And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. LUKE 1:76-79

     Advent is our season of waiting. It is the season where we pause to notice our longing, our yearning for the light as we wait for the coming of Jesus.  Some days this month I have been out walking the streets and green spaces of our neighborhood before the sun rises–on days when the light is obscured by the thick grey of winter clouds and others where the sun paints pastel streaks of color across the sky. When I walk early, I am often charmed by the sweetly respectful greetings of the teens from our Mexican immigrant neighborhood families. I notice the many Somali heritage transport drivers dropping off their fares at one of the special schools I pass. I see the immigrant heritage bus drivers as they maneuver their vehicles on tricky snowy streets taking MInneapolis children to their schools. I bless each one I see with the love of God alive for them. I sometimes wonder what each of them is hoping for, waiting for, in these dark days as we approach the winter solstice.

     Waiting is such a big part of our lives…standing on line in the grocery store, on hold with the insurance company or clinic scheduler, waiting for test results or diagnoses, waiting for grownup children to come home for a Christmas visit. I think of how, when we moved into our current home twenty-six years ago, I wondered and wished if the floors under the tatty carpet might be restored. But, there were always many more important things our little income could be spent on. So last year, when there was finally a margin, the wood floors were restored-not perfectly, but reflecting all the life that has been lived in the one hundred and fifteen year life of our house. And every day when I come down the stairs, I have a little thrill of joy at seeing those oak boards. So, sometimes, our waiting makes us appreciate and enjoy. Some of our waiting makes us impatient or flustered, some filled with anticipation. Many of the things we wait for, if we ponder, reveal to us our deepest longings, our deepest yearnings. During advent, I often meditate on Mary’s Song, on Zechariah’s Song and this year, especially, on the Holy family’s escape to Egypt and the tears of the mothers whose children were butchered as a prideful despot sought to destroy the King he was afraid of…as Jeremiah prophesied, ‘a voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted…’

     I find so many things from those days of Jesus, so true and pertinent in our own day when small men with small hearts still seek to inflate their own egos and power, when children and their families cower in fear, when refugees seek safety and solace, when mothers weep. I hold on to the song of Mary and her prophecy…”He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but he has sent the rich away empty.” How true these words about the hungry being filled with good things have been proven true in my presence in the past weeks. I think of the shop worker at my local tortilleria who unlocked her door to sell me warm and delicious tortillas that filled my car with their delicious fragrance. I think of the event where I was generously offered food by Latina women who had traveled with fear in their hearts. I think of the kindness with which I was received when I stopped to buy sambusas at my closest Somali cafe or given the extra loaf of warm Turkish bread at a Mediterranean restaurant. Beautiful children of God surround me each day as I go on my walks, shop on Lake Street, visit the grocery store, drive around town in my daily rounds. 

     Too often, these days, these times seem so dark and filled with those who emulate the one who would steal, kill and destroy…human hearts, human value, human families, denigrating the precious value of human life. But, even as we watch and wait, we continue to remember that God was made flesh and humbled into the smallness of a human body, a human baby. All the stories about the birth and childhood of Jesus remind us that God loves every human, no matter how small, no matter where they were born or how much power they have. And that the power of one poor, refugee child became the light that would pierce all the darkness of the world. The little baby of the unwed mother grew up to show us the way. I am praying every day that the light and the life of that itinerant,unhoused Jesus would be alive in me and that his prophecy would continue to be fulfilled in our broken world, as he continues to be alive in it, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

     As you wait for Christmas in this season of advent, may Jesus be alive in you for the ways you may be his love alive in our broken and darkened world.

I’m always intentional about celebrating Christmas with our youth and families. I want Christmas not to be just about the day, or even hearing the Christmas story, but about the sense of community and connection… which we share throughout the year. I play Christmas music in the van, both traditional and hip hop. Often me and Lisa treat one of our families to a Christmas show, always a fun time. The boys and I talk about Christmas stuff: school break, presents anticipated, etc. but the topic never generates much excitement. Our annual shoe shopping spree for the basketball team has become a Christmas tradition, they get excited about that.   I get them to share stories about their own families. And there’s the rub…

In spite of my intentions to create a sense of excitement or joy about the season there is very little excitement about Christmas.   It’s just another day. There’s nothing special about the season; there is nothing about Christmas to them to commend it as the most wonderful time of the year. Life is life, it’s a struggle and we go on. Our mothers work hard to create a Christmas for their children that includes food aplenty and gifts… but the best blessing is a roof over your family’s head, food on the table… without that the rest really doesn’t matter. For many of our families Christmas is just more of the same struggle they experience year round. Parents are stressed, people still hustle, young people idly pass the time either staying up in the house bored, or running the streets.  And then there’s the Christmas party.

