It'll be Alright.

Sometimes I like to think to myself, the troubles I go through in ministry are just preparation for what it’s going to be like trying to spread the Gospel in Japan.  Sometimes, it seems like I’m at a point of no return.  If I go back from the things I’ve seen now, into what semblance of what I would say is ‘real life’, then I’d be giving up something deeper for the shallowness of a droll life.  The things you see here, are hard to imagine.

Walking down the streets of the Tenderloin.  Drug deals.  People turning around towards the walls to light up crack pipes.  Men in nice suits, driving in from Oakland in their nice cars.  Vietnamese families trying to establish themselves in America.  A man yelling at traffic as it passes by.  One other chases down the street after someone who didn’t pay.  Children on their way to school, or riding a scooter down the sidewalk.  Living in the Tenderloin isn’t always easy.  

Where do you start?  Sometimes it feels like there’s an ominous cloud over this place.  As you wak down Ellis St., stepping on and past Taylor, hit by the wind tunnel created by the shear hight of the Hilton Hotel.  Air coldly funneling down the city streets.  The sky seems more overcast.  The Embarcadero, board walk by the bay, is daily and perpetually sunny, with a cool breeze.  The stanzas of San Francisco, neighborhood to neighborhood, are microclimates.  The Tenderloin’s no different.  It’s always darker in the Tenderloin, overcast with clouds.

Looking to the city streets, you can see the lives of people who’ve established themselves in a community the city wants to forget.  They tell themselves that the Tenderloin wants to be a place where people can be left alone to their own devices.  A Vietnam vet stumbles down the streets with his beer can.  A woman, visibly modified by meth walks into a corner store.  You can tell what kind of tragic events or addictive substances take in the people of America by keeping an eye on the streets.  The first wave of vets from Afghanistan and Iraq begin to be seen in the avenues and walkways.  The streets of our cities are where we hide the shame from the wars we thought we shouldn’t fight; while in hindsight, we all can make a clear call for the lives these men put on the line for what they certainly saw at the time as a righteous cause.  The effects of drug addiction you hear about in the classroom growing all through middle and high school show their faces in a way more real than any poster.  An Asian man standing outside his apartment in a North Face jacket, gazing at the streets, turns out to be a drug dealer as another man walks by for a hit.  This neighborhood’s not like anything I’ve ever seen.  

When I first came here, I was oblivious to everything.  I didn’t notice a single drug deal.  I walked blissfuly by as the man yelled at traffic.  Hartville, OH’s not the kind of place you see these kinds of things.  A man with wild hair riding a bicycle down the road with a different coat on every time was the extent of the poverty I’d seen in my home town.  It’s a conflict reconciling the brokenness I see on a regular basis.  A God who loves so many people, and a world so broken to bits.  Wanting to break out and express everything I’ve been feeling.  Afraid of a people who can’t see the strife, deciding I’m not fit somehow to spread the Gospel they sit with at home, or that my doctrine doesn’t line up with a world they see so put together.  This life’s a struggle, and I’m right in its face.  There’s no denying that, for me now.  From here it seems is only further up and further in.  What does it look like when you dedicate your life to fixing problems so deeply rend?  That kind of responsibility, commitment.  I can only squeeze the hand of my Father, pray the Spirit guides me correctly.  Listen to the gentle council of the Loving Son, and continue further.

Further into the conflict.

I’m learning that not all stories end well.  But most stories aren’t over yet.