What I Might Say...To Whiteclay

Whiteclay, Nebraska is a town of approximately 14 residents and 4 liquor stores. The first one conveniently sits 250 yards from the border of the "dry" Pine Ridge Indian Reservation; a reservation that has been shattered into a million little pieces by the ravages of alcoholism.  If Whiteclay could read...I might send it an e-mail something like this....


To: hey-i-am-not-breaking-any-laws@shameonyou.com



Dear Whiteclay,

You don't know me...and sometimes I wish I didn't know you. But I have walked your streets, talked to your homeless, slept in your zip code, and prayed in your fields. I know you perhaps better than you know yourself. You're not fooling anyone. You fly the flag of capitalism (and when no one is looking you salute it), defending yourself all the way to the bank. In the way that matters to you, you are successful. In the way that matters to anyone who has seen you at work....you are the equivalent of
twist-off-top atomic bomb. They hand you a few dollars and you hand them destruction as complete as Hiroshima...only no one comes back to rebuild the nation.

The first time I met you, you frightened me, I'll admit it. I locked my car doors, didn't make eye contact and set my GPS to find the corner of "get me the hell out of here" and "what was I thinking?" I was kinda hoping I wouldn't run into you again, but it seemed everywhere I turned on the Pine Ridge Reservation I met people who had visited your house. You really should work on being a better host. What kind of neighbor, knowing the house next door was made of flammable material, would pour gasoline on it...and light a match?  


But here's the deal. I am here to put you on notice. I believe there are spirits in the invisible realm. I believe some are so petty that a thousand of them could fit in my shoe. I also believe some are huge, having fed themselves on injustice and evil for many generations. They have gorged on unforgiveness and fear and washed it down with hopelessness. When they open their wings they cover an entire valley....or an entire first nation.  There is a darkness to their shadows that lingers. But there is a renaissance afoot; a revolution marching to the beat of creativity, original language, pride, and in step with the God and His Son. The Lakota people you have tried your best to destroy are determined to be a mighty Sioux Nation again. They are warriors. They know how to stand and fight and they know how to get on their knees...and fight. You are no match for the seventh generation. You are no match for the Cross....and the God of the Angel Armies. You think you are safely surrounded by the cloak of darkness that will hide you...but in reality you are surrounded by armies of light that can only be put into motion when the people pray. And the people are praying, Whiteclay.

We may not be able to foreclose on your residence, but we can take the streets back and there is nothing you can do about. We will love you right out of the neighborhood. Feed them, clothe them, visit them....you get the picture. You tried more than once to shut down this pool of love, but we are ripping off the "Keep out" sign and jumping in the deep end. As a matter of fact your dark notoriety will be our diving board. For as surely as the world has been stunned by the sight of the shattered spirits you roll into ditches...it will have no choice but to take notice of the love that pulls them out.

New home of Lakota Center For Progress...Whiteclay, NE

Pine Ridge will be a City on a Hill...a light to show the way to other nations of first people. And you Whiteclay, the dark room that you are....will have no choice but to give way to the light. For when light enters a room...darkness has to flee. 


Buh-bye....KC Willis
light-up-the-darkness@ordinaryclaypots.com



If you would like information on how you can help us with our work on The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, please e-mail me at lakotacenter@yahoo.com. Thank you!

The Wind Beneath My Things

When I pulled up to Leola One Feather's trailer on the Pine Ridge Reservation...I made several immediate observations. There was some kind of mud house that had been started and abandoned right next to it, the trailer they lived in looked like it had once been abandoned, and the signs of apathy borne out of extreme poverty were everywhere.  Piles of trash were scattered around the small yard, and anything that had ever broken was thrown out into the weather and old clothing that had been out grown was in mildewed piles, as well.  There's no trash service to her house, there's no convenient dump to take what you don't need any longer...there's no vehicle to get it there even if there was such a facility. The trash and leftover everything that had taken over anything that might have been called a yard were representative of the overwhelm in her life and the disadvantages in her community.