We’ve done our Christmas party for thirty years. We started having it in our house for all of our people and moved to have it at Park Avenue Church because it got too big for the house. Little kids, big kids, young adults, families, older parents, grandparents… they all come. Anyone who has been involved in our ministry here. Between Lisa’s hospitality and my joviality, we try to make sure people have a good time. We want them to feel comfortable, loved, connected and blessed… in Christ. It is the seminal event of the year which encapsulates our mission of creating Christian community. And people come away from it feeling good, feeling connected, and being reaffirmed of their membership in the Body of Christ.

Our families here experience so many different kinds of angst during this holiday season. It’s a time that engenders powerful family vibes but so many of our families are experiencing various types of angst. Loved ones who are absent due to incarceration, drug addiction or gun violence. Then there are those in our community who are living in fear of being accosted by immigration authorities if they leave the house for simple errands, going to work or even going to church. The whole Christmas vibe of family togetherness hits different for them. The real Christmas story, the story of Jesus’ birth, is replete with moments of angst, fear, struggle which give way to joy. This is indeed the time and the place to celebrate God with us.

We get to see and experience our Christmas miracles…  The family which we have been in relationship with through three generations, watching them endure through generational dysfunction to maintain a sense of connection, community and support over the holidays. Some who have suffered long journeys through the dark tunnel of chemical addiction begin to see the light of Christ’s love and presence in their lives. We take note of these things, and prepare ourselves in Christ for the vicissitudes of everyday life here, knowing that Christmas miracles are rare. In life we do not always experience the joy. We do not always experience the miracles. But it is always Christmas… God with us!

The struggle is real. The trauma is real. It is ever present, most of the time subtle and hidden, but sometimes it explodes… bursting out at unexpected and inopportune moments. It is neither contained nor controlled, at best it is managed. For our kids it is not born of a single tragic event, but a lifetime lived under stressful and often dangerous circumstances where violence can manifest at a moment’s notice. It is ingrained. It becomes a part of you. You don’t even know it’s there or identify it as trauma. It’s just part of life, something you live with, until you feel strange when it is not a part of your life.

Every week when I’m with young people the first part of our time together is telling stories. Stories about their week, what happened at school or things going on at home.  I realized early in our ministry that this story telling was compulsive and therapeutic. They needed to unburden themselves about things they had seen and experienced. There was no place else to release these burdens. They always take the form of exciting, funny stories to tell to get the group’s attention. But the incredulity of the storyteller, their voices often cracking with emotion, betrays the depth of feeling and effect the situation had on them.

One of the boys was regaling us in the van with stories of his weekend. It was like watching a movie… encounters with strangers, flirting with girls, embarrassing moments, and yes, life threatening episodes.  With each story his voice got louder and more strident. He told us about an encounter with a gang, about getting stopped and searched by the police, getting into a fight, and about him and his friends being shot at. He had moved on to an encounter with a drunk on the street when his voice started cracking. To cover up he started an argument with one of the other boys and got angry over a perceived slight. All the boys noticed but no one said anything. They knew what he was feeling. They all experience the same thing.

In our crowded van we have trauma therapy sessions. We share stories and we listen to one another. In our group they find a sense of safety and community.  I introduce Jesus into the situation. I don’t bring Christ in as a quick fix, or even as a solution to the problems. But simply as a reassurance that God sees you, God cares about you, and God is always with you… even in the valley of the shadow of death. They carry this community we share in Christ with them to their schools, homes and neighborhoods. We talk about not being in the streets, choosing good company, making good choices… but there is no quick fix, no easy solution. The only protection is to stay in the house and not go out, but sometimes the trauma is there too. Circumstances don’t miraculously disappear. But now they can grind it out with Christ by their side.

