Brother Blue

CHRISTIAN/DIGNITY
Part of a places character is the characters that make up the place. Christian is one of those characters. The group finally had the chance to experience him Sunday night at mass.
He made his appearance sometime during the opening song of mass. All of a sudden there was a 16 year old standing in front of the choir.
He was waving his arms madly.
He was exhorting them to sing louder with more feeling.
He was telling them when to start and stop.
He look more like he was dancing than singing, as if the choir was taking there cue on how to sing simply from his emotional state and his dance.
After mass he is quick to ask how you liked the music. When you tell him you loved it he wells with pride.
There is just one thing. Christian is not associated with the choir in any way (other than these impromptu performances he does at mass). He just stands in front of them and does his thing.
If this were my choir it would drive me crazy! It is obvious does frustrate the actual choir director. It also gets under Fr. Jack’s skin.
But they let it happen.
The best I can tell is because they understand dignity. They meet Christian where he is. He is completely harmless (even when he is frustrating). He feels like he is part of the community. He feels like he belongs.
Which is good, because if we are doing this church/family thing right, he does belong.
We just forget sometimes.
LET’S DO COFFEE OR GO TO PERU
It made me smile every time it happened. We would be at the parish and we would meet someone new. They would ask where we are from and we would list the 8 locations we were from. They would ask how we know each other.
There would be this pause and then someone would just point at me.
The group was as random as can be. Simply people who I had colleted over the last nine months.
There were people in the group who I had know a lifetime (other who felt like a lifetime) while others I had known all of 45 minutes before asking them to join us.
One of the highlights of the whole experience was reconnecting with a college friend. The first Wednesday of December we had connected through facebook. By Thursday morning she had a plane ticket booked.
The best part about it was the 5 years we had not talked didn’t exist. It was just like we were sitting in the Spellman lounge giving each other a hard time.

As promised, a few more stories of Peru. There are about 20 more of these to come this week.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” ASKED THE CAB DRIVER
All but one member of our group came in Tuesday night around midnight. One came in early Tuesday because she was coming from Brazil. On our cab ride from the airport to the hotel the cab driver asked about our time in Peru. (Somehow he could tell we weren’t locals.)
The conversation went like this (in Spanish):
Driver: How long are you in Peru?
Me: Nine days
D: How long are you in Lima?
M: One day
D: Where else are you going?
M: Chimbote
D: You must be here to work.
Chimbote is a city of 400k people. It is a seaport that at one time produced over 50% of the world’s anchovies (most of them are shipped to the far east for fertilizer). It is the driest dustiest humid place on the earth. Nothing grows without irrigation. As you are drive out of town in any direction it looks a desert and not in the southwest US type desert, but in the wasteland type desert. It is not list in travel guides.
As I was picking up our bus tickets the sales rep looked perplexed because she could not believe anyone (much less foreigners) would be getting off in Chimbote and not going on to Trujillo. Trujillo is just to the north by less than one hundred miles. It is a beautiful beach town. Lots of tourist. Lots of leisure.
Not Chimbote.
HUGS AND KISSES
While in Chimbote, everywhere we went we were greeted with kisses on the cheek and hugs. Even if it was walking down the street. The little old ladies wouldn’t just say “Buenos Dias” but they would also want a kiss you on the cheek.
It was heart warming and welcoming to the point it was disorienting to walk around Lima at the end of trip and have people not even make eye contact with us.
THE ONLY JUGGLER I HAVE EVER SEEN
Brad and I had the chance to juggle. Fr. Jack set it up so we would do a short show after the Saturday night and Sunday morning masses in the parish courtyard.
Everyone in our group was encouraged to pack light, so we didn’t lots of props along. Brad brought a few stage balls and some beanbags. For club passing we went to the old stand by, plungers.
Katie (one of the full time volunteers at the parish) had arranged for us to get 6 plungers. The plungers we sitting on the floor, out of the way, in the dining room because Brad and I were going to practice after dinner one night. During the meal, one of the members of the kitchen staff, Connie who couldn’t be taller than 4′ 10″, ran in to the dining room grabbed one of the plungers and ran out.
I tried franticly to catch up with her before she could use it, but no avail. She vanished. A few minutes latter she returned with a damp plunger.
So after 10 minutes of trying to clean and disinfect the plungers we were ready to practice.
The nice thing about juggling is it requires no language. You can just do it.
After the second show we gave out APeX Family Buttons that have Brad and my faces on them. (On some level it was a bit horrifying to see people all over the neighborhood with our faces pinned to them.)
The buttons also have our web site on them. One of the middle school age kids walked up to me, as he pointed at the button, he said, “goo-ga-lay, goo-ga-lay”. It took me a moment or two to realize he was saying the Spanish pronunciation of google.
Brad reported that one of the guys who had been helping us out all week (age 17-19) said that we were the first jugglers he had ever seen in person.

