Only a few people know this piece of my testimony and I think it is important to know about me to understand why I am where I am doing what I am.
I'm quiet. My spoken words are few. I think and write in more depth than I would ever say out loud. According to my parents, it was a long time before I used real words to speak, usually grunting or pointing to communicate what I wanted. Fast forward through the awkward middle school and high school years of not growing as quickly as other kids, not wanting any attention or ridicule to come my way. I found keeping quiet was the most strategic way to achieve this.
Going forward to my freshman year of college, I had very few friends. Yes, I'd talk to my randomly selected roommate when he was there. Yes, if someone on my wing was around, I'd talk to them. Often not exactly sure what I was doing in college, no real long term goals in my mind except that I'd probably be working towards a symphony job. What I had going for me going into college--had a girlfriend, was in a good small Bible study, was enjoying what I was learning in my music classes. Heading into the second semester, I no longer had a girlfriend (which took a toll emotionally), the Bible study dwindled down to just me and the Bible study leader (I didn't think it was going to continue), and again, still had very few friends. Being the quiet guy I was, it wouldn't take too much effort to go a couple days at a time without talking. Please don't feel bad for me, I'm an introvert and prefer spending time by myself over being around lots of people.
I wouldn't say this happened in an instant, and I don't think I realized this until years later, but what happened that second semester proved to be a pivotal part of my life. Andrew, my Bible study leader who was a senior that year, could've easily decided that it wasn't worth continuing a study when barely anybody was able or wanted to. He came to me, approached me and said he wanted to hang out once a week. No study, no agenda, just hang out. I agreed, mainly because it was very strange for me for a senior to want to spend time getting to know a freshman who didn't talk much, had really very little to offer in relationships. I would eventually look back and notice that this was a clear example of God's pursuit of us. No visible reason for Him to devote concern for me, yet it made a huge difference for how I viewed myself and how I eventually viewed others.
In the next couple of years, I received new eyes. If I went to Primetime (the weekly meetings for a campus ministry I attended), if I saw someone sitting by themselves, I saw me. He might just need a friend, not just someone to talk to them, but to relate to them. My eyes would look to those ignored, those neglected, those forgotten. Cars need to be filled with gasoline in order to function correctly. Humans physically need to be filled with calories in order to function correctly. I feel that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, humans need unconditional love and displays of grace in order to obtain dignity and be truly full. This new way of looking at life that God put in my heart led to many decisions and experiences that led to my eventual ditching of music as a career path and my path towards the inner city. I feel many urban areas are forgotten about, ignored, or generalized. Imagine a man from the inner city. Describe them. You might have to describe them based on what you see or hear on the news. What could it look like if instead of isolated from people in the inner city, who are mostly black, people from the majority group sought to bring the minority into the whole of society.
Here's an excerpt from the book Generous Justice written by Tim Keller.
In most societies, physically handicapped people are forced to adapt to the life patterns of the nonhandicapped, but that is not what happened on the Vineyard. One day Croce was interviewing an older island resident and she asked him what the hearing people thought of the deaf people. 'We didn't think anything about them, they were just like everyone else,' he replied. Croce responded that it must have been necessary for everyone to write things down on paper in order to communicate with them. The man responded in surprise, 'No, you see everyone here spoke sign language.' The interviewer asked if he meant the deaf people's families. No, he answered, 'Everybody in town--I used to speak it, my mother did, everybody.' Another interviewee said, 'Those people weren't handicapped. They were just deaf.' One other remembered, 'They [the deaf] were like anybody else. I wouldn't be overly kind because they, they'd be sensitive to that. I'd just treat them the way I treated anybody.'
Indeed, what had happened was that an entire community had disadvantaged itself en masse for the sake of a minority. Instead of making the nonhearing minority learn to read lips, the whole hearing majority learned signing. All the hearing became bilingual, so deaf people were able to enter into full social participation. as a result of 'doing justice' (disadvantaging themselves) the majority 'experienced shalom'--it included people in the social fabric who in other places would have fallen through it. 'When they had socials or anything up in Chilmark, why, everybody would go and they [the deaf] enjoyed it, just as much as anybody did. they used to have fun--we all did....They were part of the crowd, they were accepted. They were fishermen and farmers and everything else....Sometimes, if there were more deaf people than hearing there, everyone would speak sign language--just to be polite, you know.' Deafness as a 'handicap' largely disappeared.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Croce's research was the revelation of how hearing people had their own communication abilities enhanced. They found many uses for signing besides communication with the deaf. Children signed to one another during sermons in church or behind a teacher's back at school. Neighbors could sign to one another over distances in a field or even through a spyglass telescope. One woman remembers how her father would be able to stand on a windy cliff and sign his intentions to fishermen below. Another remembers how sick people who could not speak were able to sign to make their needs known.
In other words, the 'disadvantage' that the hearing Vineyarders assumed--the effort and trouble to learn another language--turned out to be for their benefit after all. their new abilities made life easier and more productive. they changed their culture in order to include an otherwise disadvantaged minority but in the process made themselves and their society richer.
Martha's Vineyard was a unique situation. However, in every time and culture, the principle holds. The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks."
The way I see the world, thanks to the Lord, has changed big time and my heart just seems to gravitate towards those that people seem to write off, ignore, or not take a second glance at. I'm quiet. I like to think of multiple ways to do the same thing so I tend to make decisions and act slowly. Anyway, I hope this connection between college, my personality, and working in inner city Jacksonville made sense to you. I never know if what I'm feeling or thinking about is ever fully understood through my words, but thank you for reading all the way down here.
I will try to give more ministry updates as far as what's been going on. I'm learning a ton of information and feel the need to get these thoughts down to help me remember them. Thank you for your continued prayers.
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