Pray for our children in trauma. Pray that they can live their days with a sense of safety and community. Pray for their physical safety in environments where violence can and does threaten them at any moment. Pray that they can enjoy opportunities to live, thrive and grow as young black men, children of God. Lord, we entrust them to you completely. These and all of the children suffering in our society today. We know that You are able to hold them, until that final day. (2 Tim. 1.12)

Someone asked me recently, “So who’s gonna continue the work of Christ’s Children when you are done?”

I have no concerns about this particular work continuing. All the hundreds of boys who have come through this ministry have heard the gospel of Christ in a personal way, a relational way, and in a way that fit their life context… a way that they would hear and understand. And I see evidence of this all around me.

I Chronicles 11 and 12 describes a group of men which were foundational to bringing about God’s kingdom through David. David’s mighty men. These were men that were devoted to David… his mission, his cause, his God. They were distinguished by their mighty works of valor. Anything from epic feats in battle to relentless devotion to their king. They were men marked by courage, conviction and faith. 

I have always told my boys that they had the potential to be God’s mighty men. That the greatest thing a black man could do in this life was to be a good husband, a good father, and to raise a strong family. I don’t worry about what comes after me because I look around and see these mighty men in the community doing their thing. 

I see so much that the Lord has done over the years. Our overriding goal has always been to bring people to Christ… but what that looks like in our ministry is to elevate people’s quality of life through recognizing their own self-worth in being a child of God. Our work has impacted lives and stimulated generational change in families here.

There are some like the man who started his own family and raised a child and has become a leader in his community and a stalwart example and role model for young men in our ministry.

Some are like the one who was a mainstay in our mentoring program as a boy, who now has his own family and carries out principles he learned from us in his role as a middle school dean. 

There’s the man who had a successful boxing career and is now teaching young people in his community the discipline of boxing as a metaphor for discipline in one’s life.

Then there’s the one who was always underfoot as a boy soaking up whatever good stuff we had to offer, and is now offering the “good stuff” to other children as a teacher.

One man went to college, decided it wasn’t for him and found another path as a coach, influencing many youth in the community. He started a family, became a teacher, went back to school to earn a degree and now runs a school as a principal.

There’s one who grew up surrounded by violence, losing many friends along the way and very nearly his own life. Today heheads a non-profit dedicated to giving at-risk youth an avenue out of a violent lifestyle.

Another one as a teenager scorned civil service, education and above all books… but today has his master’s degree, and works in the juvenile justice system helping youth and families avoid spiraling paths of self-destruction.

And there’s one who, when his dream of becoming a professional athlete didn’t pan out, did not quit on life but earned a college degree.  He passed on opportunities for a lucrative career and instead chose to pursue a time-honored profession in the Black community, becoming a barber. He provides a respite, a place men and children go for an instant burst of self-esteem and a much needed dose of positive Black male community.

Another of our young men travels the country consulting with institutions and agencies to promote violence free communities.

There’s our friend who has become a great influencer of children and families in the community working in the Park and Recreation system and working his way to becoming a Park Director.

And the one who turned to gangs at a young age as a solace to family loss and pain, but made a break from that doomed path, almost costing him his life, to become a husband, father and entrepreneur.

There are even those who made terrible mistakes as young people, and committed terrible crimes. They went to prison and paid their debt to society through the surrender of many years of freedom, but emerged with a sense of purpose and determination to rejoin their families and communities. Having as their goals to live fulfilling lives, influencing their children and others so as not to make the same mistakes they did. 

And there are those no longer with us, who we have lost to violence, accidents and suicide; but who remain in our hearts. They have each left behind loved ones who cherish their memories and who carry on in their names.

After thirty years there are too many to mention here individually, and many whose whereabouts are unknown to us. We rarely see fruit immediately, but we do see fruit… after 5, 10, 20 years or more sometimes. Mighty men all.

These are all men who used to follow me around the neighborhood as boys, who we’ve poured into with the express goal of becoming a tool for Christ to influence their neighborhoods and families as men: husbands, fathers and leaders. They came to see themselves not as the refuse of a society that fears and denigrates them as urban black men, but to value themselves as children of God and to be empowered by that self-knowledge to live and thrive and influence others. They are truly mighty men, they and hundreds of others carrying on the legacy of affirming self-worth and value in Christ… working jobs, starting families, raising kids. They are breaking generational cycles and changing the world around them. The neighborhood…, no, the world is a better place because of them. 