I am home and already on the road again.
Much writing is coming from the trip. I have a file filled with stories and reflections to share. Just need a little cleaning up at this point. Also, there is so much I am going to unspool them a little at time.
Right now I am very disoriented. I have gotten e-mails and texts from much of the group and they are in the same place.
While walking through the Memphis airport tonight it felt like the day after a rock show in which I have forgotten my earplugs. I can hear want is going on but it is all muted. It is as if I am inside my own head, and am not fully tuned in to what is going on around me.
I can remember after living in my car for about a year, I was back in DC having dinner with a friend. I was just starting to process the transformation I was going through on the road. As we talked I had very little energy for what she was saying, but when I started talking about what was going on in my head, I came alive.
She was offended and called me on it. At the time I thought I was just a big selfish oaf (which I am sure was true on some level). In retrospect I realize that I simply had so much new information I was all that I could see (which the definition of selfish).
I did it again last night. A friend about 4pm needing a kind ear and support because of what had unfolded over the afternoon. I physically showed up, but did her a great disservice in my presents. I was fully stuck in my head (and the nap I hadn’t woken up from).
Again, selfish. Should have done better.
It is this amazing place to be. In ones head. When you don’t know which way is up.
It is not that I now have this new set of priorities, now that I have seen how some live I am now a completely new creation and it is time to act.
Instead, I don’t know what I am. As I return home, I know some of the things I through were really important, in this moment seem less important. But that doesn’t mean I know what is important. It doesn’t mean I know who I am.
It seem I simply know I am disoriented.
Like a river bed that has been stirred up. The water is murky. I can’t see much.
In time the water will settle.
I wonder who I will be and where I will be standing when that does.

For some reason it has been really hard to write on this trip. I am not sure why that is. I think it is because I am tired. I came on the trip tired and most afternoons when I should have been napping I have been hanging out and talking with member of our group and other groups. So at mass tonight I decided I am going to write much more when I get home.
These are the stories I am going to write.
Elvis and my mother
Catching up with college friends
Jack the rock star
Dust, dust, and more dust
Christian/dignity
Why it great to lead a group
Why it is hard to lead a group
Hugs and kisses
The juggler I have ever seen
The sing off
Dirt floors and the first world
You should be here/You shouldn’t be here
and many more…

I am sorry I have not blogged more. I have a feeling more is going to come later.
Lots of good conversation.
Lots of laughs.
More than a few tears.
We are walking this together.
We are being stretched.
How do you reconcile what you see here with what you know at home?
The group is great. People are open. They are willing to share the questions they know there are no easy answers for.
I guess a trip like this is about questions that poke and prod us. It is not about answers.
I would be writing more, but I am spending my free time talking with the group. Learning and growing.
Many great stories to come…
PS: Team Farmer has done a much better job of blogging than me. Check it out at Farmer Five