When this lovely and soft-spoken woman emerged from beneath her tin roof, she smiled big, then quickly put a hand over her mouth and muttered something about bad teeth. Honestly...I didn't notice her teeth...I was too busy noticing the smile that reached her eyes and I how her hands were always on the heads or the shoulders of the 2 little boys who walked closely and shyly next to her. Her grandsons live with her and literally walk in her shadow...a shadow that is long and tall in its grace and in its way of perceiving the world very differently from the way we do; those of us who do not walk under the Lakota sun. She hugged me tight, happy to see me again and I felt something akin to being blessed...by my God who had put me in the path of this place and by her.

Leola loves to tell you of the places she hopes to travel to and is quick to point out the types of birds landing nearby...watching them fly away...a look of longing in her eyes.  The spirit of the ones with wings lives in her. And even though her grandsons speak their native language first and English second...she wants them to know of both worlds....but always through the eyes of her warrior descendants. That will be a fine line that will not be easy to walk. She herself is a warrior...a once-teenage member of the AIM (American Indian Movement) uprising and occupation of 1973.

The first time I met Leola and the little boys White Plume was last year when a friend suggested I stop to see her, asking me to bring blankets if I could as there is no electricity in the trailer and a small wood burning stove for cooking and for heating. She said their floor was plywood and cold....which indeed it was. The same plywood covered every window....windows that had been broken out before she moved her family into the trailer. Plywood that kept the cold at bay a little, but also blocked out the sun and ensured that if the wood- burning ever turned to trailer-burning....no one would get out.

But there was a different spirit at her home than there was in other homes I had visited on the Rez. Even with despair written in big, bold letters everywhere I turned...Leola smiled...Leola dreamed...Leola encouraged her grandsons to have strong, bold hearts that noticed things beyond the poverty and the plywood. In the midst of the debris-strewn property, she had encouraged 8 year old Onalsala to decorate a little "rock garden" plot, to paint on whatever he could (with paints donated by my dear friend Steven) and to see things differently...just as she did. Explaining to me that her little tomato garden had not gone well this year, she didn't express it in a way that we might...a way that is not aligned with all living things. She didn't say "darn grasshoppers destroyed my garden!" She simply smiled and said "For the past two years the grasshoppers have shared my garden. This year they did not share it with me."  Spending a half hour with Leola gives me perspective. Spending five minutes with Onalsala gives me revelation.

I had lowered the tailgate on my truck to unload the items I had brought specifically for him. Warm boots, a pillow, paints, canvas pad, a Bronco sweatshirt...important things that any child would be enamored with. I set them out and encouraged him to take them...expecting wide-eyed wonder at the material bounty in front of him. But Onalsala, the warrior grandson of Grandmother Leola and son of Wakan Tanka, the Creator, touched the paints for a second, then looked over my shoulder, beyond me,  beyond his surroundings and pointed. "Look at the wind in the trees," he said with the same light shining in his eyes that shone in Leola's....Bronco sweatshirt not even on his radar.  In that quick moment, before he turned his attention back to the paints, I felt the wind moving through me. It was as though this little boy, wisdom beyond his years, was telling me....don't forget the focus is on God...don't forget to carry His message. The wind in the trees, the Holy Spirit moving through the people of this place...his love the breeze on the hilltop that can not be ignored as it touches the beautiful people in this beautiful place. A rainbow promise of total destruction never happening again. Onalsala knows the wind and recognizes its voice in the trees. "Here," it says touching his hair as his grandmother does...always recognizing the promise of the next generation. "The change will begin...here" Wopila tanka, Onalsala. Thank you.

If you would like to be involved with the work we are doing on the Pine Ridge Reservation...
email me at lakotacenter@yahoo.com

Feelin' Groovy

I don't know if you've noticed lately, but there is a bit of a quiet revolution going on in the world of Believers who are not satisfied with what is being done today in the name of Christianity. It's a simmering stew of folks from all walks of life who are looking at this whole thing a little differently. And when I say simmering, I don't mean as about to boil into an angry mob, I mean simmering as in slow-cooking, great smells in the air all day, ready for a feast when it's ready-type simmering. It's a Love Stew and it's on the menu in cities big and small all over the country.

