Ready to Testify

I'm at the tail end of the book of Acts in my morning Bible read. It's the part where Paul's journey gets really funky, and author Luke clearly relishes the recounting of the funkiness. Who could've predicted what adventures Paul and gang would end up in?

As someone who is a meticulous planner, such a chaotic and spontaneous itinerary unsettles me. It also reminds me that wherever Paul ended up and in front of who, he was always ready to testify.

Life's too complicated to string out more than a few steps in front of you. So it's a lost cause, even for meticulous planners like me, to predict where we're going to be and in front of whom. I just hope that, like Paul, wherever it is and whoever it's with, I too will be ready to testify.

Keeping Up with the Yankees

The Yankees and Red Sox have staged their version of an arms (and bats) race over the past five years, as both teams scramble to sign the best free agents, both to bolster their squads and ensure their archrival doesn't end up with the talent. For as heated as this rivalry is, doing nothing means falling behind.

As free agency has forever changed the nature of baseball competition, so has it accelerated the "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality in companies, universities, and cities. Gone are the days, both in sports and in life, when you hung your shingle at the same employer for your entire career. As athletes have learned to sell their services to the highest bidder, so have programmers, researchers, and entrepreneurs. In our knowledge economy, everything is mobile, even entire companies.

What does this mean? First, it's a lot easier to keep talent than replace it, so take care of your young studs within the ranks, or else someone else will benefit from their prowess later on. Second, there are still ways to be sticky, so create an environment that's hard to leave and you just might get the benefit of the "hometown discount." Third, if you don't have the bank of the Yankees, you have to have a system like the A's, who have used stats to field a competitive team with a fraction of the payroll.

Sports, for all its attractiveness as an escape from the real world, is actually a pretty darn good proxy for the real world. You pay attention to the nuances of the sports world, you pick up some interesting insights on race and class, economics, human resources, and team chemistry. Maybe all my hours rooting for my teams, culling through old stats, and instinctively turning to the sports page every morning isn't so useless after all.

Lonely Minorities on the GOP Side

It is easy for me to forget, amidst the success and status of such
minority Republicans as Condi Rice, Lynn Swann, and Alberto Gonzales,
and the prominence of minority colleagues of mine who are registered
Republicans, that the GOP is still prone to being unnervingly
unwelcome to people of color.

Witness Senator George Allen's recent teasing of a South Asian student
who happened to be attending one of his "listening tour" stops as a
cameraman for Allen's opponent. After grandly speaking of running a
decent campaign, he says the following, gesturing at S.R. Sidarth, a
20-year-old Virginian native of Indian descent:

"This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or
whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around
everywhere. And it's just great. ... Let's give a welcome to macaca,
here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

So let's summarize here: 1) he ridicules the lone minority in the
audience by using a racial slur (a macaca is a monkey indigenous to
Asia), 2) he assumes the young man is a foreigner just because of his
skin color, and 3) he equates Virginia with being "the real world" and
thus everywhere else, especially wherever this young man might be
from, as not. In what campaign handbook, let alone any reasonable
social gathering, is that trifecta acceptable?

I once attended a Bush rally in York, PA, with three other young
Asian-American businesspeople, and let me tell you, we four stuck out
like a sore thumb. I think I counted five other minorities there, in
a rabid sea of 15,000+. Needless to say, I felt quite uncomfortable
-- and this, from someone who is pretty good at mixing with whoever
wherever.

So kudos to Bush and others for paving the way for minorities to reach
prominent positions of political power. But at the grassroots level,
the party has a long, long way to go. For awhile, I had forgotten
this. Sometimes it takes a dummy like George Allen to remind us.

Party Over Here

I have a cousin who is literally a rocket scientist. She went to top-notch schools for her B, her M, and her P. And when it came down to figuring out where she want to do her first professorship, all the places that made her offers were full of other talented people. The tie-breaker for her was to go to a place where she would not only be with other talented people but near other talented people. So the great universities in the middle of nowhere lost out to the great university in the middle of everything.

I share this personal anecdote (and changed a few details for discretion's sake) to make the point that the absolute opposite of what many of us predicted would happen has happened as it relates to the importance of location. After all, the Internet and the reliance of it for communicative and collaborative purposes by the knowledge economy was supposed to render location obsolete, right? Let people live and work where they want to work, however diffuse that is, and let's all meet up in cyberspace.

