? What's it going to be like to forgive and be forgiven with people outside my own family? Will we really be able to do that? We have so much to learn--not only about one another, but about being in community.

It's big. It's right. It's humbling. It's happening.

Thanks be to God.

A Place Where It is Easier to Do Good

I start these blog posts when I have an idea and then often discover treasurers when searching for a good summary or quote. Today my idea is, roughly, how mixed-income neighborhoods help give people just a little push toward loving their neighbors by simple virtue of proximity, while income-stratified neighborhoods do the opposite. After a little quality time with the Internet I now have about a month's worth of reading material which I'll share some links to along the way.

When Peter Maurin talked about "that kind of society where it is easier for men to be good", he meant a traditional or perhaps Distributist self-sufficient small village community, either permanently or as a retreat. Some of these projects such as the Amish or Aurora Colony have been successful to a degree, but the story of human history has been cities, from Babel to the New Jerusalem. What kind of "Place Where It is Easier to Do Good" can we make in our modern metropolitan areas?

It is certainly possible to do good in suburbs, where the plurality of Americans currently live. Many good works begin in suburban churches and synagogues, but something feels a little wrong to me about driving down to an urban food bank, dropping off some food for "those poor people", and heading home. Notre Dame graduate student Davey Henreckson summarizes at Theopolitical what makes suburbs politically successful in A theology of suburbs:

This isn’t to say that if I raise my son in suburbia he will never meet a homeless person or make friends with immigrant peers. But suburbs that "work" usually do so because they manage to stake out a demographic and economic niche. In other words, suburbs are not civic societies so much as civic clubs — they exist because of vast similarities in membership.

As another example, Eric Jacobsen provides a retelling of Luke 8:40-56 taken from his book Sidewalks in the Kingdom (p 90-91) for a 2006 Spring Institute for Lived Theology at UVA:

Jesus is in a private home in a subdivision, where he gets a call from an elder of the megachurch, twelve miles away, whose daughter is sick. He and his disciples hope into their Suburban and drive twenty miles across town to another subdivision and heal the elder's daughter. The other parts of town they encounter at 40 mph through shatterproof glass. The hemorrhaging woman is in one of these other parts of town, perhaps in a seedy motel, alone in her pain and convinced that she is not important enough for someone like Jesus.

Jesus, or our food bank volunteer, speeds by his neighbor. And another thing, in this story Jesus or again our food bank volunteer is spending a large amount of time and gas money just to get to and from the place of need. (Incidentally, a driver of a vehicle at 40 mph is four times more likely than one traveling 30 mph to kill a pedestrian in a collision.) In other retelling by Jacobsen, only a Samaritan child in the back seat notices the beaten man on the way to Jericho--her dad is paying attention to the road, speeding by on the other side, and the girl is powerless to stop the car.

Of course, living near a food bank certainly does not automatically connect you with it. However, I do know that when I went to a fundraiser breakfast for a neighborhood service organization here, the director thanked volunteers from a high-end retirement community a couple blocks away. Maybe that included some folks who used to drive in from the suburbs, I don't know. Maybe the food bank neighbors and volunteers see each other around.

I don't want to minimize the challenges of connecting people of different incomes and lifestyles. In fact, in June 2010 a veteran Canadian reporter spent a month "embedded" in a condo tower in Vancouver's downtown East Side, wondering "whether the city’s richest and poorest residents can share the same space." (I haven't made it through the whole series; it starts at the bottom of page 3.)

Opportunities for doing good are not limited to people in proximity, but it makes it easier and leads to incidental connections.

Update: local urbanist Roger Valdez put it this way: "Finally, we believe that many of Seattle’s greatest economic an social problems—poverty, crime, homelessness, poor academic performance—can be significantly and positively impacted when people live closer together because, if nothing else, our proximity to each other makes the suffering of our fellow person intolerable."

Stability Isn't Simple

We value good fits. I get nothing less than a thrill out of getting to use my gifts in the company of others also using theirs. We also value stability. While we are shaped by this mobile culture that we live in, we are actively resisting it. We don't want to pack up and move on when things get hard (even though that is always our first idea), because we'll probably find the same demons in the next location.

So, we found the good fit and that is why we came here. It is no doubt a calling to be in this mixed use, diverse neighborhood where we can engage: living, working, worshiping, and perhaps even being a catalyst for the formation of a dynamic intentional community. Hooray! We are so thankful!

But the presence of a good fit doesn't mean the absence of being stretched. Being rooted in a good fit just makes stretching something that can help us have the privilege of growing and moving forward in the sort of life we were created for.

I am learning that stability isn't simple. If it just meant staying in the same place in the same way doing the same thing no matter what, it would be. But stability isn't the same thing as stagnancy. Sometimes going deeper in the same place means taking a close look at how well various parts of the "good fit" are fitting and how they need to change. It is hard to know what to hang in there with. It is hard to know when to let go. It is hard to even know why we might desire one or the other. Shall we jump at every chance to engage with people who really get us and can communicate effectively and easily (and pretty much minimize everyone else)...? Is there something valuable about doing the mucky, clunky work of the opposite?

And what about trying for stability when it's not culturally valued--when the polite thing to do would be to just not be bothered by our tendency to solve problems through mobility? If stability in community means that people will really know us and we can't hide behind our mask or performance (or blog), then it must also mean that the people we know are more known and less able to hide. If stability in community means that we have to learn what it means to be forgiven, it's indirectly asking the same thing of those around us. Yikes.

I guess like most things, stability is a process. With every turn we are understanding it better. We are learning how to be rooted and dynamic at the same time. We are learning that we need space to grow, and trying not to stand in the way of others having the space they need to grow. We are slowly learning to rest and be on the lookout for God's callings, while at the same time diving right into things we notice God already doing.

Churches

We did something a little bit crazy this week--sent this letter to all the churches in SLU. It seemed worth a shot.

November 24, 2010

Dear Leaders of Cascade Neighborhood Church, Denny Park Lutheran Church, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Saint Spiridon's Orthodox Cathedral, Seattle Unity Church and Union Church,

What a pleasure it is to be in South Lake Union together! There's something really unique about being a resident and also participating in a congregation here. While we find living in this overlap to be wonderful, we are interested in meeting others who find themselves in it as well.

We'd love to come together with people from your congregations who reside in South Lake Union to pray the Psalms--an ancient Christian practice. Praying the Psalms simply means reading from the book of Psalms out loud together at the same time.

We're envisioning meeting weekly for a half hour at a time for seven weeks, and would like to find a day and time for as many people as possible who are interested in participating. Please spread the word to people you know of in your congregation who live in South Lake Union, and encourage them to get in touch with us as soon as possible.

God's Peace,
Joshua and Molly Franklin
together with children Cedar and Frances

Videos

These videos were shot in South Lake Union and highlight some of the issues that are unique to this neighborhood. Thanks to Tim from Cascade Neighborhood Church and the Seattle Channel for making these available.

Collaborate (Rather Than Compete)

Pray With Your Feet

Seattle Channel's City Inside/Out show about changes in SLU
(this one is longer, but we're actually in it)