Way back in the late 60's, I was part of an amazing thing that moved across America. Hippies found Jesus and suddenly The Way of the Master was a cool thing and the Jesus Movement somehow made its way into even my little Southern Baptist church in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I was about 14-ish when I heard my first message by a groovy guy with hair long enough to give Moses a run for his manna...and being a girl who never in her life had the word cool attached to a sentence with her name in it...well I was hooked. Here was a way....One Way...as we groovy people called it...to love me some Jesus and be accepted all in one fell swoop.

But a revolution, as this surely was, by definition means turning the people around to a whole new way of life and leaving the old behind. The Jesus Movement didn't go over so well with the old guard who wanted things to stay the same. We had a new American Revolution on the march....one that took the words of Jesus seriously. ("The Red Letters are coming! The Red Letters are coming!") Some didn't like these young up-starts telling them how to love their neighbor. They knew perfectly well how to do that...as long as neighbor was defined as someone who looked like you, talked like you and didn't rock the boat you had built.  They were not so big on melding a family out of just any old material. The Anointed Groovy Ones tried to show them a different way....a way of accepting all peoples and reaching out to the least of these...not just bringing things to the poor every Christmas, but asking the poor to join them every day of the year. The Elders (those Non-Melders) didn't want those words pointed out to them...at all. They stuck to their preferred passages and ignored the ones about loving your neighbor and giving your coat to the cold. I think they were just a little more comfy with a God who was angry and cast people out...their kind of guy.

I see it happening again....this 21st century version of the Jesus Movement...complete with Jesus Freaks and enough Love to sink an Ark. It's happening and I am old enough now to dig feeling groovy about this new revolution in a way I couldn't at 14. This time I get the love-thing in a way that you can only get when you have spent your life looking out for you....selfish...self-absorbed...me with a capital M. Suddenly there is an answer to the dreariness that long ago took over your interior weather patterns because YOU have been the only cloud in the sky.  Love 'em like Jesus. That's what's in my forecast...and it doesn't even have to be hard! Just set out everyday to be kind to those who cross your path. To help someone when you have the means to help them. There are soooo many hurting people in the world. 

When books like  "The Love Revolution", "Crazy Love", "Under the Overpass," Radical" and "Irresistible Revolution" are bestsellers...then I'm feelin' the winds of change and I'm praying for a big ol' storm. When you see it coming....don't run for the basement. Stand on the roof and say "Here! Over Here!"  I for one am truly welcoming this revolution that is sick and tired of things being done in the name of Jesus that don't have anything to do with the life he gave us as an example. Love. He was all about the love. Mercy. Justice.

"God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power...and he went about doing good..." Acts 10:38

Groovy.




Note: In preparation of begining...finally...to write again...I am re-posting some of my favorite blogs from last year...to get you familiar with my voice again...and to get me familiar with my voice again. :-) Love you. Mean it.

Give Me Liberty

Through this wonderful organization that I am involved with, called One Spirit, I was able to access a list of families on the Pine Ridge Reservation and see exactly what they needed. It's called The Okini List. Okini. Lakota for sharing. You know in times of crisis certain organizations will say in general what it is they need at the moment...and this is a good thing...vague sometimes...but gets the job done. The Okini list is different and it immediately impacted me. This is a list of people with names and descriptions of situations and pretty specific needs. Delbert, an elder, needs fishing poles so he can give young boys something to do and keep them out of trouble. A grandmother with 8 children under the roof of her 2 bedroom trailer that doesn't have electricity is asking for cleaning supplies, toiletries and books for the kids. Oh and shoes...there is always a need for shoes. I scanned the list and could determine by the items in it that these were folks who lived and asked for just the very basics.