Only it turns out that location, when it comes to knowledge workers, is even more important now. Maybe it's that the world is getting smaller but meaner, so we long all the more for the personal touch and the face to face. Or maybe there's something to be said for the nuances and subtleties that are derived when people literally rub shoulders rather than just send emails and ftp documents.

(By the way, here's another argument for keeping recess in grade school and not sacrificing it in the name of cramming more math and science into our curricula. I'm firmly in the "doom and gloom" crowd as far as the US losing its competitiveness in math and science, and yet I still think that what you learn as a kid in recess is going to be more important to your future success -- even in the maths and sciences -- than more time in the classroom. Because memorizing facts can't hold a candle to the softer but more marketable skills of observation and persuasion and problem-solving.)

Whatever the case may be, this has implication for us city lovers who want to attract knowledge workers, for the commercial activity and job creation that invariably follows when such superstars cluster together. Business Week recently highlighted Stockholm, Orlando, and Singapore as three cities that have done a good job here. It also mentioned Montreal, Portland, and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill.

Now don't get me wrong: government is not the solution to all of life's problems, let alone this one. I'm leery of governments picking industries, doing too much deal-making, and other monkeying around with the free markets. But there are some natural things that governments ought to do that can clear the path for knowledge workers to cluster, investments in parks and recreation, championing of research universities, and development of tech infrastructure being three. (Take a look at that list of cities above and all of them have at least two out of three solid.)

If life's a party, then knowledge workers like my cousin are the popular and pretty people, the ones who, if they come, everyone else wants in too. And in fact, life is a party -- the best work is done when people are geographically near each other. If cities want the party over here, they better know how to throw one that's good enough to attract that kind of agglomeration.

In the Out Crowd

Church retreats in high school and college were, for me and my friends, a great opportunity to play hoops. The usual Saturday afternoon free time was spent almost exclusively to "fellowshipping" over competitive games, good exercise, and the occasional smack talk.

One summer retreat, my hand was in a cast (ironically, I had broken it playing basketball). So when Saturday afternoon free time rolled around, all my friends headed for the courts. I instinctively headed there with them, but found sitting on the sideline to be not nearly as much fun as being in between the lines. So I left the area in search of an alternative free time activity.

I found a handful of guys moping around. These were guys on the outside of the social structure, mostly because of their lack of interest and/or talent in sports. For an afternoon, I was one of them. And it struck me how unwelcome this group must have felt at the retreat, and perhaps among the entire church, just because they weren't into sports. Having studied Jesus' life during the school year, I wondered if we weren't doing a terrible thing here, outcasting these guys and making them feel so unwelcome and outsiderish.

I'd like to say that I got religion (literally) and found myself hanging out with this "out" crowd more often. In fact, I did enjoy my time that afternoon, and from those meaningful conversations was able to have ongoing relationships with guys I otherwise didn't have much interaction with. But the next time we had a social gathering like this, and my hand was healed, I was back on the courts, not giving my new friends a second thought.

But I think about that retreat every so often, especially when I'm in a setting that's totally comfortable for me but might not as much for others who are new and/or in some way feeling like they're in the "out" crowd. I can't say that I'm a very good welcomer, but I know better now that I ought to be.

Family Values and Government Administration

My parents demonstrated typical Asian immigrant frugality in raising me and my sister. At the time, I didn't appreciate the values that underpinned their financial choices; I just wondered why we skimped on so many things, especially when I observed my friends enjoying the fruits of their parents' splurges. I don't think I realized that we weren't poorer than my friends' families, though our standard of living might have been lower. Rather, in most cases, we were richer; we just chose to defer our spending of dollars by funneling them towards things like college and retirement savings. And now that I'm a head of household, I do the same things, and don't think twice about it.

I bring this up because the temptation in government administration is to literally mortgage the future for the present. Glitzy new projects are funded for the ribbon cutting opportunity, while unsexy infrastructure improvements are left for our children to deal with. Pensions are perenially underfunded -- who wants to put in our current workers' fair share of deferred salaries when we can let the next generation worry about that expense while we spend that money on stuff that will endear us with this generation's voters? Deal-making to woo the next big company or industry has completely taken over any thought toward overall improvements that would get the next big company or industry to choose to come to us on their own.

