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Dear Friends and
Family,
Greetings from Gresham, Oregon! I hope that this letter finds you well and enjoying the holidays.
I find the writing of
Christmas letters to be a beautiful tradition. Every year my mom writes a
letter for our family to wish those near and far a merry Christmas and share
what has gone on with our family in the past year. It honors the vast array of
people who are important to our family, even if they may not be present with us
in day-to-day life.
I am sure my mom will be
writing a letter again this year, but since this will be my first Christmas not
at home, I thought I would begin my own letter-writing tradition. I want to
send my love and Christmas greetings, and share a bit of what has happened with
me leading up to this Advent.
In July I wrote to many of
you just before embarking upon my year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer
Corps NW. At the time, I was feeling a deep desire to reconnect with many in my
community and family. The shooting at SPU led me to a realization of how loved
I am by so many people and how many people there are in my life whom I love
dearly. Yet this realization was held in tension with the knowledge that I
would soon be departing for a new place and many new relationships.
This season of my life had
been one of much transition. Now close to halfway through my JV year, I have
come to love the people I live and work with, but I still feel geographically,
relationally and spiritually displaced. This is not comfortable, but I also
think it may be an indicator that I am right where I am supposed to be. I think
of all those God has called out of their place of security to a new land and
know that I am in good company. I am
seeking to cultivate my capacity to be present with myself, others and God as I
lean into the transition and tensions.
In particular, this year has
invited me to hold together grief and joy. There is loss in leaving SPU and the
ensuing changes in many friendships. At the same time, I am thankful for the
fun, excitement and care that has come in many new relationships. I have bore
witness to great suffering this year. I have seen the harshness of daily life
that people experiencing homelessness face and how this individual suffering if
a violence of systematic oppression. At the same time, I have witnessed the
inspiring resilience of people in some of the most difficult circumstances a
human could face. I have seen people secure employment and move into housing. I
have had the privilege to be in relationship with people on the margins and see
that their humanity is so much larger than the poverty which is just a piece of
their story.
I love the Advent season
because it allows us to hold lament and hope together, and in fact, see that it
is necessary to do so. Hope is not a blind optimism that minimizes, but an
acknowledgment of the pain of the world with the expectation that wholeness and
healing are coming toward us. If we were not hopeful, we would never lament
because we would be in a cyncism that doesn’t expect anything different. In
Advent, we sit in holy longing for something better. In expecting the light of
the world to come, we must lament the current darkness.
I have never been more aware
of the darkness in the world than in this advent season. On the fore of my mind
are the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The longstanding reality of
racial injustice in America is coming to the surface in a new way, and it is a
reality that is difficult to face in its horror, and seeming endlessness. I
long to live in a country where black lives matter and justice comes to
fruition in our relationships, culture, and social structures.
I also long for a world where
no one need sleep outside. I think of the man who I came across a couple weeks
ago when I was the first person to arrive at work. He was out of his
wheelchair, asleep in our doorway. As I approached him, I could see that he was
soaking wet and absolutely freezing. It had rained all night with temperatures
in the mid 30s. Such a night is one of the worst nights to be homeless. When it
is extremely cold, the city will call severe weather which triggers the opening
of additional shelters and outreach to people outside. But on this night severe
weather had not been called because it was not cold enough, even though people
can still become hypothermic or even die in the cold rain.
The man on our doorstep had
made his way to a shelter but was turned away because he did not have the $5 to
pay their fee, he had a dog, and they cannot accodomate someone with his severe
medical conditions. Rather than connect him to another service, they turned him
away to the cold night. He then made his way to JOIN where a police officer
spotted him. He told me that the police would check in on him every hour, but
could not drive him to another shelter in their car due to policy. The police
did not let any JOIN staff know he was there (who would have found some way to
get him inside) so that I was the person to find him in the morning. He has
metal plates in his body that cause neorological issues when they become cold
making it hard for him to move. I helped him inside, and when one of my
co-workers arrived, we helped him change into drive clothes so that he could
warm up. JOIN then put him up in a motel for a week as an outreach worker found
a longer-term solution.
We live in a world where one
of the most vulnerable members of society can be left outside to literally
freeze. It would be easier to not see this. It would be easier to ignore. It
can be hard to have hope when I witness the struggle of so many and the
oppression which divides our society.
But there is hope. The light
comes in the darkness. God takes on flesh and enters our condition. The Christ
child enters the world in humble conditions, in the midst of infanticide. We
have so commercialized and tamed the Christmas story, that we forget how
shocking it truly is. The God of the universe becomes a frail baby. The Healer
and Liberator of all becomes one of us intimately knowing our vulnerability and
suffering.
The work I am doing has been
very difficult. It is hard to witness suffering. But I know Christ is there
working in me and through me, and in and through the guests that come to JOIN.
And I know that Kingdom of God is at hand. Though we live in a world that is
sick and unjust, God is with us. The light comes in the darkness. I choose to
live in hope and live out that hope.
I hope that in the season you
encounter the Light. I hope that you experience healing and restoration in the
those place of darkness in your own life and that you may pursue healing and
restoration in the places of darkness around you. I hope that the deepest
longings of your heart may be filled - that the deepest thirst of your soul may
be quenced with the Water of Life. May you celebrate hope coming into the
world.
Peace and joy to you this
Christmas!
Love,
Scott
P.S I would love to hear from
you! You can write to me at 451 NW 1st St Gresham, OR 97030, and I
promise I will write back!
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