Then I came upon an entry that stopped me in my tracks. Charlie Yellow Bird was asking for help. He only has one child...just him and his nine year old daughter. Liberty. It was an unusual entry as it was the only one where a father was raising a child. But more than that...in the comment section it said this: THEY HAVE NOTHING. In capital letters and all. They have nothing. Compared to what! To an entire community who has nothing? How desperate must their situation be?

Immediately I contacted Kari, the facilitator of the Okini List and made arrangements to get some things to Charlie and Liberty. One of the rewarding things about this whole experience (and there have been many) is how directly you can deal with a family...should you choose to do that. I was given their address, so I know my boxes were going straight to them and not a distribution center. I like that. So when a family has nothing...your options for what to send them are wide open. And if you are like me...you have two of lots of things in your house. Heck, when I went looking I had 5 irons! I filled up 7 boxes of stuff with some good household staples and my cupboards and closets didn't look like anything was gone. As I packed them up, I kept thinking how freeing this was. My spirit was lighter from being obedient to the call to follow Christ in how I lived and loved, things that were not being used were being given to a family WHO HAD NOTHING, and I felt the beginnings of being liberated from the selfish materialism of my life as an American consumer. I had found Liberty.


I thought about her all the time. What did a nine year old girl like? After all I had never had one....I had been one...I think. I started looking at little girl stuff when I was at yard sales. Then three days after I sent the boxes I got an e-mail from the reservation coordinator, Mavis. Charlie had temporary access to a cell phone (they pass them around) and could I call him? Wow...this I hadn't expected. I called right away.

Charlie Yellow Bird was so sweet and so appreciative. He said Liberty said it was just like Christmas...Charlie said it wasn't exactly, because they have very little at Christmas. Liberty, he said, insisted on opening all the boxes herself. I asked him if she was too big for the teddy bear I sent. He laughed and said she was carrying it right then. When I asked him what else he might need, I opened up the door for him to ask for a DVD player or a boom-box....but Charlie Yellow Bird asked for Pinesol. Charlie Yellow Bird who takes odd jobs repairing cars on The Rez (even though he doesn't own a wrench set) told me he just wants to take care of his little girl. I told him I would help him do that. And when I told him that it felt like God made their name leap off the Okini List. He said very excitedly..."God! God did that? Liberty loves Jesus! Can you get her some Bible story books? I can read to her."  (Uh-yeah Charlie I think I can do that.)  I asked him how he had managed up 'til now. He said his neighbors helped out. They shared. He explained that even though they have very little...they share. He assured me the good fortune he found in seven boxes would find homes other than his.

Then I had the precious opportunity to talk to Liberty. Soft spoken, shy, giggled when I said something funny. I told her I was going to come visit her in the next month or two. I asked her what were some of the things she liked. And the little girl who lives smack dab in the middle of the poorest place in America, a place where almost 40% of the residents don't have electricity, where trash is piled up because pick up is sporadic, where teen suicide is an epidemic and apathy is a disease....said she likes to play princess. That's because she is one.

So at the end of the conversation with Charlie, I asked him to give Liberty a hug for me.

"Bird! Bird!"  He called to her to tell her he was to give her a hug.

Bird. Liberty's daddy calls her Bird...and if I have anything to say about it she will have wings.




For more info visit http://www.kcwillisministries.ning.com/

God Positioning System....My GPS

I travel a lot. Interestingly enough...I rarely get lost out on the road. I put 4100 miles on my car in May and was successful in finding my way through rain, wind, dust and even a blizzard in the High Sierras.  Then I get home and I lose my way...can't find the road that will lead me to this blog and to save my life. So 53 days later I finally turn on my GPS...my God Positioning System and God leads me right back here. "What do you want me to say?" I asked him in a panic. And he said the same thing to me I like to imagine he said to Moses, who had stone in his hand and not a Mac, "Sheesh! Just write already!"

