All this...and a taco truck

Last week thoughts:
this is my last week in San Francisco - until October.  I'm going back to madison to tie up loose ends, figure out what to do with an entire apartment of furniture, do all my medical stuff one more time whie I still have my uber-$$ state of Wisconsin insurance...and see friends and loved ones.
Then, I'm returning to Because Justice Matters and glorious San Francisco to spend a year here launching the women's center. Also spending one day each week with Unlikely Heroes, an outreach to teen girls in prostitution in Oakland, CA - across the bay from SF and "home" to the longest "track" in America (stretch of street that is "home" to trafficked individuals and the people who come to buy people).

What are my reflections?  I love this city. Its wild, often irreverent humor. Its creativity and love of the innovative and unusual.  Its quirky individualism and downright unusual citizens.  All that and a taco truck!

Speaking of a taco truck, Unlikely Heroes wants one to use like a trojan horse...a way to gain entry to the International Blvd "track" in Oakland. Selling tacos. Feeding young women and building relationships. Connecting. Loving. Praying.  I've started noticing taco trucks...now all over the place.  And wondering...which one is for Unlikely Heroes?  What does Father God have up his supernatural sleeve?

More reflections: people living in poverty are hungry for God. They don't have the luxury of pooh-poohing dependence on God. They look for God to help them. They cling to hope like a life raft.

I've been praying for people on the streets. On the bus. At cross walks. Anywhere they are willing.  Interesting....people rarely say No when I ask, "Could I pray for you?"  Prayed for a man with a degenerating knee joint. A woman with a back problem. Man with a back problem and another guy who seems to hurt everywhere.  A hiker trying to complete part of the Pacific Crest trail on his summer vacation from work (must be a teacher...didn't ask) He fell and hurt is leg.  Let me pray while we waited at the crosswalk in Sacramento.  And, lots and lots of people here in the Tenderloin.  Are people being healed?  Not yet- that I know of.  But I've decided to keep praying for anybody who is willing...and eventually I'll see results!

One of my reflections is that so many people in the Tenderloin have physical problems. Years of poor food, sleeping on concrete or in cheap SRO saggy-mattress beds, inadequate medical care and trauma-related stress have taken their toll.  I'm praying that government medical assistance will someday (SOON, please) be required to provide dental care. One of the sure signs that someone has done time on the streets is their teeth.  People have literally lost or had pulled most of their teeth. I rarely see a person on the streets with a full set. This interferes with nutrition (ability to eat nutritious food) and overall health. People live in constant pain from rotten teeth. We are the United States of America. We can do better than this!  We are better than this.

One of the things I wanted to explore this summer was the meaning of justice.  Part of my calling from God is a desire to see justice done.  To work for justice. To believe that justice is not only possible but right in the middle of God's heart.

What I've discovered is that justice isn't what I thought it was.  I thought justice was "making things right."  People taking responsibility for their actions or the actions of our society.  And, if necessary, paying the penalty for their ungodly choices.  

Justice is more than evening the balance between good and bad.  It's more than making up for wrongs done by doing good in their stead.  Justice is ever more radical levels of love.  It is giving love that isn't deserved and doesn't have to be earned.  it is learning that love "looks like something" to quote Heidi Baker.  And that something ....that sacrificial giving and 2nd mile way of living....is justice.

Today, understanding justice came in the form of the "watcher" at Aroma Spa, a "massage parlor" about 3 blocks from the YWAM base.  All day and into the night, an old asian man stands next to the door of this building - which advertises massages but, in fact, is a brothel where poor, young, asian women (who may not even speak English) are sold to men for sex. 

When I pass this man, I smile and say, "Good evening" as if he were a kind shopkeeper viewing passers-by on the street. He isn't. His eyes are vacant.  Like dark, expressionless holes. Empty. His facial expression is the same. Empty.  And, it is always like this, no matter when you pass. 

I thought of the Old Testament story of Pharoah and Moses. Moses asked Pharoah for mercy. Pharoah "hardened his heart"  Moses tried again and Pharoah hardened his heart again. This happened over and over. Finally God essentially said, that's it....and he gave Pharoah his own way...God let Pharoah's heart remain hard.

"making things right" view of justice would mean this man could be beyond hope. That he has dug his spiritual grave and he will lie in it. Beyond redemption. Ever more radical levels of love means that, as I passed by this terrible place with its terrible door-keeper, I prayed, "Mercy God.  You can reach this man's heart.  I release an assignment in the spirit for him to receive a revelation of Jesus and an invitation to leave this living death behind.  I'm like a praying version of one of those perfume-sprayer women in the mall department stores......releasing the sweet smell of God's love all around. 

 It would be right and appropriate for this man to be punished for his wrongs. For being part of an industry that trafficks young women and men and sells them into sex slavery.  It would be right for him to suffer - he has made others suffer.

But, what I'm seeing about justice as "greater levels of love" is the idea that even more "rightness" would result...even more balancing of some eternal scale of good defeating evil....if this man saw his wrongs and came to God for mercy.....and received it.   "Making it right" is good.  Mercy is even better.  "taking responsibility for one's actions" is good.  Undeserved, unearned, forgiving love is better.

 So, I learned something every day - multiple times every day - from the beautiful people in the Tenderloin.   I've seen generosity and kindness from people who have so little - and experience little to no kindness in return. I've seen incredible courage right alongside cowardice and abuse of the less powerful. 

I am grateful for the lessons of the Tenderloin.  For the witness of Because Justice Matters just loving and loving and loving. Loving when there doesn't seem to be an answer.  Loving when someone rejects that love and returns to their pain and addiction.  Loving and loving and loving....whether the "other person" makes it right or not.

This is the kind of justice I want to embrace. God, give us hearts that will "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly" with you. 

So, in only a short 3 months here with BJM in the Tenderloin, I have received so much. All this....whether I know what to do with it or not.  I'm grateful.  This is why I have decided to return and spend the next year - at least- here.

Please pray for BJM. For all this and more.  All this time 1,000.  All this and a taco truck!

See you in Madison on Friday.  Love to all.