Who could do this except God? All glory to the Lord!

   Chris and I meet regularly with some friends who minister in south MInneapolis and one of the topics we often discuss is how we’ve all made it over 35 years here in this context. Recently when we had dinner with a younger couple on the front end of their years working here in the city, I shared with them a couple of the reasons that we have been able to stay here serving Jesus, in spite of the setbacks and heartaches and sorrows we’ve been part of.

     First of all, I think the biggest reason we’ve been able to stay is because we haven’t measured our success in the business terms of the world. American culture is just so focused on profits and success and markers of achievement and growth. If you work anywhere where things are hard and you are battling generational forces of destruction, you are not going to have lots of bright and shiny stories made for the movies, or rags to riches and brokenness to wholeness. If you need to be a bright and shiny success yourself, this life is not for you. We have chosen to measure our success in terms of love and of faithfulness–ever real commitment to living out the love of Jesus day by day and faithfulness to love and work with whoever and whatever God chooses to send our way.

     Secondly, we have chosen to measure not by yardsticks of the world’s success, but by every tiny little bit of change, movement, self-awareness and growth we see in each person or in their family unit. I call those things my jewels. We see them. Chris and I discuss them. We celebrate them. We thank God for them. We marvel at even the tiniest movements that we see towards life and love and Jesus. I can get so much joy and encouragement from one little jewel that I will carry around in my heart for weeks.

     I feel like these two pivotal principles were in play in our weeks leading up to Easter as we thought of various ways to celebrate the power of Jesus’ love and resurrection. We had a lovely gathering on Palm Sunday with a bunch of our grown up kids that have preschool children-5 young men raising families and one of our grown up girls who is raising her nephew. What a lovely celebration with these six families and what a joy to see the kind of parents they are! When we think of how some of them never had a father present to dry their tears or change their diapers, it is just a marvel to see how they care for their children with love and attention.

What a jewel. And imagine seeing young people you have known since they were children, now waving palm branches with their own children celebrating our beautiful Jesus and teaching their little ones songs Chris taught them when they were young.

     Then, we had an Easter gathering for all our high school kids where we ate good food and Chris shared the Easter story. As Chris was teaching I looked across the group and considered how far some of these guys have come since fifth and sixth grade…a couple of them, by all rights, could be in detention or dead. Some, living through great tragedy in their families–the death of a parent, the incarceration of older siblings, abandonment by parents, they persevere. It is a privilege that I get to love them and so many of them love me back. In spite of hardships that are just too much to imagine, like the plants that flower and  grow in the tiniest cracks in the sidewalk, these young men cling to life and every day we try to remind them that God is a God who is for THEM and FOR them and that Jesus’ love can help them flourish in a world that is so decidedly not for them.

     I think of all of you faithful supporters, who have stuck with us all these years, helping us to stay faithful here and live out this magnificent call to preach good news to the captives and offer a vision of what God has for them when the world would keep them blind. I pray that Jesus would easter in you and that you also would be alive each day to the love and life Jesus has for you and the ways that you may live that out in the world around you.

We gathered outside the community center, soothing our wounds while we absorbed the shock of an unexpected loss. We were the favorites to win, by a large margin. We could’ve won, we should’ve won, but we didn’t. It was a hard pill to swallow. My kids do not have the emotional resources to shrug off defeats like this… to look in the mirror and examine what you see. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Unfair treatment by the refs, the other team cheated… it’s never mistakes that you yourself or your team committed.  It was a blessing to be able to process it as a group, together. At the end of the game tensions were high, both teams in their feelings, they almost came to blows, but they didn’t. In previous situations my guys would’ve succumbed to their emotions and the urge to violence to vent their feelings… but this time they did not. A significant sign of growth. During the game I had to talk one kid down, then another. It’s always a touch and go situation when deep feelings and wounds are stirred. But they chose to rise above frustration and anger. I was proud of them and told them so.