So here we are again, my friends. These past weeks have cemented many things in my life...and I don't mean the throw-me-in-the-river kind-of cement, although now that I think of it, I have been drinking from a very cool stream I like to call Living Water...but I digress.  For many months now I have known that there was a call upon my life to something of service for the God who dealt me the Grace Card, knows all about everything I have done in my life...and wants to use me anyway. I really tried to tell him he had the wrong girl, but then in his Word he kept showing me that it is exactly ragamuffins like me that he has a propensity for.  Moses stuttered so badly that Aaron had to speak for him, Paul held the coats of guys while they stoned Christians, ( OK his name was Saul then...but still), David murdered a man, Peter denied knowing Christ, Rahab was a prostitute....I mean come on now. A flawed bunch to be sure.  So I said bring it on...show me what it is you want me to do....you like 'em flawed? I'm your girl.

That's when he gave me a bad bout of insomnia.

So night after night I was having trouble sleeping. Now trouble sleeping used to mean tossing and turning until 1 in the morning. But this was a super-strain of insomnia that liked to show me that 5 o'clock came twice a day. I fought it at first and then I started doing something I did last year when the same bug bit me. When I couldn't sleep I didn't wrestle with my pillow in a Jacob-and-an-angel-kind-of-way....Instead I would get up, go into the living room, turn on the lights and say out loud..."Speak Lord for your servant hears."  It's scriptural...it's what Samuel said...and it somehow sounds better than looking up at God and in the middle of the night and shouting " WHAAAAAT? (although I have been known to do that.) Seriously...I'm listening and I want him to know I am listening, 'cause it's the darndest thing...if you listen...he will often speak to you. So one of those nights I spoke those words, sat on the sofa, picked up a spiral notebook that was on the coffee table and the next thing I know I am writing.

Now...let me explain...I love the Word, I read it and study it daily, but I am no Bible scholar. I can tell you stories from it and suggest how they mean something to our lives today and quote scriptures that mean a lot to me, but rarely can I tell you the address where it can be found...although in my studies I am working on that. So when I picked up a pen and wrote "See how Jesus of Nazareth filled with the Holy Spirit and power went about doing good." No one was more surprised than me when I ended it with "Acts 10:38."  Holy gasp Batman...she knows the book and verse!

I read the verse over and over. Jesus. Holy Spirit. Power. Doing good. My mind was racing (not a good thing when it's the middle of the night) and everything I had been reading and praying about, not to mention taking copious notes about...as I searched for what it was I was to do...began to clarify in my mind. I longed to follow the Christ of the Bible, not the Jesus who has been Americanized in order to satisfy our re-writing of the gospel that makes him the Grand Marshall of the prosperity parade. I had seen first-hand the glaring absence of the Holy Spirit, which goes hand-in-hand with many Believers leading powerless lives. And I knew God meant that love they neighbor thing.  I could almost see it...but I needed it to not be another one of my creative ideas...of which I have been known to have a few. "Come Spirit come."  I whispered. And he did.

The next thing I wrote (writing is where I go in these kinds of moments) and I have the paper right next to me as I write this.

The 10:38 Project:

A small community coming together regularly to study the life of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the power found in a life of doing good for the least of them. Jesus didn't stay in Nazareth and do a coat drive. He met the poor where they were. Get involved. Get messy. Stop thinking we ascend to greatness...in reality it is when we descend to help our brothers and sisters...that real joy, true greatness is found. Come Spirit Come.

And as I lay in bed a half hour later with the words The 10:38 Project repeating themselves in my head...I asked God to show me if this was what I was supposed to do. And with the fragrance of those words still lingering in the air I heard an awful sound from the street below. A drunk driver had hit our car...totaled it in fact...and sped off. Immediately all thoughts of The 10:38 Project disappeared and I knew God has just given me the confirmation that I had asked for....




The drunk driver hit our car so hard that it pushed it up the street onto the sidewalk in front of our neighbor's house. It also hit it so hard that his bumper stayed attached to our vehicle. So he sped off drunk and bumperless. And oh yea, did I mention his license tag was still attached to said bumper. God has a cool sense of humor sometimes. Cops come, neighbors are out in the street, bumper is peeled away and hauled off by our helpful Longmont police officer and our sad, little Saturn spends the night at the neighbor's.

