Heart Cry

I was scurrying home.  I had bowed out of a meeting to be able to get home and help get the boys to bed.  My mind was a little agitated too.  This was a new board put together to help bring charity status to a minstry arm of 3 house churches here in the neighborhood.  It was the third time we met, and already they had to re-think and re-word their application to the current policies that the government has laid out.  Hoops to jump through, snagging on a dearly held philosophy this group has on freedom to pool their money and to give to whom they want, no strings attached.  I had given a two minute passionate diatribe on what true "ministry" was...not having all kinds of free time to pastor and counsel people, but the daily struggle of life, lived with and for an inner-city community.  It's chatting with a neighbor on the way to your McDonald's job, its sharing a joke with a neighborhood kid next door as you shoulder your shovel to make a few bucks for the milk that day.  They watch, they learn, they listen....it's Jesus in ripped jeans, a big heart, a steady hand.

I was trying to walk fast, my kids were waiting I knew.  Passing by the dark houses, I heard a wail.  A cat?  or dog howling?  As I came closer to the sound, I realized it was a voice.  It was mumbling loudly something over and over and then sobbing in between.  I stopped and tried to figure out which of the two houses it was coming from.  One was looking pretty "together", shovelled yard, neat and tidy...the other had a boarded up front window and gnerally looked unkept and creepy.  The voice wailed again, this time clearly calling in a child's tone, "I wish Samantha was hewh.  I wish Samantha was hewh." and then a heart breaking sob and crying.  Over and over the cry came and I was transfixed.  What to do?  It's 9 pm on Langside, this kid sounds completely abandoned.  I looked around for help, there was one girl "working" the corner near-by...was that "Samantha"?  A guy came out of the clean house next door with a bag of garbage and looked at me strange and walked away...the wails went on "I wish Samantha was hewh"...didn't he hear it?  Has he locked her up somewhere in that house?  Crazy ideas filled my head.  I decided I'd run home and get Steve to come investigate with me.  I flew in the door and shared the story, they were in the middle of their Ramoli game and didn't want to go investigate anything.  So I took the car, drove back and ran to the same spot I had been standing before, the words and cry like a revolving tape player, "I wish Samatha was hewh, I wish Samantha was hewh, I wish Samantha was hewh......"  It was silent, I looked around, there was light from the creepy house kitchen windown but no indication of anyone there.  Shoulders slumped and head bowed, I prayed for that little girl.  My heart cried for hers, her loneliness, her fear, her neglect.  And I felt helpless.  Why had God allowed me to hear the cry right then?  Should I knock on the door, even if I was alone? like her?  or was she alone?  Questions still trample like elephants in a field.  What to do with the heart cry on Langside.

That Little Bird

As I crunched along in my walk this morning, I suddenly realized I could hear birds.  Two kinds in fact, one chirping a normal bird chirp and another with an actual birdish melody!  My mind had been in a revolving door of thoughts, inner debates and other mindfilled clutter.  I am reading through "The Urban Saint" right now, a novel about Harry Lehotsky and his life and work here in the West End.  I almost trashed it the other day, because it really dragged up some memories of his unflagging charisma and lack of that kind of enthusiastic leadership today.  I unexpectedly had tears in my eyes, as I walked down Ellice to pick up my youngest from school (this was Friday).  "Why did you have to go now?  This street feels empty without his presence.  And we are left to carry on.".  Saturday afternoon was the wedding of his oldest son,  we New Lifers laughed and cried together, especially seeing the slide show, where Harry was there every little step of the way of his sons lives.  So then I went home and read a couple more chapters...picketing pawn shops, confronted by the mess of a West End moment, his little church with their big hearts.....Crunch, crunch, crunch, Cyclone sniffs, the frost hangs on the trees and I remember as that little bird sings.

Softly Falling

Cyclone and I can finally get back on schedule.  It's not the prune juice schedule, or the other "thing" that hits the females in a house at the same time (we are the only females in our house remember besides the gerbils and hamster that remain anonymously gendered for the moment).  It's our daily walk, to the school, through 4-5 blocks of neighborhood and home.  The snow was falling in clumps this morning, gently swaying bunches.  It muffles sound when it comes down that way, so things looked and sounded quieter and more gentle.  Even the traffic (not the car that almost ran us down at the lights on a yellow, but anyway).  Christmas holidays are thankfully over, I mulled the days in my mind as I walked.  There was the Wheelies visit, singing carols with my husbands family after a ridiculous present game that had everyone chorkling long after it was over, Christmas Day (that morning didn't come off so well... 3 boys and so many expectations!!  I'll save that for another time!) and wrestling with my niece outside.  Now that was quite the scene!  Myself, aka "Zelda the Destroyer" (42, a little out of shape) pitched against "Sky-Scraper" (my niece, the 14 yr old, very tall, very confident that she would pulverize me). Little did she know, I am a mother of boys, that I had a very difficult morning with one of them, and all my frustration may show up in a power struggle of dynamic proportions!!  For half an hour we strained and struggled, grabbed and slammed, snow was flying, our legs and arms were flying, Zelda was bent on squishing Sky-Scraper, ditto for SS but neither would back down.
Finally the time had come when Zelda had used all her reserves and more.  Sky-Scraper knew it was over as Zelda mumbled through tembling lips, "I'm finished!  You win!"  Now, that was a Christmas Day to remember! 

The rest of the time seemed easy after facing the Christmas Day challenge in all its griefs and joys.   Perhaps that is why I relate more with Easter...I expect stark grief and loss (remembering the One who faced it and overcome) and the joy of Easter morning.  Christmas has become Christmas carols played in malls (buy more stuff!), money (debt), personal enjoyment  (or hard emotional stuff) and expectations that come crashing because its built on man-made happiness.  Easter seems more realistic to me (let's downplay the chocolate bunnies, PLEASE!), to me all we can expect is the emptiness of death on a cross and the surprise of joy by the empty tomb.  "I was born for that purpose.  And I came to bring truth to the world"...the Jesus celebrated just a week ago, we cry that you'd bring the Truth back again and shake us out of our frenzy of self, till we listen.