The Comma

I spent last weekend at the Whidbey Institute at a leadership program that will stretch over four weekends throughout the coming year.  Our group of eighteen folks was drawn from all over the country, plus we even had a fellow from Canada, and from all different arenas (the “private sector,” government, the non-profit world, and the church.)  We will be gathering four times around the theme of “seasons of leadership,” and so we started with the fall.  Fall is a season of letting go, of stripping down to essentials, and never a season I would choose to start a year-long program.  It seems to me a time of looking back, not looking forward.  But I was reminded at this retreat that in all the shedding and letting go, what is really happening is that seeds are being scattered in unfathomable abundance, planted all over the place. This is a perfect time to start something- not with a big splash of showiness, but with quiet planting.

I imagine I’ll have lots to tell about the year as it unfolds, but for a start I want to say that this last weekend, one thing we did that I loved was we read a lot of poetry.  Preachers do that a lot anyway, but business executives and managers not so much.  It was great.  So great in fact that it made me want to post some of that poetry here.  Then I realized there might be copyright issues, and tracking down something like that takes me to the outside limit of my organizational skills.  So I decided instead to post a poem I wrote over ten years ago.  I wrote it back when my dog Jake was still not much more than a pup, and I was imagining him when he was older, maybe curled up in front of a fire place on a farm I might own some day.  Now I do live on a farm, and that young pup Jake grew old, and slept by a fireplace very much like the one I imagined, and died last spring.

I offer this poem today in honor of Jake, and of all seekers.

VILLANELLE FOR THE AGNOSTIC PREACHER

That old dog dreams of work and field and flock.
They are his heritage.  A good dog, he,
all black and white and solid as a rock.

Those collies, they rejoice to find the stock
that found the farthest field.  How peacefully
that old dog dreams of work.  And field and flock
fill up the shepherd’s days and evenings’ talk.
I wish that I could know such certainty,
all black and white and solid as a rock.

But I will claim each lonely late night walk
and while I wrestle with the mystery,
that old dog dreams of work and field.  And flock
the crowds to hear the self-sure preachers mock
the questions.  Crowds want crisp theology,
all black and white and solid as a rock.

I wonder what might open this heart’s lock.
Is any good God watching over me,
that old dog, dreams of work, and field and flock,
all black and white, and solid as a rock?

Last Wednesday afternoon I stood in the parking lot of Terminal107 Park, the Port of Seattle land that had been the home for Nickelsville since late July.  It was 1 p.m., the time which had been given as the deadline for Nickelsville to move.  Although the camp itself was almost empty of people, the tents were still up, and twelve folks who had decided to stay in defiance of the order to leave were sitting around almost casually.  There was yellow “police line, do not cross” plastic tape around the encampment, circling the orange plastic fencing that always surrounds Nickelsville.  On the other side of the yellow tape a crowd of us, friends, reporters, observers, Nickelodians, stood watching what would happen next. 

After a Port Police announcement had been made three times, telling the people in the camp to leave, a bus arrived and a whole bunch of police officers (I have read some estimates of up to eighty) came out.  They lined up two by two and began walking into the camp.  The crowd on the other side began to jeer.  A woman next to me said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.  What are they all here for?  You could build a homeless shelter with the money being spent right now.”   Then she said it again, louder.  Then, as if to make sure every one heard her disgust and outrage, she said it again.

As the police went into the camp, they spread out, looking through the tents and walking up to each of the folks who had stayed there.  The arrests were calm and as each person was taken out, the crowd waved and cheered the one who had just been arrested, calling out his or her name.  Reporters and news cameras caught the “action,” such as it was (not much action, actually.)   When all the people had been removed, the crowd also moved away.

 I was left with very mixed feelings.  I have been a Nickelsville advocate since I first heard of this community.  I love their defiant spirit, their refusal to be silent about their plight, and their insistence that they, as homeless people, have some intelligent solutions to offer related to homelessness.  I also believe that the Nickelsville model offers a very workable response to homelessness in Seattle.  I believe that public agencies and city and state governments could provide space and work as partners with the community of Nickelsville, and that the partnership could be a good one.  And I wish that Nickelsville could find a long term home.

However, I also know that the Port of Seattle officials tried hard to work with Nickelsville and were unable to achieve a partnership.  The Port, more than any other agency, tried to join with Nickelsville in moving forward.  Port officials extended the time of Nickelsville’s stay far beyond what any other public agency has done.  They examined many options before concluding that an eviction was necessary.  They volunteered to help find an alternate site. 

I did not heckle the Port Police.  They were not the problem on Wednesday.  I do not disparage the Port officials.  They were not the problem either.  Nor do I blame the people of Nickelsville for wanting to stay where they were until they could move to a permanent site.

I do not know what the solution will be.  Nickelsville is now relocated at Keystone UCC, in a very temporary situation.  Seattle still needs more safe and secure places for people without homes, and Nickelsville is one of those places.  And there are times one has to take a stand.  I do not judge people who come to the conclusion that “now” is that time.  

But on Wednesday, what I found discouraging was the “either-or” mentality that seemed to be n the air.  Such a mentality makes people chose sides, identifying “good guys” and the “bad guys,” and belittling anyone with an alternative perspective.  If we are to live in a world where all people are treated with dignity, then we have to start by ourselves treating all people with dignity.  That includes all people, those with whom we agree, and those with whom we disagree.  I know that is very hard to remember in times of great stress, and Wednesday at Terminal107 Park was such a time.  Still, I long for us all to find another way.  

I say all this because I have seen the unhelpful effects of “either-or” thinking in so many areas of my own life.  And I know such thinking is tempting- it really lets me be “correct” and dismissive.  But what I have discovered, over and over again, is that in politics, in the church, anywhere, an “either-or,” approach is a dead end.  It stops dialogue, undermines cooperation, silences difference of opinion, and closes off creative thinking.  At its worst, it justifies destruction in the name “being right.” 

So I am making my own shout out here- how about we all work to minimize “either-or” thinking and to listen to one another, to increase dialogue, and to disagree with grace rather than name-calling or animosity?   I am not the first person to suggest such a path of course.  In fact, I heard it from a guy named Jesus.  And he is someone whose example I am trying to follow.