Cracked Pots

Maarten Van der Weijden (wish I could pronounce it just as well as it’s spelled) of the Netherlands won gold in the swimming marathon at the Olympic games in Beijing. He fought Leukemia for a couple of years, makes a great recovery, goes back to training then wins gold. MOst people who say it was just enough that he competed. The amazing thing to me was how he uses the “threads” of each moment of illness to create this fabric of perseverance that would serve him later on. Here are a couple of quotes from the article below:

“The leukemia taught me to think step by step,” Van der Weijden said. “When you’re laying in the hospital bed and feeling so much pain and feeling so tired, you don’t want to think about next week or next month, you’re only thinking about the next hour.”

Van der Weijden was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001, came back in 2003 and began swimming faster than before. He now says he has “totally recovered” from the illness. He commits a large portion of his time to raising awareness about leukemia, and raised $73, 670 with a charity swim in 2004.

“You lay in your bed and just wait,” he added. “It’s almost the same strategy I’ve used here - to stay in the pack, to be patient, and stay easy just waiting for your chance.”

The NY Times recently interviewed Michael Phelps mom, (Phelps is a swimming phenom, and record-breaking, multi-gold medalist in case you’ve been at the beach all Summer). His mom talked about how his teachers underestimated him and pretty much thought he would amount to little…He was also diagnosed with ADHD. Go figure.

Here’s an excerpt of the article.

When Phelps was growing up, some doubted whether he was destined for great things. As early as preschool, teachers began complaining that he couldn’t sit still, stay quiet or concentrate. “Your son will never be able to focus on anything,” one teacher told his parents. He was later diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Dialogues with Silence is a book of prayers and drawings by Thomas Merton. I read the prayer below after dealing with some crankiness and disorientation this morning and it helped to settle me.

The way You have laid open before me is an easy way, compared with the hard way of my own will which leads back to Egypt and to bricks with out straw.

If you allow people to praise me, I shall not worry. If you let them blame me, I shall worry even less. If You send me work, I shall embrace it with joy. It will be rest to me because it is Your will. If you send me rest, I will rest in You. Only save me from myself. Save me from my own, private, poisonous urge to change everything, to act without reason, to move for movement’s sake, to unsettle everything that You have ordained.

Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.

If you’re in NYC and want to catch a Broadway play, well, In the Heights is the way to go. Besides winning 4 Tony awards it depicts the whole experience of the Barrio in Washington Heights in a way that was true to culture. Mayra and I had caught it on Valentine’s Day and we were glowing with delight the whole time through.

My cousin also recently bought me the sound track and I’ve been “running” it ever since. It’s worth purchasing because its so inspiring, beautifully speaking the narrative of the Latino experience here in NYC with all it texture and flavor. It was even cool to see that even the piragua man got some attention. Piragua, according to Wikipedia, is a “Puerto Rican frozen treat.” Remember the neighborhood piraguero?

Ah, nostalgia.

If you’re still not convinced maybe this video clip will do it for you. Enjoy.

This was a post from my sister Rosalind’s blog:

Spanish coffee lovers usually do not tolerate natas. Our coffees are not lattes. They resemble an espresso but have a distinct flavor, aroma and taste. The boiled (not steamed) milk is a big contributor. If you serve coffee with natas, most Hispanics will get disgruntled and if they happen to be family members, they will immediately return their cup and ask for another.

Nata is the thick film that floats to the top after you have boiled milk. If you’re like me, you find it to be nasty and remove it quickly before you pour the milk into your coffee.

As I boiled milk this morning for my coffee, I thought about all of the natas that God wants us to scoop out of our lives.

Natas - the junk that floats up during a hot situation.

Natas - the stuff we don’t recognize, don’t want to look at, don’t care to admit, hide, dress up, are proud of, get fueled by, use as a protection, use as an excuse, believe, accept and live with.

So what are some of life’s natas?