So as we stood outside the building in a group, we struggled to process feelings and emotions. Still primed for aggressive action… being taunted by passersby… but they held it together. Nobody understands that the emotions primed are not simply at losing a game… it’s the violence you may have experienced that week: a gunshot thrown your way, a fight at your school, a threat made to you, dissension at home… How constant and near is the threat of violence in their personal lives! After overcoming my despair at seeing how close to violence they were, my disappointment that they were not showing more growth after many years with them, I began to realize that I was witnessing that growth right in front of me. As they spoke to their pain, frustration and disappointment. As they recognized their own flaws even as they listed the injustices against them. As they considered inappropriate ways of expressing themselves, but at the same time rejected them.  A woman, a parent from the other team, passed us by. She praised the boys for their physical skill on the court and for the emotional composure they showed. A rarity.

We’d been at this juncture as a group many times and the platitudes and advice I offered were anticipated by them, not new. But then, my coach spoke up, a young man who used to play for me and has now coached the team the past couple of years. After showing deference to me, he spoke to the boys, making clear that, unlike me, he was coming from the perspective of being one of them. Having been in their shoes, this particular situation, playing for me on a team for many years… “Listen to what I am saying”, he says, “because I am one of you. I came up like y’all. This is not the path to the kind of life you want to have. Sometimes it seems like everything and everyone is against you. You want to cuss and fight and scream… but that won’t help you get where you want to be. Your feelings are your feelings and you have a right to them, but don’t let them control you. I feel the same way as you and as a grown man I continue to have those feelings and situations, but I am learning to overcome them. I’m a dad now, in a committed relationship with two kids… and I have to do better. We have to do better.”

In the silence which followed I could only say, “Amen.”

I had a group of boys and we were in line to attend the Timberwolves basketball game. The boys were typically excited, looking forward to having fun. After we showed our tickets we went through the security line. My group was chosen to divert through the line that merited an extra careful examination of our persons. Surprise, surprise… As we went through the scanner a couple of us caused it to beep, so we had to go back through and empty our pockets. I had forgotten an extra key in my pants pocket so I had to go through twice. No big deal. The boy in front of me was wearing a big winter coat and was asked to go back through three times, each time finding something in his pockets to remove. We all waited patiently. The third time the machine beeped he reached into his pocket and said oops… and pulled out a big, wicked looking knife.

We all looked on with shock, but the security guard simply said casually… “You can’t come in here with that son.” He was given the choice to surrender the knife or leave the premises. He didn’t want to surrender it because it belonged to his father who had recently passed away. I ended up walking with him all the way back to the parking garage and leaving the knife in the van so he could go to the game with us. I shook my head… this wasn’t my first rodeo. This had happened to me a few times. I was frustrated and embarrassed. When you are going with me you know not to bring any sort of contraband like drugs, vape pens or weapons. I didn’t say anything. I was too worked up.

On the way home we had a chance to talk. “Dude, why in the world are you carrying around a knife like that?” He explained that a boy had threatened to kill him at school and he started carrying the knife with him for protection. Now think about that for a moment. This boy is a senior at his school, a school for kids who have exhibited emotional and anger issues, and had been doing well there the past couple of years. Coincidentally the time that he has been with us on the basketball team. He experiences an unprovoked attack and fears for his life. What goes through a kid’s head? What crazy, jumbled emotions cascade through his thoughts? He doesn’t tell a teacher, his mom or anyone; but takes it upon himself to protect himself by carrying a knife, fully expecting this other boy to try to carry out his threat. What child is prepared to deal with this kind of thing? No child should have to. Who knows what he was prepared to do if the other boy challenged him again. Not the typical sort of thing a school age child has to contend with on a routine day at school.

So we talked it out. The fear, the anger, the consequences of choice. We talked about an appropriate response… bringing the incident to the attention of someone at school, telling his mom, etc. I think what finally changed his way of thinking was when we discussed his dad, how proud he’d be of his success at school and what he would want him to do in this situation. We agreed that he would talk to someone at school the next day. When I dropped him off later that night he said, “Thanks Coach”, and went out into the night.

What began as an irritation and disappointment in my mind became a moment of clarity and release for this teenager, and avoided a tragic, life changing incident. A reminder that someone cares, that he is not alone. The grace of God be with him and countless kids like him experiencing similar situations today at school, home and their communities. The Lord give us adults grace to pay attention to what is happening in the lives of young people in our homes, communities and institutions.