And as things start to settle down, we all return to what we were doing...which for most everyone was sleeping. But if you recall, at the moment of impact I was rolling The 10:38 Project around in my head....when I got terribly distracted. As soon as I began to think about it again, it occurred to me that I just been bamboozled by the Great Distractor himself. The door to 10:38 had been opened...and with it many adversaries. That one's in the Bible...somewhere. And as soon as I recalled that scripture I realized that The 10:38 Project had just been blessed and confirmed. Satan wouldn't have bothered with me and my little idea...but he would do whatever he could to stop the work of the Spirit. So I got up and made pages and pages of notes and thoughts just to aggravate him. I could just see the little demon of distraction reporting back. "Sorry, sir...but she's writing again."  I'm sure he'll come after me again on a regular basis. But I don't pray to be safe....I pray to be dangerous. When my feet hit the floor in the morning I want Hell to say "Oh crap, she's up."

So one of the first things I did was re-read a few of the books that started me down this road in the first place...the first being Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Let me digress once again. I took a road trip to Southern California in February.  Before I left I wanted to get this book, but decided I had a bunch of Joyce Meyer Bible teachings I needed to listen to this trip and I needed to watch my dollars. So I left without Crazy Love...the book. I did however travel two thousand miles with a God who loves me like crazy, but that's for another blog. When I arrived at the home of my friend Davi in Encinitas and she showed me to my room...guess what was on the nightstand? Yep...ain't that crazy? I asked her if I could read it while I was there and she told me she had bought it for me. All righty then. Now to find the time to read it in between teaching. Before the day was up almost every single person who had signed up for my Friday class called and said they were sick. So now not only did I have this book that I sensed was going to be important...I now had an entire day to sit on a hill overlooking the ocean and read my book.

So here's the genealogy of how I got to what's happening today. I read Crazy Love. Rocked my world...a definite 8 on the Richter scale.  In that book he mentions Shane Claiborne and a book called Irresistible Revolution. Read that book. Made me wanna dance and sell everything I own. In his book he talks about one of his mentors, Rich Mullins, an amazing singer/songwriter from the 80's who rarely wore shoes and taught music to kids on the Navajo Reservation. (Rich was killed in a car accident in the early 90's). In a thrift store, not long after I first read about Rich, I came across a biography with his name on it. This extraordinary life and the poetic power of his songs and writing took my breath away. When I went to Rich's website they had links to wonderful organizations that do work on Indian Reservations around the west. My heart started to race.

Ever since reading about the crazy kind of love that was involved in living a life devoted to the poorest among us I had been asking God to show me where the people were I was to serve. I researched the homeless shelters here, the organizations that helped single mothers and women leaving violent homes, at-risk teens...I looked into them all. And honestly, and happily, I can say that Longmont is fully behind all of these things. They seemed like they had it covered. I wanted to deal with the needs of people who had nothing. NOTHING.

One of the organizations on the Rich Mullins site was a place called One Spirit. Their site and their work is devoted to the third world conditions found on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. 35% of the residents don't have running water or electricity, teen suicide is the highest in the nation, the average life expectancy is the same as Somalia. What the heck!

I am a western artist, in fact my work reflects the history of the west in particular. I honor Native American women in my art. Pine Ridge is only 5 hours from my home. I Googled the reservation, wanting to see images for myself. The first video I clicked on showed me what I feared I would see. The soundtrack over the slide show was a haunting song repeating the words "Everywhere I go I see You." When the video was over I noticed the song credit at the bottom of the screen. Rich Mullins.

So now... I am involved up to my eyeballs with the Pine Ridge Reservation and the Lakota people The same eyeballs that see the conditions there and can not stand it. I am working with them on setting up art classes which will be held at one of the new youth centers being built, I will be involved over the next weeks in collecting furniture and household items for a Safe House opening in September and I will be telling you regularly about what the needs are at the moment. I am sponsoring a nine year old girl named Liberty and her father, Charles Yellow Bird. When I talked to them the other day and asked them what they needed....Charles asked for toilet paper and light bulbs...and he was almost apologetic.