Family values are so seared into my head that while I understand the logic behind the aforementioned actions, they quite frankly drive me nuts. It's like watching a contractor do something to your house that might make it look good today but will guarantee a huge repair job down the road. Yes, it hurts like that. I only hope we can elect and support people who, while they are savvy enough to secure the votes they need in the short term to get in power and stay in power, have enough of a long-term commitment to their jurisdictions to make sound financial and administrative decisions. Politicians, in other words, who share my family values.

Gotta Be The Shoes

Even though the NBA season is long over, Stephon Marbury has been making news a lot lately. The reason? He's partnered with Steve & Barry's, a discount licensed apparel store that started at PENN, to endorse a sneaker that retails for $14.99.

Move that decimal place over one to the right, and you get the typical price for a name-brand, celebrity-endorsed basketball shoe nowadays. And that's the problem, according to Marbury, who grew up in Coney Island and probably hasn't yet forgotten how far $150+ can go when you're poor.

Some say this is just a PR move by Marbury, who has been criticized for his me-first approach to the game and to life. Others wonder whether a shoe priced so low will be purchased by hip kids or just roundly mocked by them.

Me, I'm hopeful this gives poor city kids a way to buy some new kicks without spending two weeks' worth of their family's grocery money. And before you laugh out loud at the prospect of materialistic youth being caught alive in these sneakers, remember that way back when, Timberland boots were made popular in urban culture precisely because they were affordable.

What Are You Up To

Cocktail conversation is most interesting when people share about the things they're into, and others are able to jump off those things and add their things. Usually, it's about leisure stuff -- where you vacationed, what hobbies you're into, or what hot restaurant or club you recently tried out. Seeing us how my leisure time consists of doing crossword puzzles and reading in bed, I don't have much to offer the cocktail conversation hopper there.

But the other angle to this is not the leisure stuff but the work stuff. Not necessarily the boring stuff of what we do from 9 to 5, although for many of us, the stuff we get to roll up our sleeves around for our day jobs is pretty cool. But rather the other stuff we're into, through colleagues and networking and boards.

So here's what I'm up to, and if anything of these things sparks a thought for you and you have something to add to the mix, reach out to me; and tell me what you're up to, and I'll reach out to you if that sparks a thought for me and I have something to add to the mix:

* David Oh, who I campaigned for in 2003 when he ran for City Council at Large, is gearing up to run again in 2007. He fell about 15,000 votes short last time, so we're hoping to get him through this time.

* David and I are also working on a charter school in Southwest Philadelphia that will most likely have a science and engineering focus.

* I'm helping my friend Stella set up a foundation in honor of her late husband and my best friend Glenn, whose love for Africa and transportation will live on in Stella's tireless and promising work.

* I'm looking forward to joining the board of The Enterprise Center, where I worked for ten years, to contribute as a board member in different and new ways from how I was able to contribute as a staff member.

* I'm sitting on a personnel team at church to provide support and accountability for our pastors, who are leading us through a time of transition in our congregation and who themselves seek clarity in fulfilling their shared role as a married couple holding down one full-time job.

One of the nice things about Philadelphia is the sheer number of interesting works that are being done. This can't be just because of the circles I run in, right? It has to be that there's something in the DNA of Philadelphians that is innovative and service-oriented. Whereas most of my friends outside of Philadelphia are either in regular professions or in full-time ministry, I count among my associates here in the city those whose professions double as ministries: educators, law enforcement officials, politicians, real estate and economic development gurus, artists, and of course, non-profit leaders.

Add all these interesting stories together, stir, and now you've got yourself some interesting cocktail conversation. So what are you up to?

Reaching Out

In reading through the book of Acts, I'm reminded of how natural outreach was for my Christian friends and me when we were in college. Everywhere you turned, you could have authentic interactions with people outside your holy huddle. For me, it cutting peoples' hair, playing pick-up hoops, or any number of fascinating conversations you could get into simply by living in the dorms.

The boldness of the apostles, and the power of God working through them during the 1st century, challenges me to be the same, even though I'm far from the easy contacts of the college life. Even though I do a lot of solitary things and go to bed at a ridiculously early hour, my days are still pregnant with possibilities for outreach: the workplace, the park with my daughter, and any number of networking or service events I might attend.

