Most of you know I work with the poor and homeless here in Raleigh. Some of you already help me with that in various ways (for which I thank you very much).
On my other site, I created a list of our most urgent needs right now. If you can help me with any of them, I will be eternally grateful.
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When I moved to Raleigh from Memphis, I had several Memphians who treated me as a traitor for leaving.
I love Memphis. I really do. But I love Raleigh too (even if they do their ribs funny). The attitude, the vibe is different here. There is a feeling of hope here, a feeling of possibility. It is not just me. This city dreams. Look at this:
Murders in 2006:
Raleigh: About 20
Memphis: About 200 (!)
Yes, Memphis is bigger, almost twice as big. But not 10 times as big.
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For those of you who are complaining you have not seen me in a while…
It was pure stream of consciousness, with no retakes (as you can see).
As I wade through my backlog of email, I found out that a letter to the editor I had sent in while I was gone was published. You can read all about it on my other blog.
One of my favorite holiday traditions growing up was watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special. It turns out you can get your own Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
Gawd, I love the internet.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, I attended Operation Homeless Connect last week here in Raleigh.
While all the politicos were applauding that they were doing something for the homeless, I noticed that the homeless seemed almost incidental to the plan. It was as if they were getting left out of the equation. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer and today it was finally published.
The text of it, as it was published, can be found here:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters/story/753977.html
Amazingly, one of the people I complained about, Mr. Chancellor of the United Way also wrote a letter to the editor and it was published as well. To see a different perspective on the event, you can read his letter here:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters/story/753974.html
Most of what I wanted to say I said in that letter, and what more I wanted to say I said in this blog entry over at my other blog.
Links:
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OK, my friend Bill asked a legitimate (if somewhat ambitious) question: Practically speaking, what can we do to help the poor and the oppressed in our communities?
This is a question I have given a lot of thought to. In fact, as a follower of Jesus, I think I have to give a lot of thought to this. It is one of those Moral Issues.
First, let me say I do not have all the answers, and any answers I would give you, dear reader, would be dismissed as unrealistic. I will say the reason there are no easy answers is often because we are not asking the right questions.
So, you ask me, what are the right questions? Don’t ask me; ask them. Or better yet, live their life and figure it out for yourself.
Take the bus EVERYWHERE for a month; it will change your perspective on poverty and its causes. No big deal, you say? How will you get the kids from school? Groceries are now limited to what you can carry by yourself. Plot out an hour of commute time. Better hope it does not rain… This is life for thousands in your city, everyday.
Leave your wallet and all your ID at home, then have someone drop you Downtown and leave you all day. No big deal, right? Where will you use the bathroom? Get water to drink? Blow your nose, for crying out loud? The folks at that friendly coffee shop are not so friendly when you are not buying anything. What is an inconvenience to you is a lifestyle for many, everyday.
That neighborhood that you do not feel safe driving through after dark? Try sleeping there for a night. I bet for $20 someone would be glad to put you up for the night. Now imagine sleeping there every night.
This is your life now: No car, dependent upon an arbitrary bus schedule, no place to piss and unwelcome anywhere you could, limiting your grocery shopping to what you can personally carry on the bus (and from the bus to your house), standing in the rain waiting to give someone you do not know a dollar to take you to work. Think you might have a better perspective on poverty now? Hey, quit your bitching; you still have your nice (not to mention adequate) clothes, your cable TV, your air conditioning, your well nourished children.
While you are doing this, you may find you come up with the questions.
Questions like: Why did the city of Raleigh made the entire population that uses the bus [that would be the working poor] walk three blocks out of their way so some rich guys could park their customized motorcycles in Moore Square Station a few weeks ago? Why not close the “covered parking” at Moore’s Square and let the buses run? I would tell you why, but if you had walked those three blocks, you would have no doubt why.
Do all that and then try not to get mad when some well meaning “Christian” tries to give you a meal but not until they have preached to you for half an hour about how you are probably going to hell anyway. Going? Hell, you have been living it.
To answer Bill’s question; Nothing. Nothing, that is, until we can understand their problems, until we can understand that to love our neighbor means wanting the same thing for that dark skinned single mother on the bus that we want for ourselves.
Before we can ever talk about answers, we need to make sure we really understand the questions. It is not hard to figure out what the questions are; you just have to be open to hearing them.
My friend T has a 12 year old daughter, K, whose art class participated this weekend in GroundSpark, which is a small part of Raleigh’s SparkCon. Groundspark was a sidewalk painting contest, where about 100 teams drew sidewalk art for cash and prizes.
The weather was nice and breezy, but being out on the street for hours at a time is hot, no matter how you cut it. One of K’s team mates had to go home early due to heat complications, but the team managed to rally forward.
As you can see, K managed to deal with the heat.
K and company, around their entry.
They managed to score an honorable mention in the middle school category. After that, they were not fit to talk to.
As you can see below, there were tons of entrants, and it went from Friday afternoon till Saturday night at 7:30, when they announced the winners and we all fell into the car, exhausted.
Along with the sidewalk art, there was music:
Taggers (Note to my Mom: That means graffiti artists)
as well as break dancers and other distractions (your intrepid photo taker neglected to garner any photographs of the break dancers.)
Here are some pics of some of the other entrants (just click on them to see larger images):
Other than K’s, though, this one was my favorite.
You can see the rest of the pics I took at Groundspark in this flickr album.
I uploaded some pictures of Raleigh to my Flickr account. Anyone can view them, but if you have a free yahoo.com account you can sign into Flickr with that and leave comments.
I made it into Raleigh about 5am this morning. I am a bit dazed still, but will be back up and going in no time. I should have a new phone number and everything by the end of today, so I will send out emails this weekend.
Hope you are all well, and I should be back to normal by Monday.
Well, I told you last week that this week I would tell you all about the big news I have been talking around for a while now. The big news is…
I am moving to the Raleigh/ Durham area of North Carolina. Yes, that is right; after nearly 14 years of living here in Memphis, I am un-assing this joint and hitting the road.
For several reasons, I have not blogged directly about this yet. There were people in my life (including that famous list of 10) I wanted to tell directly first before going public with it. (There is little worse than your Mom hearing you are moving halfway across the country by reading it on your blog). Also, from a business standpoint, I wanted to wait as long as possible before announcing I was closing. Closing a business is never fun and if people are uncertain about your future, they tend to quit coming in.
Why Raleigh/ Durham, you ask? Well, why not? (Just Kidding). Actually there are several reasons, some personal, some business related, but when it all comes down to it, I just ended up with an opportunity I could not turn down (More about that and my plans in future posts).
Moving is not easy, nor is it fun. I am quite the minimalist, yet even I have accumulated large amounts of just stuff that have to be gotten rid of. Maybe I will follow Jennifer’s example… In any event, this is why I have been so on edge, so distant, so pensive of late. Worse yet, my ADD is raging and I have caught myself just freezing up, so staying on top of that is a constant battle. Of course I will miss my family (including my newest nephew!) but as Helen Keller said, life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all. Given the choice, I will take the adventure.
You may recall, gentle reader, that the beginning of this month I hit the road for a few days. I went to Raleigh to verify some assumptions. Since they turned out to be true, I went ahead and decided to move out there.
Over the next month or so, I will be traveling back and forth several times, so if you want to see me in Memphis before I get out of here, email me and we will work out the scheduling.
Over the upcoming weeks, if I seem more distant than normal, I am just dealing with the enormity of moving. Please be patient with me, and I will try my best to keep you all updated.
3 comments » | Raleigh, me, musing