• The pin of hate that is worn as a badge of honor.
• Angry thoughts and/or feelings that linger forever and have no expiration date.
• Being sensitive towards certain things when we should’ve gotten over it already.
• Carrying the torch for someone who has left ions ago and was not worth it.
• The green shade of jealousy that has taken hold of our wardrobe.
• The common ache from the disease called Comparison Syndrome.
• The Ghost of Insecurity that hangs around like a faithful companion.
• The common middle name….Procrastination.
• When no choice has become our excuse.
• When we still hear the computer sound wave – “unworthy, unworthy” as we look in the mirror.
• The lost of control that shows in our gut and hips.
• Keeping friends who influence us negatively.
• Beating ourselves up when God doesn’t know what we’re talking about.
• When being critical has made us age.
• Being an attention junky and unable to kick the habit.
• When we live to please and please and please.
• When control freaks bow down and worship us.
• Respect is only displayed when coerced.
• Self-esteem needs to be scraped off of our shoes from time to time.
• Love is only about what we get.
• No is not part of our vocabulary.
• The fear of … (fill in the blank).

Now there are those who don’t mind the natas. Some will push it to the side. Others will actually drink it. So what happens when we do that with life’s natas? When we push something to the side, it never gets corrected. When we drink it, have accepted it as part of our lives, it never gets addressed.

Junk that float up the top is an indicator that there is something harmful that is holding us back. We have the option to push it to the side, continue to drink or scoop it out completely. There’s always a choice when it comes to the quality of our lives.

It takes courage to continuously change and want change. I hope that each time you look at your coffee, you’re reminded of the pleasantries of life and how removing the natas can make your cup that much better.

Oh hail to coffee without natas and life without the same!

© Roz Humphreys Humphreys

The contents on this website are all copyright protected under U.S. and International copyright laws. You may not reprint anything on this website without the expressed written permission of the author. If you’d like to reprint anything on this website, please email the author at rozcorner@yahoo.com .

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Posted By Roz to Roz’ Corner at 8/01/2008 01:46:00 PM

Roz

The title of this post was part of a conversation I had with a group from Metro Hope Church while eating dinner at Mobays Restaurant on 125th Street, aka Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Some folks in the group mentioned deceased relatives they’ve never met. Other mentioned actors both alive and no longer with us. I thought about the question while digging through a good serving of oxtails. Finally, my memory was jarred. I thought of a book I read about five years ago titled Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Talk about an amazing story. A man who fought against Apartheid in South Africa, was imprisoned for 27 years, then becomes the President of the country. Meanwhile he does not take revenge on the people who imprisoned him, but actually had one of the officials who imprisoned him as a VIP at his presidential inauguration. Man, that’s redemptive. So Nelson Mandela is my living hero and I’d love to have a sit-down one day with him.

Liz Rios (You’ll find good posts on leadership at her blog) put me on to a recent article in Time Magazine titled Mandela: His 8 lessons of Leadership. I love leadership lesson #1, which was also mentioned in his autobiography: Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it. My favorite quote on Mandela in the article is this one, “He is the most pragmatic of idealists.”

Know that he’s definitely about it…

I spoke last Sunday on God’s song of goodness from Psalm 23. The Message version reads “Surely your beauty and love follow me.” Other versions read “goodness and mercy” instead of beauty and love. Irregardless, I love the statement. We often think that we need to chase after good things, meanwhile God has a conspiracy of beauty and love knipping right at our heels.

Honestly, I find it hard to focus on beauty and love, goodness and mercy. But I think the problem is our eyes aren’t trained to see it. We’re going to miss it, especially in NYC, because we’re taught to live in the maze of craze (ooh i just made that up). A connoisseur of art is trained to find beauty even when it isn’t obvious. And God’s art is all around us, the beauty of moments which oft are overlooked.

So I was thinking some of this through during a few melancholic moments this week. What is beauty and love in my own life? After some good reflecting this is what I came up with…

Seeing my son’s smile while he’s relishing a moment on a swing at the park. With dad meeting him at every swing back-with each nudge of my hand its like the first time it ever happens for him. Its enjoying the Jazz Mobile yesterday at Marcus Garvey Park when I didn’t know about it. I was walking the dog and was pleasantly surprised by it. It felt good to be around people on a nice Summer day enjoying the beauty of Harlem culture at its best. What else? Its stopping by this new Moroccan Restaurant on 116th Street called The Kiosk, and chatting it up with the owner Muner. He just started this venture and I pray every day that “beauty and love” would follow him in this venture. These moments are a spiritual discipline for a dreamer like me. One of my issues can be “selling out” my present moments for “lofty” pursuits and simply forget that goodness and mercy, beauty and love are with me, right here right now.

I don’t bode well with random surprises in life, unexpected things that keep me off balance. But this beauty and love thing…well, that’s one unexpected guest I’ll host any time of the day.