After all, I might not be living elbow to elbow in a dormitory anymore, but that doesn't mean God still isn't doing mighty things through His people who are broadcasting His message to His world.

Gov Star

Last month, McKinsey put out a nice paper on the productivity, or lack thereof, of US government. After all, productivity gains are the only thing that is going to allow us citizens to get both lower taxes and better services, and in an increasingly complex world, that's just what everyone is clamoring for.

Easier said than done, though, right? It doesn't take a hardcore capitalist to know that one of the main drivers of productivity in the private sector is competition. That is, if you've got two companies duking it out for your business, they'll get more and more efficient in delivering their product or service to you. But governments are often in the business of doing things no one else can do, like defending the homeland or inspecting drugs or preserving wildlife ranges. Absent competition, and the spoils of victory for those who succeed and the threat of oblivion for those who fail, governments often do not innovate or improve the way we citizens would want them to.

In some cases, you can introduce competition into government work, and I would argue that you should where you can. But in some cases you can't. So what's left to juice the productivity equation? The brainiacs at McKinsey offer another prod that's used by the private sector: accountability.

Publicly-traded companies, for example, have services like Morningstar, which dissect a company's performance, management, and financials for potential equity investors. Ratings agencies like S&P and Moody do the same for bond issues. There's even an equivalent service for non-profits, called Guidestar, whose users are potential funders, whether individual or institutional, who want to know which charities are well-run and get an objective look at their missions, strategies, and numbers.

The authors of the McKinsey paper wonder why there can't be a "Gov Star" that does the same for government agencies. In fact, those same ratings agencies mentioned above who shine a spotlight on corporations who float a bond issue do this whenever a government entity wants to do the same, thus performing a valuable public service (which the floater pays for) by informing the investing community about what they're getting into if they decide to put up the money to buy a muni bond.

That sort of transparency is invaluable in compelling issuers to get their act together: looking sloppy translates into a poor rating from the ratings agencies, which increases the cost of floating a bond. Could not this principle work for government agencies in general?

Performance measurement may not be the sexiest of cocktail party topics, and (as you can imagine) career bureaucrats tremble at the thought of having the spotlight shone on their heretofore hidden corner of the world. But absent competition, which effectively rewards good performance and punishes bad performance, the transparency that comes from accountability via publicly reported performance measures isn't a bad Plan B.

Pick and Choose

As I've gotten more involved and aware politically, I've noticed that I tend to be case-by-case when it comes to issues but loyal to party when it comes to candidates. In other words, while I'm a registered Republican, I'm often found frothing at the mouth about issues normally associated with the other side of the aisle, but inside the voting booth, I rarely pull the lever (or touch the button, or punch the chad, or whatever the metaphor ought to be) for a D.

Ironically, I'm like this with my religion, as well. Not to say that I pick and choose which beliefs and commandments I want to take seriously, but that when it comes to social issues that religious folks usually have an opinion on, I tend to be hard to pin down to a side. Like in politics, I weigh the particular issue and take a position based on my understanding of truth and morality.

But also like in politics, while I may be inconsistent when it comes to issues, I'm true to my Man. Which, by the way, is why the flap a few years ago in my denomination about ordaining homosexuals was so sad. Here were good-hearted congregants being rigid about an issue (homosexuals should be allowed to be ordained) and willing to compromise about the Person (Jesus may or may not be the Head of the Church).

Doctrine should be taken seriously, but sometimes we need to agree to disagree. And we ought to be open-minded enough to consider the viewpoints and even be argued out of ours, by people who see an issue differently from us. But there can't be any picking and choosing when it comes to Jesus. Whether in your mind He is Lord, or He isn't, it's not something you can really flip-flop on.

Afraid of Leaves

I think my daughter is afraid of leaves. If we're walking in the park and there's a big leaf in her way, she'll cautiously pick it up, drop it off to the side, and then proceed. There have been times she's casually strolling through the grass, until she realizes her feet are touching leaves, and then she'll freak out and freeze, as though she was bolted to the ground. And this from someone who scales steep slides and fearlessly chases the sheep and goats at the petting zoo.

I have to see that I've been quite pleased with my approach to this phobia of hers. Rather than scolding her for having such irrational thoughts, or even trying to persuade her that she needn't fear the leaves, I've just let her be. I even affirm, in a sense, her right to be afraid: "Yes, the leaves are scary to you." But: "You'll be OK, just hold my hand."

