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this morning, before church, the quincy street crew (and a few random others) had the opportunity to hang out with shane claiborne and chris haw (they wrote this book, among other things, if you are not familiar with them).  if you know me, or have been a reader of this blog, you know i'm a bit of a fan of shane's lifework and thinking, which made the morning a somewhat momentous occasion.  and, in fact, it turned out to be a wonderful, encouraging couple of hours of eating breakfast and discussing kingdom things.

there were several special moments and awesome stories (for example, some of the kids in shane's neighborhood are getting close to college, so he went to Eastern, the school he attended, and asked them for scholarships for these kids...and Eastern granted them, which is incredible!).  but, the most encouraging words, at least for me and amy, came from chris haw.  

for years, i have heard (and seen), mostly from my parents, about the redemptive power of families and households (see Acts 11:14, 16:15, 16:31, 18:8, etc).  and i believe that what is often described as the "nuclear family" can have a tremendous kingdom impact, even in places like dorchester and, more specifically, quincy street.  

my former-idealistic-single-self thought that "of course married people can be a part of intentional communities and kingdom life in the inner city."  however, it's not that simple.  we've had a roommate since we moved to boston and part of that decision was purely economic survival in the city, but the other part of it truly was an experiment to see what it would be like to be married and live with other people.  and, it turns, this has been the biggest challenge of our young marriage.

chris had some good things to say about this.  he affirmed for us that having our own "space" was not selling out, or somehow a lesser form of community.  he also pointed out some ways that married people can be part of the rhythm of an intentional community, and that married people and families are absolutely necessary pieces of a qunicy street type endeavor.  amy and i walked away from that feeling relieved, encouraged, and inspired.  which is pretty awesome and totally worth getting up early on sunday morning!

16859 happy_valentine's_day

there are infinite ways that we can show love.  for some reason, our culture has chosen february 14th as an arbitrary date for celebrating love.  we also have chosen the color red, hallmark cards, boxes of candy, flowers, and teddy bears as the ultimate symbols for demonstrating our love.

there's nothing wrong with any of this, mind you (except, perhaps, for the ungodly amount of money spent on those items).  but this is not an anti-valentine's day post, just an alternative valentine's day story.

in fact, amy and i had a plan in place for our first valentine's day as a married couple (and the first where we've both been in the same geographic location).  we were going to go out for a night on the town: dinner, a brett dennen concert, etc.  we were both looking forward to it quite a bit.

on tuesday morning i woke up and immediately knew i was coming down with something.  turns out it was the worst flu i've had in a long, long time.  i seriously haven't been this sick in years.  i get migraines which are the worst, and i can get bad coughs at times which are also no fun, but this illness might take the cake.  it involved vomiting, head aches, body aches, chills, cold sweats, a fever, and tremendous amount of "not-right-looking" mucus in my head.  it was really bad.  i missed all work and community group on wednesday...went to bird street on thursday, and starbucks and bird on friday (probably not a good idea).  by the time i rolled up to our home on friday night, after working 10+ hours and feeling awful, i just wanted to pass out on the couch and not do anything until monday.

however, i found amy throwing up in the bathroom.  to make an already long and gruesome story shorter (and less gruesome) it turns out amy did not get my flu but has a hardcore ear infection.  (the doctor looked into her ear and immediately exclaimed: "wow, that's a bad one").  

our valentine's day has not been filled with teddy bears and little red heart shaped candies, but instead has had enough mucus and vomit and infections and drugs to last the rest of the year (not exactly hallmark card material).

when you get married you exchange vows, one of which is to love each other "in sickness and in health."  so somehow, i feel like our valentine's day experience is more grounded in reality than the card version.  and i kind of like that.  and in a weird way i have no doubt this is making us fall more in love with each other...and that is worth way more than a box of chocolates.    

16759

today sammy came downstairs around five o'clock, full of energy and excitement.  he held a ruler in his hands, tauntingly waving it about as he entered the room.  sam and aishah began to playfully engage each other, aishah trying to steal the ruler from sam's hands.

at some point, though, the ruler struck aishah on the arm which upset her deeply, more deeply than the moment warranted, in my opinion. 

"DON'T hit me," she said with firmness and conviction.

"He didn't mean it," said isiah, sam's brother.

isiah and aishah then exchanged words, words which became increasingly heated.  finally, aishah had enough.

"Shut up you faggot," she screamed.

obviously, the situation was now out of hand.  i took aishah aside, and sent isiah in the opposite directions.  they both sat and chilled while i took care of some other business.

"aishah," i said.  "what are we going to do?"

she proceeded to tell me that she "DOESN'T like to be hit."  hmmm...

we talked a while longer and, on her own, she came to the conclusion that she needed to apologize.  

at this point sam, isiah, and aishah were the only students left.  i sat the three of them down and said: "boys, aishah has something she would like to say."

aishah said: "isiah, i'm sorry i got so mad and called you a name...sometimes i get really angry and say things i don't really mean."

isiah said: "that's ok aishah...i'm sorry i got into your business."

sam said: "i want to apologize too...aishah, i'm sorry i hit you with my ruler."

the conversation continued...they talked it out, all on their own, with no help from me.  then they went and got a game and played together until their parent's picked them up.

and there you have another bird street tale of ugliness and beauty...forgiveness and redemption, third and fourth grade style.