fasting is dumb<\/em>. At this precise moment I couldn\u2019t agree more.<\/p>\nI walk outside and see the cops sitting in their car in the parking lot. I\u2019m not sure why, but they often hang out there surfing the internet in their cars. I wave to him and unlock the door for Jesse, a homeless man who was just released from prison. He\u2019s coming by later on to meet Bart, a man from our church who is going to help him with some paperwork. Jesse was born in the 1950\u2019s in rural Kentucky in his family\u2019s hearth room with only a midwife present. He\u2019s never had a birth certificate. We\u2019ve got to find a way to get a him one or Kansas won\u2019t issue him an ID card.<\/p>\n
I sip my coffee and watch traffic pick up in front of the church. A car from down the block starts up in a driveway, a puff of white smoke shooting from the tailpipe. This guy\u2019s muffler is clearly not entact. Quite a massive sound for such a small car as he makes a left turn right in front of my window and heads off to work. If I\u2019m sitting here at 4:30 when he heads home, I\u2019ll hear him coming from a full block away.<\/p>\n
I breathe deeply and the Jesus Prayer emerges from somewhere deep inside me. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner<\/em>. The words link up with my breathing and I sit here, listening to the hum of my space heater and feeling content. I\u2019m ashamed to say it\u2019s a bit of a foreign feeling for me. I stop praying to wonder why. Why am I content? And then it hits me.<\/p>\nI am surrounded by neighbors and I am grateful.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m sitting here in my office on a Friday morning, trying to make myself work. It\u2019s 7am and the neighborhood is waking up. My kids are home asleep \u2013 no school today for them. But here in the neighborhood kids are already on the move. I\u2019ve seen a couple of young hispanic men from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":5359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1632,426,1631,1630,474],"class_list":["post-5358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jesus-prayer","tag-lent","tag-neighboring","tag-neighbors","tag-redemption-church"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>I\u2019m sitting here in my office on a Friday morning, trying to make myself work. It\u2019s 7am and the neighborhood is waking up. My kids are home asleep \u2013 no school today for them. But here in the neighborhood kids are already on the move. I\u2019ve seen a couple of young hispanic men from the youth group already, walking to a friend\u2019s house to catch a ride, or crossing the street to watch the neighbor\u2019s kids until it\u2019s time for them to go to school. A homeless man who often spends Sunday morning with our congregation is walking past the church on the sidewalk. He\u2019s probably headed down to the Quick Trip to grab some coffee. He looks cold.<\/p>\n