I’m hooked on the Foodnetwork Channel’s Throw Down with Bobby Flay. Bobby Flay goes around the country challenging the best cooks/chefs attempting to improve on their signatures dishes. Today Bobby challenged Jorge Ayala, Head Chef of East Harlem’s La Fonda Boricua. La Fonda is definitely the spot for some good Puerto Rican food. Personally I like the Bistec Encebollado (steak with onions). Mayra loves their Pollo Guisado (stew chicken)

It was good to see that Jorge held it down with his Arroz con Pollo dish, beating Bobby in a close competition. I had to laugh when the Salsa dancing was included in the competition. Leave it to Boricuas to get their groove on even during a food competition. Sweet.

Yes, I’ve returned from blog flakiness….

Our church is planning to do a series on stewardship in October. As I prepare I’ll be using some material provided by the Acton Institute (Environmental Stewardship: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Wisdom on the Environment). Our conference, The Evangelical Covenant Church also has some great material on stewardship as well. I want to look at stewardship beyond the typical stuff-though we’ll be covering the typical too (finances, spiritual gifts, etc.). My interest in particular is how we can care for the planet in practical ways. Of course this stuff aint new, environmentalists have been saying this for years. The church is just beginning to catch up. I guess its okay. When you’re in the urban world it seems as if you need to pick a cause (any cause), because they’re so many ways you can go.

I’m not being cynical, just truthful. We just need to support the people in our churches who have a concern for distinct causes. This might be one way to begin. We’re looking to partner with Urban Go Green, a group in the city that deals with environmental causes. They’ll be visiting us one Sunday in October to educate us all. Here’s an excerpt from their site.

Being green. It’s about making a choice, here and now. There’s a culture war going on around us, and we’ve got to pick being sustainable over being wasteful, having a healthier lifestyle over never thinking of the future. The Urban Go Green expo will provide better options for how you chose to live, bringing together those already working to improve our environment, our lives and our communities, with people new to the movement.

Further, in response to some of the health issue in our area, East Harlem produced a cookbook called Go Green East Harlem. It contains a list of restaurant in our area that produce healthy specialty dishes.

Sounds of Life with Metro Hope Pt. 4

Michelle Diaz, artist, talks about her piece.

Christina Lee Metro “singin it up”

Listening intently

Mayra and Javier hanging out at the lounge. Love the misty affect.

Pic courtesy of Joseph D. Martinez. To see the rest click here. (more…)

Metro Hope’s celebration of the arts at the National Black Theater went so well last Friday. It was the first time we’ve attempted an artists lounge in Harlem and it was worth the effort. We witnessed an eclectic group of artists who donated their talents to make this night a great success. One of our own Linda Gomez, who is an event planner turned the temple space at the National Black Theater into a jazz and spoken word lounge. Truly amazing.

Our line up included displayed art from four different Artists, including the graffiti canvas piece you see here by Matt Litwack. One of our other featured artists, Melissa Diaz, has some art that can be seen here. Melissa is also a phenomenal singer for a group called Yerba Buena. Yerba Buena is the house band for Camarades, one of our favorite restaurants in East Harlem. If you want to here some great Bomba y Plena, Yerba Buena will be playing June 5th at the South Street Seaport, or every Thursday night at Camarades.

We also had jazz, spoken word, hip-hop, rock, and a DJ. The DJ led a competition to see who knew their old school Hip-Hop. Christina Lee who does worship arts for Metro Hope church sang some selections from Maroon Five, Jill Scott, and Bob Marley-all crowd favorites.

One of my favorite acts was a group that had a Jazz and Hip-Hop violinist who was pretty amazing. This is an event worth doing again as we got to network with many artists through out the city.

I just read some of the Reveal study. Jeremy put me on to it. It contains some intriguing research on spiritual growth.

Scot Mcknight at the Jesus Creed blog has some interesting insights about the study in December 2007. Here’s an excerpt from his blog.

To those who, when they heard Bill Hybels confessing that Willow had made some mistakes in thinking programs would by themselves lead to spiritual formation, jumped on Bill and Willow and said, “See, we’ve been saying this all along.” My response: Willow routinely, since it is committed to an assessment model of its work, admits that it messed something up or failed to make the best of an opportunity, etc.. And Willow has been committed all along to discipleship (see below). I wish more churches would do studies like this and permit evidence to shape ministry.