So The 10:38 Project meets on Tuesday nights at 7 (when I am in town) at The Firehouse Art Center in downtown Longmont. We will delve into the Word, studying the life of Christ, finding power for our lives in the Holy Spirit and helping others. The Pine Ridge Reservation is our universal project, but we are seeking local folks we can help, as well. We will always be working on projects for the Lakota families we work with, but we will visit the elderly in our community and help those who are brought to our attention in whatever way we can.

The website version of all this, where you, my friends who live far away can still be involved in the studies and with Pine Ridge, can be found at KC Willis Ministries.

On Sunday....join me as I tell you about a little girl. A little girl whose mattress sits on cinder blocks, who doesn't have a sofa, shoes that fit or any toys...a little girl who said she loves to play princess and she loves Jesus.  A little girl named Liberty Yellow Bird. Liberty. She has set me free.



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I Hear Ya

Many times the world of a trailer park can be a microcosm of society as a whole. One of the trailer parks we lived in when I was growing up was exceptional in its sheer numbers of interesting characters. Back then I felt like I lived in a really strange place....now I am quite sure I did.

Two of my favorites in this cast that even Hollywood couldn't have made up...was a couple I would babysit for occasionally who had four children...every single one of them was born deaf. He was a policeman who worked nights and she was an overwhelmed woman who pulled her hair out by day...well come to think of it she did that by day and by night. Her voice was loud and shrill and I always assumed that the day she was born, when the doctor smacked the bottom of her feet...or whatever...and she began to cry, everyone in the delivery room plugged their ears and went "Whoa! What the heck!" Her children were rambunctious and happy...probably because they were blissfully unaware of the sounds of nails on chalkboards or their mother's voice. Perhaps very few others noticed, but I have always been strangely sensitive to the audio of life. Loud noises will sometimes make me burst into tears, which makes those around me say "Whoa! What the heck!" So perhaps Marilyn the Mom and I were just opposite ends of some weird spectrum.

Their family was known all over the trailer park. Mostly because it was unusual for one family to have hearing parents and four totally deaf children...and because the parents fought...alot...with the windows open. They seemed to think that because their children couldn't hear them fight....neither could we. I remember many times showing up at the trailer to babysit and now I see clearly the kids not looking at their parents unless they were being spoken to with flying, manic fingers. In the wisdom of years that I now possess...I do believe, that while they couldn't hear the discord, they could see it and feel it and tried their best to ignore it. Many years later someone sent me a newspaper article showing where the dad had pulled someone from a burning building. If only he had seen the smoke pouring from his own home. I learned just enough sign language to say "don't do that,"  "thank you" and  "yes, I promise I'll come back."

In my own life I have lived close to God from time to time, but honestly, mostly lived my life as if he was speaking sign language and I hadn't learned the Alpha-bet. Best excuse in the world when you want to ignore something God is saying is just to admit " Sorry, no hable Trinity". When I would get in trouble, however, it was a whole nutha story...then and only then would I scream for Him at the top of my lungs. He knows that language, but he's not impressed...nor is he deaf. I would shout (in my very best Marilyn imitation) "WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU??!!" To which He responded calmly and probably sadly..."Right where you put me...on the outside of the trailer listening through the windows." 

I don't do that anymore. I don't fight with the world, fight with my short-comings and my problems and hope the neighbors don't hear. I just worry about God being able to hear me, whether I speak the language of despair, guilt, or doubt. And I leave the door open, not just the window, by offering up thanks and offering up myself..especially when I have messed up. God always tries to correct us lovingly (and often creatively) in private....and if we don't get it...He will correct us in public. He will let the people in our lives see us fail and hear us fight with ourselves...screaming that can be heard all over the trailer park...loud noises of failure that make me cry. But when all is said and done and He sees the words written on my heart, He comes to my home, whether it's mobile or not and says..."don't do that"..."thank you"..."yes, I promise I'll come back."

A language I totally understand.