I'm pleased with my approach because I am otherwise a hyper-rational, problem-solving kind of person. If someone comes to me to complain or vent, I usually respond in one of two ways: 1) you don't need to complain like that (i.e. you're being irrational), or 2) here's what you can do to fix that (i.e. you're a problem to be solved).

And while it's not bad to be rational and problem-solving, sometimes what people want isn't rationality or solutions. Sometimes they want empathy. They want to vent, and they want you to say, "I hear you," or "I'm sorry." Maybe their problem, or their approach to their problem, ought not be affirmed; but they ought to be affirmed.

I am reminded of a letter from the publisher of a parenting magazine. In this otherwise high-end and somewhat snobby publication was a jewel of an insight. The publisher spoke of how crushed her daughter was when she had to leave her friends at the end of the day, or if she had made new friends on vacation. Her first reaction was always to say as any parent might say: "Don't cry; we'll see them tomorrow," or "It's OK, you'll make new friends." But she would always stifle that comment and replace it with something more affirming: "I'm sorry you miss your friends," or "It must be really hard to say goodbye to someone you like so much." The publisher spoke of how we as adults have context, so we know that these kinds of hurts will be temporal and tomorrow's a new day. But kids don't have that kind of context to draw from, nor should they; and so for them to hurt in this way is appropriate and shouldn't be stifled or dismissed.

My wife and I recently talked about this in the context of being teased. Kids are merciless, aren't they, and no doubt our daughter will be the subject of teasing at some point in her life. At first, I wanted to take the approach of telling our daughter how ignorant the teasers were: "They're just being stupid," or "They're just saying that because they don't understand." But my wife reminded me that we also need to communicate to our daughter that we affirm her feelings: "That must have hurt you to hear those hurtful words," and "I'm so sorry they said that to you."

I've been reading through the book of Job in the mornings with my daughter. If you don't know the book, the gist of it is that a righteous man has a series of calamities and cries out to God for answers. His three friends join him, sometimes commiserating and sometimes scolding him for doubting God. In the end, God appears on the scene, and far from giving Job answers, basically says, "I'm God, you're not." Job repents, and God blesses him.

The part that strikes me in all of this is very early in the book, when Job's three friends first arrive on the scene. Job is covered in boils and clearly in pain, both physically and emotionally. The three friends arrive, sit down next to Job, and start to cry. There are no words of comfort, rebuke, or instruction, just a coming alongside and a weeping.

I remember studying the book of Job in college, during a time when many of my close friends were going through some very serious emotional distresses. Being a problem-solver, my approach as a friend was to help them to rationally find a place of faith and comfort in the midst of their hardships. I would write down applicable Bible verses or try to say encouraging things.

But after I had studied the book of Job, I decided to try a different approach. I remember a good friend of mine calling me up to get together. He was already out of college and living in the area. And his girlfriend, who he had had every intention on marrying someday, had cheated on him. And he was devastated.

When we met up, I said something to the effect of wanting to say the right thing to cheer him up, but that the only thing I could think of was how painful this betrayal must have been to him. And then, considering such a pain, I began to tear up, both from imagining if I had to go through such a pain and from knowing my friend was going through it. And then he began to cry, perhaps for the first time since he had heard the news. And we cried and cried and cried.

Later, he told me that was one of the most significant and touching things a friend had done for him. That was really good to hear, since I was still thinking that I had failed him, in that I couldn't think of anything good to say to him. But I realized that I hadn't failed him; that what he needed from his friends wasn't answers but someone to cry with.

I think I'll always be a hyper-rational, problem-solving kind of person. But through the lessons of the book of Job, a too-trendy parenting magazine, and my daughter's fear of leaves, God is complementing that with the kind of empathy He desires to see in His children.

Long-Distance Relationship

Almost everyone I know has had a long-distance relationship at some point in their lifetime. The best ones strengthen rather than weaken you, either by forcing you and your significant other to rely on alternative forms of communicating and of being in each other's lives, and/or by opening up for you healthy relationships and outlets outside of your love life.