     Last Christmas, before our 27th annual church Christmas party, I told Chris that party would be my last. Twenty-seven years of doing all the planning, shopping, cooking, baking, wrapping, bagging, packing and executing so that our people could come together and have fun celebrating the joy of Jesus’ birthday. It always took up full-time hours the whole of my December starting when Nathanel was a toddler and Javan was a little baby, before Ezra ever arrived. It was a lot for a young mom and over the years our party grew from fifteen or twenty people to crowds of a size that we could no longer meet inside our house.  The 27th party was a lovely success and I felt God say, “Well done, my faithful servant!” I felt great peace about my decision and the permission to not have my whole December overshadowed by the many tasks and activities.

     To my surprise, Chris decided in November that he still wanted to have a Christmas party. He has never expected me to take on jobs and fully supported my decision to retire from the party. So, he is in charge this year and has enlisted numerous members of our church community to help with the many tasks. The party is tomorrow and I am more excited to attend this party than I have ever been before. I volunteered to make the annual Christmas punch that everyone loves, but I will otherwise bear no responsibilities and will just be able to visit with the many people I love and play with all the babies.

     Twenty eight years ago a Christmas party without me would not have been possible. But, over these past thirty years God has built this community that we started, of Christ’s own children, to become a family of love who support and care for one another. People often ask us as we move closer to the retirement years if the ministry will go on. We know that Christ’s Children will go on–not as an institution, but as a body of God’s children who care for one another. Chris and I take such joy and feel such satisfaction to see these many children that we accompanied as they grew up love and give back to our community in so many ways. We have the wise and steady man in his forties who is the “big brother” whose counsel is sought by many of our young men who want advice, a social worker who brings humanity and a heart for justice into his work that directly benefits our community, the barber who provides a listening ear and the important community that is the Black barber shop….the young man who helps Chris coach basketball and the highly dependable college student who can be called upon to fill in on providing transportation…Even more importantly, we are seeing a young generation of fathers who are providing for and being present and active in the lives of their children in ways that many of them did not experience from their fathers themselves.

     Yesterday, we received a donation along with this note: “I’ve dreamed of the day I would finally be financially stable to be able to give back to Christ’s Children. I hope this isn’t my last donation, but I’m so happy I finally got my first donation. CC impacted my life in so many ways. Merry Christmas!”

     In these days when our donors dwindle and retire or move on to glory, we appreciate every donation. But, I don’t think we’ve ever received a donation that has brought us greater joy. We are seeing a generation of young people who are working hard, building solid careers and homes, parenting with attention and faithfulness, loving God and encouraging one another. I don’t know if we always thought we would live to see such a day, through the many ups and downs over these past thirty years, the heartaches, losses and disappointments. But there have been so many joys and so much love. And Chris and I  are still here, loving and lifting up the name of Jesus. We are celebrating the lovely work of Jesus–that blessed baby who came to turn the values and systems of the world upside down and call people to a new life. We wish you and yours a blessed and joyful Christmas!

     It has been an extremely full fall season for us. Chris has resumed basketball and has one of our grown up guys helping with the coaching duties. It is a win-win. Chris doesn’t enjoy the coaching and our young coach is looking for experience and practice leading a team. I wish I could say that basketball is always a positive, but the world of aau basketball here in the Minnesota suburbs is fraught with the racism that plagues our nation–but manifests itself in behaviors and attitudes our young people have to cope with every day. 

     Chris came home a few weeks ago from an exhausting day of basketball where a parent from the opposing team targeted and harassed one of our players to the point that the man had to be ejected and escorted from the gym. Even though the referee, the opposing coach, Chris and our coach all witnessed this man’s son stumbling on the floor and tripping on his own feet, the parent assigned blame to one of our players and continuously verbally harassed and berated him until he was escorted from the premises. 

     As Chris, who was scorekeeping on the bench as he does now during games, was intervening in the situation another older white man started yelling at him, asking him what he was doing, he had no business speaking, he was only a scorekeeper!!

    Another of our young men, who lives in Edina, had a man walking with an aggressive dog, set his dog upon him as the ninth grader walked home from school, forcing him to run all the way home with the dog nipping at his heels. That same young man was falsely accused of making a threat at school and ended up spending several days in juvenile detention without any apologies upon his release.