The crew made it into Lime on Tuesday safly but late. We were all to the hote by 2am.
Slow morning of food, email, chaging money and then a 6 hour bus to chimbote.
Most of the group was in first class on the first level of the bus. Three of us were in sterage, which was very nice. Peru has one of the best bus systems in the world in my mind. Food, movies, nice seats, and bingo in which you could win a free bus ticket.
We were greated warmly by Fr Jack Davis at the bus station and wisked to parish for dinner and orintation.
Today was a very long but very good day. A number of us joined the parish for vespars. I saw many familar faces form my last visit and we were welcome with hugs and kisses on the checks.
It was looking to be a beautiful day. (It is summer here and the temp was in the upper seventies)
After breakfast we took a tour of the all the parish projects and so homes. It is hard to expain the level of poverty that is here. Dirt floors, thatch wall, and $1 a day income. That doesn´t do it justice. Even if you saw a well crafted documentry you would have no idea what it is like. To walk into the homes. Stunning.
The afternoon was filled with take apart two of these homes which are in need of repair. It took about 2 hours to pull things apart. The plan in to go back in and build new walls and roofs on Saturday. It is amazing that you take a home that is falling apart and make it look worse, but we managed. There was so much dust in the roof that as well pulled things down dust and dirt went ever where. I was under the roofs we were pulling apart and ever inch of skin not covered was black with dirt.
After dinner we went to mass. As mass progressed we had more kinds climbing into our laps and holding our hands. It was touching.
The rockstar of the trip has been Jack Farmer my almost 6 year old godson. Today while we were working on the houses, he played soccer (a sport he doesnt know) with a bunch of boys his age. It was fun to watch him try and figure it out when he speaks no spanish and they spoke on english. At the end of the game all the local boys insisted on us taking a team picture with Jack in the middle, holding the ball.
One traveling in our group pointed out the fact that none of the kids comment on brads hair be all wanted to play tag, hide and seek, and juts running around with jack. He has handled this so well. He is way overhis head with food to eat and getting to do what he wants. It has been a lot of fun to have him around.
After mass we sat in a circle and talked the day and what is running through our heads.
At is all questions and no answers.
Where is justice here?
Way are able bodies people watching us do work?
How to I take this home to others?
How do I not feed depressed in so much suffering?
How can I go back to my life worring about what I worry about when there is this?
How come I was born in the US and not here?
All questions, no answers.
There have been tears and lots of being twisted around. Hopefully it if for the better.
And this is just day one in Chimbote.

In Peru.
Flights good.
Managed three taxis in a language I hardly speak.
One team member in this AM. The rest of the crew wil be tonight midnightish.
Long bus tomorrow to Chimbote.
Details to come then.

On my last trip to Peru I met an interesting high school senior named Nathan. Nathan is more focused than most people his age. He was already taking college classes his senior year of high school. He had a good idea of what he was going to study and what his path was going to be after school.
I had the chance to catch up with Nathan right before Thanksgiving as he was helping out at a retreat Brad and I were speaking at. When I asked how college and his big plan was going he said, “Actually I am still living at home going to a community college because I have started an organization.”
His story went something like this…He had always wanted to be a Big Brother. Once he was finally old enough he found out he lived too far away to qualify to be a big brother. Most people would have just thrown their hands up in the air in disgust and moved on. Not Nathan. He did something about it. And what he did wasn’t small.
He did this: Granparents and Grandkids

In the fall I worked on two book projects. One has turned into a 10 CD series as well which I am still working on. The other was finished in October.
The book is called “Surefire Stress Busters For Youth Ministers.” Despite what the title reads, the book is not for Youth Ministers. It is for everyone. Stress management is the same regardless of what causes the stress.
Ten minutes a day can change your health and disposition. I believe in this book so much I am basically giving it away to my blog readers. I have a stack of 30 books that I am looking at right now that I am going to sell for $1 each (90% off the cover price). And regardless the number of books you buy, the shipping is the same (hint: buy one for a friend who really needs it.)
Get info on the book!

I am not a big fan of my own birthday. I usually let it pass without much fan fare. With the advent of social networking we now know when everyone’s birthday is. I received many awesome birthday wishes. Thanks to all.
If you want to do something form my birthday (which I wouldn’t expect) please consider this e-mail I sent to the APeX mailing list this evening.