I'm in a long-distance relationship right now, albeit not a romantic one. One of my best friends from college, who since college has been (among other roles) a housemate, prayer partner, and all-around good buddy, is on the mission field, in a part of the world where phone and Internet aren't necessarily available on a daily basis. I miss him dearly, but we've made some semblance of staying in touch via emails: his involving regular group updates plus the occasional message to me when he happens to be in a big city, and mine involving the usual warp and woof of my life, with a particular focus on keeping him up to date on sports in America and Philadelphia.

To be sure, I'd prefer to be able to meet up with him in person or even to hear his voice on the phone. But, like other good long-distance relationships, this season of being physically apart has been good for the both of us and for our friendship. It remains to be seen how long he'll be on the mission field, but in the meantime, I'll keep reading his updates, praying through his requests, and keeping up my running commentary on his favorite sports teams.

Pre-Crimes

Today's Inquirer ran an interesting story about how PENN's Criminology Department will be helping the local police catch criminals BEFORE they commit violent crimes. No, they haven't found drugged-out "pre-cogs" who see murders before they happen in real-time; they're just going to mine crime data to identify high-risk offenders and target interventions towards them to keep them from escalating.

Given that I'm a fan of Minority Report, a PENN alum, and a devout sabermetrician, I'm giddy at the thought of this initiative. Good for Dr. Sherman et al, and best of luck; as the murder count in the city rises almost as fast as the thermometer, we need all the help we can get to stop more violent crime from happening.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/15175664.htm

Same as the Poor

(originally posted July 21, 2006)

It can be easy to vilify the poor in our midst. Sure, outwardly we express sympathy and even volunteer our time, money, and effort to help them. But inwardly, we can all too quickly seethe or judge or disregard. Or maybe it's just me. I'm guessing not.

It is fascinating to me, then, that so many of the things we disdain in the poor in our midst are things we ourselves are guilty of. Consider, for example, the terrible threesome of sex, drugs, and materialism. We scold our inner city residents for having children out of wedlock, harboring various substance addictions, and rocking designer clothes while not having enough money to pay the heating bill. To be sure, there is some responsibility we need to dole out here, to those who make bad decisions, as well as to hip-hop artists who are held in high esteem by our inner city kids, who glorify gratuitous sex and drug use and flaunty wealth.

But have we considered that we who are well-bred and solidly middle-class are guilty of the very same offenses? We may not have as many children out of wedlock, but we are no less guilty in the area of sexual sin, with our hidden affairs, laddie mags, and sex-soaked cable shows. We may not do crack cocaine or marijuana, but take away our TV and our coffee and see if we don't experience the same headaches and irritability as those detoxing from an illegal substance. And our form of materialism -- a keeping up with the Joneses in our houses and electronics and vacations -- is no less insidious, no less brash, and no less offensive.

Last month, a good friend of mine was walking home with her baby son when she was harassed by a homeless woman, cussed at for being white, and told to "get the %$#@! out of my neighborhood," never mind that this was my friend's neighborhood as well. And yet we who wouldn't dare cuss at anyone or chase them out of our neighborhoods nevertheless practice the same "NIMBY" inhospitality when we approve minimum lot sizes and reject multi-tenant developments in our neighborhood.

Die-hard conservatives would tell you that the poor deserve to be vilified for their sinful lifestyles and poor choices. Flaming liberals would tell you the poor deserve to be excused because they're the victims in all this. (By the way, who decided that extreme conservatives would be called "die hard" and extreme liberals "flaming"? My guess is a homophobic and "die hard" conservative.) But if you think about it for more than a second, you realize that poor or rich, we're all the same. Whether we're poor or rich, we deserve to be vilified for our sinful lifestyles and poor choices. And before a holy God, there are none that deserve to be excused.

Right Into Your Living Room

(originally posted on July 31, 2006)

A couple of years out of college, I lived with seven guys in a rowhouse not far from where I now live. One summer, one of my friends asked me if there was room in the house for her boyfriend to rent out, as he had gotten an internship in the city and she wanted him to be nearby and with people she could trust. I discussed it with my housemates, and we decided to offer him our living room, calculating that the few extra bucks we all would be saving on our rent with the addition of one more renter more than compensated for not being able to use a living room we weren't really using to begin with. So my friend's boyfriend -- let's call him "Charles" -- had a place to stay and our house had another boarder.