     This is the kind of everyday racism that our kids and Black men of all ages have to put up with all the time. It doesn’t matter who the president is or what day of the week it is, there are plenty of people here in America who are ready to tell them that something is their fault, they are trouble, they are less, they don’t deserve to speak, figuratively or literally. So many people are blind to their own prejudices and bigotry; they don’t care what kind of harm they cause to others and choose to ignore that they are the devil’s handiworkers.

     It is this kind of climate, this kind of world, in which our young people must live. How did a fifteen year old feel, being attacked and berated by a grown man in his forties? What kind of inner trauma and suffering is inflicted when you are treated like a criminal, a troublemaker, a problem? When you have done absolutely nothing to account for such behaviors toward yourself, how do you come to feel about the world around you, when it is hostile and unwelcoming or cruel?

     Chris has often had one of the boys tell him that I am one of the only white people that they have a genuine relationship with–where I am not connected to them by a job or position, where I hold no authority over them except that built by relationship and respect for Chris and for me. I don’t take that position lightly. The way I show love to the boys is through service– I make them food, bake them brownies, wash people’s clothes, provide transportation and most of all, I try to reflect every single time I see them, that I am delighted–so that there is a human face to  Jesus’ love for them. 

     However, I know that none of the things I do can begin to affect what the world has already inflicted on them because of the color of their skin. I know that is why, even after all these years, we remember all the time, Tom Skinner’s adage, “It takes God to be a Black man!!” Only God can heal the hurts the world inflicts. Only God can build minds and hearts and characters in the midst of a harsh and difficult world that seeks to steal and kill and destroy. We ask that you pray for our young men and that you pray for our misguided world–one that elevates the powerful and cruel and ignores the harms and hurts inflicted upon the powerless. May you be one of those who prays everyday to ask God what your part is in bringing God’s kingdom alive in our world as you do justice, love mercy  and walk humbly with the one who loves us and who especially loves those the world despises. 

I’m dropping off kids after basketball practice and Michael is the last one in the van. This conversation ensues…

“You know, when I first came to your group I thought you guys were weird… I didn’t know how I could fit in.”

Michael has been playing basketball with us for three years. He is 17 now. He quickly noticed that we are more than a basketball team.

“You guys are different.  Everybody has their own personality and sometimes people get on my nerves… but you all get along. You’re all together.”

This group has been together many years, young men who started with me at elementary age.

“And you… everybody makes mistakes and sometimes we fight but you keep us together. You’re like a father figure to all of us.”

Everyone in this group has their own unique story of family and social dysfunction, isolation, hopelessness and so on. They each struggle with behaviors that are influenced by circumstances of life beyond their control.

“I didn’t know how to handle it at first, but now I feel like I belong.”

Michael came to us purely to play basketball. He was in the streets and his main pursuits were sex, crime and doing drugs.

“Sometimes I can’t believe I’m still with you. I thought I’d be fighting somebody.  When people get on my nerves, I want to hit somebody. That’s how I get in trouble at school. I have anger issues. For a long time, I was afraid you were going to kick me out. I’m surprised you didn’t.”

Michael lied about his age to be on the team and was afraid to tell me because he thought I would make him leave (he’s a year older than everyone else). When he told me he was surprised that I already knew, and hadn’t kicked him off the team. I explained to him that our being together was about more than just playing basketball.  It’s about being a community, in Christ. It’s about learning and growing together into positive young men. It’s about relationships, enduring through arguments and mistakes, working through misunderstandings and bad behavior, supporting one another through hard times. It’s about being a family.

“I’ve never had a group of friends before. I just be myself out in the streets, sometimes with my cousin [who is also on the team, he brought Michael in].  I’ve never had a place to belong. I don’t even be in the streets anymore. When I’m not with you or at school, I stay in the house.”

“Stay in the house” is a euphemism for staying out of trouble.

“I don’t even chase females anymore. I quit that. I decided to wait until I’m ready to get married.”

Now this surprises me (and I take it with a grain of salt). According to conversations in the van, they are all sexually active and looking for their next “conquest”. But this confirms my suspicion that the things they say when they are all together do not necessarily reflect their personal choices. Nevertheless, the expression of this sentiment is a marked departure in attitude from when he first joined the group.

When I drop him off in front of his house, I give him a snack and he says, “Thanks Chris, I appreciate you.”