If you are enjoying The Trinity and The Trailer Park please leave a comment and let me know and do share with your friends. We need to all share encouraging words more often.

Random Facts of Kindness

Blogging the Baptist Hymnal....Page 7..."Let All on Earth Their Voices Raise"



Joplin. In my world, the world of the American west of old...Joplin was the famous "jumping off" place for wagon trains full of cowboys, pioneers and home-grown adventurers. If you were from the east...wanted to go west...you went to Joplin come springtime. This springtime the thing that has made Joplin famous went from west to east...a 13-mile reverse order of devastation and grief . It is the jumping-off point for all our compassion and confusion.

When things like this happen....and they've been happening way too often these past few years...we definitely catch a glimpse of our better angels...the best of what is inside of us. For a few days we are them and they need us. We post prayers on Facebook, tweet our support, and text to have a donation to the Red Cross put on our phone bill. In other words...we love our neighbor. But then other things that don't require any compassion on our part, like politics or the Kardashians, take over the airwaves for a few days and we forget. Actually we might even be a little relieved. Anderson Cooper goes home and we are free to not look at the devastated area any longer....free again to focus on the landscape in our own interior lives; insides that perhaps have had the bark stripped right off our dream trees. We tell ourselves we will rebuild better than ever.

But what if we never forgot these desperate times? Think about what we do when things are desperate. We comfort one another, we hear they need diapers and food and we scramble to provide those essentials. Prayers are sent up for the boy whose mother can not find him...for the elderly who are perhaps wandering the rubble alone. In times like these we just can not stand to see our brothers and sisters suffer so. Joplin drove us to our knees, to our wallets, to sort through our extra household goods and for just a few days the focus was not on our problems. I am going to ask you to pretend that things are still desperate...right where you live...because they are.

I know as I write this blog that there are folks here in Longmont, CO that don't know where the next box of diapers are going to come from or would love to have more food in their cupboards for their family. Right now there is a mother who can't find her son and a forgotten senior marks off the days of their life in despair. Yes, there are agencies in place to help, but when we hear of the challenges and needs in our community and we say somebody should really do something about that....well guess what? We are somebody. I read somewhere recently where the writer said he was afraid to ask God why He won't help the suffering people out there, because he was afraid God would ask him the same question.

OK so maybe you need to work your way up to gathering up food or visiting a nursing home, but here's a fact...seed is connected to harvest. Plant a seed everyday of even the smallest gesture of love (or even like) and see what happens. Bless and you will be blessed. Smile at people, hold a door open, be polite. You may be the brightest spot in a mighty bleak day. You may be smiling at the mother whose son has vanished. Treat everyone with gentleness for we are all fighting a battle. We are all desperate. Jesus said whatever we do for the least we are doing for Him. I would smile and hold a door open for him. Just as He opened a door for me.

I challenge you to be aware of being good to someone every day for the next 40 days and watch what comes back to you. Little things, big things, unseen things.  I have found one of the things I love to do the most is what I call pray in passing. See a homeless person on the street as you drive by in traffic....say out loud...."Show yourself to Him God. Let him know you are there. Bless him."  See someone sitting by themselves at a bus stop...pray for him. Just a quick blessing. You can feel the power of your words putting things in motion for them and the lifting of your spirits...and you in turn are blessed. Get this please. You in turn are blessed.

In my travels across America I pass many prisons. I used to think wow people actually live in there. Now I understand that people actually live in there and as I pass I will raise my hand toward the place and bless the barbed wire asking God to please show His love to someone in there today. I drive away KNOWING I have opened a door for God to work and I totally believe he is touching someone as I speak.

It is time for people who say they love God and especially those who say they are followers of the Christ....to grab hold of the lesson he most often taught. Love. This a new commandment I give to you. Love your neighbor as yourself.  And remember the worst thing you can do is feel bad because you are just not there yet...with the whole love walk thing. Be determined that you will try and not condemned if you don't. But I promise you...if you will ever get the hang of it and make it a part of your life...you will want it over and over again. You might even say...you will become desperate for it.



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