On his first day in Philadelphia, our new housemate, being new to the block, quickly met "Handy Andy," the neighborhood "hustler," and, wanting to be a good Christian, struck up a conversation. Later that same day, at around one in the morning, Handy Andy came to our house looking for Charles. He rang the doorbell and also opened our mail slot and shouted into the house through the hole. Now our living room, Charles' room for the summer, happened to be the room closest to our front door. Charles edged nervously toward the front door, saw Andy peeking in, and said something to the effect of, "Now's not a good time to talk." Handy Andy persisted for a good ten to fifteen minutes, and then left, cursing up a storm and vowing to do harmful things to Charles. Charles was mortified. What a first impression of Philadelphia!

I share this story not to praise or dis Charles, but to point out how the Bible's commands to befriend the poor among us in meaningful and intimate ways are differently experienced if you live in a big city than if you live in the suburbs. If you live in the 'burbs and want to get your church or youth group or small group involved in mercy ministries to the poor, it is a distinct event. You drive downtown to the homeless shelter or soup kitchen, rub shoulders with the poor, and then swap stories with your fellow volunteers on your drive home.

As Charles found out one day into his summer in Philadelphia, when you live in a big city, these experiences literally spill right into your living room. Bible stories of Jesus eating meals with a town's sinners or of hosting parties where you invite the dregs of society are harder to swallow, because there is the possibility of actually taking them seriously.

Quite frankly, I don't know what to do with these passages. I know you can go too far in this direction, as I've heard of at least a couple of instances of pastors who have tried to take seriously their call to live and serve in an economically disadvantaged urban neighborhood, only to experience severe marital distress as their spouses resent having their homes intruded upon by the poor and homeless. But you can't then discount them altogether, as if we have license to put into action only those parts of the Bible that fit nicely into our middle class sensibilities.

For suburban churches and Christians who wrestle with these passages and then decide to do something about them, kudos. And for us urban churches and Christians who know that the consequences of taking these passages seriously might spill right into our living rooms? Pray for us.

He Runs to Us

I led a Bible study in a mostly freshman dorm my junior year in college.  One of the shiest attendees of the study -- we'll call him Thomas -- lived down the hall from me.  He had a roommate -- we'll call him Larry -- who drank so much, even for a college student, that Thomas and I suspected he was fast becoming an alcoholic.  Thomas wanted to reach out to Larry in some sort of way, and so together we decided to ask him if he was interested in studying the Bible with us.  Larry respected Thomas because Thomas was such a nice guy and had already served him in some very significant ways, and so Larry agreed to meet with us. 

We decided to study Jesus' story that many people know as the Prodigal Son.  We got to the part where the son hits rock bottom after telling his father off and squandering his share of the inheritance on profligate living.  The son decides to return to the father, and rehearses a speech about working for him to earn food to feed his desperately hungry belly.  Larry, having attended church as a child, immediately remembered it, and in a rote way, rattled off an answer about how this was the son's repentance, having figured out that his former lifestyle was wrong and now returning to the father. 

I looked at Thomas and then Larry and said, "I disagree."  We probed further into the story and its meaning.  I noted that what the son wanted was to be his father's employee.  But the father's response -- to run to his son, even at the risk of the peering eyes of disapproving neighbors, embrace him, and invite everyone within earshot to a huge banquet -- showed that he wanted his son to be his son again.  In this story, at least, there is no repentance; just a loving father, happy to see his son home, eager to have him be his son again. 

Thirteen years later, I don't know what's become of Thomas or Larry.  But I still remember the lesson from this Bible passage.  Far too often, we as Christians, having messed up our relationship with our Heavenly Father seemingly beyond repair, realize that being God's worker beats the direction we're currently going in life.  We rehearse a speech and hope for just enough mercy from God to have an arms-length, employer-employee relationship, where we do as we're told and earn enough wages to live on. 

God has other intentions.  He runs to us -- the Creator of the Universe, Author of all History, Supreme Judge at the Final Judgment runs to us! -- because He is that happy to see us, He is that desirous to have us as His child.  Far from making Him smaller of a God for excusing our sin, it makes Him greater of a God, for there is nothing we can do to merit such a response -- it is all flowing from an abundance of fierce love.  We ought not run away from Him.  But nor ought we think that the only way to be with Him is to run as fast as Him.  For He runs to us.