On another note, John Ortberg speaks candidly about what he would do differently if he had to do it over again…Once again, courtesy of the Jesus Creed blog.

If I could begin ministry all over again, I would spend time seeking to become a healthier person, emotionally and spiritually. I spent a chunk of time serving in an area where I simply did not fit well, where some of my deepest convictions were not congruent, because I was not self-aware enough to have a clear sense of what I valued and believed. I was stuck in a tradition and setting that was familiar and comfortable, but where I did not feel like I could truly be myself; where I could not really talk about the ideas and beliefs that resonated most deeply in me. And I needed people’s approval too much to be able to serve them well. And my neediness made me too defensive to be able to learn from the criticisms that are inevitably a part of ministry.

If I could start all over again, I would spend more time in solitude getting ready for ministry. I would have spent more time getting feedback from people who knew me best. I would try to walk through the pain of letting go what I thought I needed to do and who it was I thought I needed to be so that I could have served with more freedom and effectiveness. I would try to put less pressure on my wife to be committed to my success, rather than to embrace her own gifts and calling.

I would have read Dallas Willard sooner.

Its been an eventful couple of weeks. One of the utmost concerns I have as a church planter is whether I’m spending my time in the right places at the right time. Sometimes I feel I’m on. And other times, well, its kind of like groping in pitch blackness. Last week I saw the light of day and felt our efforts as a church were well placed. I say this because its so easy to fall into a routine and believe that the Sunday gathering is “it”. While its an important part, it was nice to see a group of us from our gathering participate in protest, and at a soup kitchen at the Food Change in West Harlem last Friday. I think this is good activity as it relates to who we are as a gathering.

May 23rd we’ll be having our first celebration of arts at the National Black Theater in East Harlem, which will include spoken word, canvas art, live music, and more. For more information click here.

I attended a Sean Bell Protest in Harlem today at 3:00pm. There were five other protests in strategic places in the city. The energy was intense while people with fists pumping in the air shouted chants of, “No justice no peace” and “We are Sean Bell…” This latter statement was symbolic of the collective pain a community feels after a barrage of 50 bullets took Sean Bells life outside a club in Brooklyn. It was good to see both black, white and Hispanic marching together. As the march swelled it formed a blockade at the intersection of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. It was at this intersection I ran into Derek and Liza who are part of my church.

As the crowd grew larger and larger it headed east toward New York Cities’ Triborough Bridge. The Triborough bridge connects Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens. It was here I joined Lisa Sharon Harper, Executive Director of New York Faith and Justice. It was great seeing Lisa here and she is posting some of her thoughts at her site as well. Lisa is planning a time of prayer for the Sean Bell family and our city this Saturday in Harlem at 7pm.

While walking in the midst of this vibrant march, all I thought about was, “What is the value of a black man’s life?” And as we search our hearts deeply, I know the answer isn’t to hate the police. That isn’t the way of Jesus. Whether people dislike the police or not, we can’t forget Jesus’ poignant words to love both enemy and neighbor alike. I talk to many who are angry at the police and want to focus their frustration on the NYPD. However, I realize, that our vocation, our prophetic task as followers of the way of Christ is to be peacemakers. Peace making is in our DNA. It’s our identity (…for they will be called children of God).

So where do we begin? I’m not even sure, I haven’t come that far in my analysis. I suspect that the first couple of places might be prayer and protest.

Brian McLaren’s Deep Shift tour came to the Latino Pastoral Action Center in the South Bronx. The backdrop of this tour was Brian McLaren’s new book Everything Must Change. It’s a great read and well, you’ll feel deeply shifted after reading it. I’m sure.

I sat on a panel on Saturday and we had some stimulating discussion about power, justice and Race. Ray Rivera, CEO of LPAC was also highlighted as being “emergent” before the movement existed. We also got to pray for Alexi Torres Fleming, Executive Director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. Alexi has been doing environmental justice work in the South Bronx for the last 12 years. The other panelists were: Lisa Sharon Harper, Executive Director of NY Faith & Justice and Gabriel Salguero of the Lambs Church. Gabriel makes me proud of my heritage and is a prophetic voice for the Hispanic community.

Latino Leadership Circle co-hosted this event with LPAC. Dave, Belinda, Luis, as always you guys are pursuing the dream. I can’t believe its been like eight years since this movement started.

Liz Rios coordinated this event and did a wonderful job along with her team. Jeremy has the photographer’s touch (photo left) and re-capped the event.