2nd annual community Thanksgiving.

Give us this day our daily bread...





On Wednesday evening the Oakland house had many reasons to give thanks...
We had our second annual community Thanksgiving with 30 people seated around the dinner table.

So many beautiful people filled our home on November 26... People of all ages and backgrounds surrounded the dinner table. Life stories were exchanged, kids filled the house with laughter, and every one had bellies full of Thanksgiving goodness.





It shouldn't take a holiday in November to make us grateful for the community that surrounds us each day. Our home is a place that always has tea in stock for Sherry to sit at our kitchen table and talk. Our home has games, books, and movies for kids who stop by. Most of all it is a place where life should always be shared, and people's voices heard... Our hope is that this small place in a large world would be a haven for whoever may walk inside any day of the year....






p.s. Thank you YouthWorks! for being so gracious to provide the majority of the food on Wednesday evening.

laundry & liberation.

“Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pigrimage? Who indeed knows why there can be comfort in a world of desolation? Now God be thanked that there is a beloved one who can lift up the heart in suffering, that one can play with a child in the face of such misery. Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal. Aye, even the name of a river that runs no more.
Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such a comfort, when one’s own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom. Oh God, my God, do not Thou forsake me. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, if Thou art with me….– Alan Paton (Cry, The Beloved Country)

I was in the basement doing laundry the other day. My 17 year old neighbor came down to the basement to check if I was done using the washing machine. We ended up talking for quite awhile. She is 32 weeks pregnant, expecting her second child. shared with me how she woud have never imagined her life ending up like this. She told me she hopes her brother who is a freshmen in High School doesn't make the same choices she has. This young woman still has dreams, and she wants to go to college. She puts her 1 1/2 year old daughter to bed each night, stays up to do her homework in a 3 bedroom apartment among 7 other family members.

I've heard countless stories all unique... It is hard to wrap my head around so many of them. Often, I cannot.. I can't take the pain away, I cannot fix the lives of those around me. I can only pray, and acknowledge that my liberation is bround up with theirs...

Prayer for election day.

Jim Wallis of Sojourners wrote this... Powerful stuff...

On the eve of this historic election, let us pause for a moment of thanks. We should thank God for the men and women who committed themselves to establish a new nation, in which voting was possible. We should thank God for the courage of the women of the Suffrage movement who pioneered the path to the 19th Amendment and ensured women the right to vote. We should thank God for those who risked and sacrificed their lives to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to allow all our citizens, regardless of the color of their skin, to vote.
We also pray for forgiveness because there are still some in our country whose votes are not allowed to be cast or counted, even in recent elections. We pray for protection of all the voters and the votes of this election.
We pray for the candidates, their family and their staff—who have worked tirelessly to offer the country the vision of the future

they deeply believe in. Give them rest and a sense of peace, no matter what the outcome of the election. We pray for all the citizen volunteers who have made democracy better by their work on this election campaign.
We pray most of all against a spirit of fear. The scriptures say that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of love, a spirit of power and a strong mind.” Help us to remember the words of our Lord Jesus, who reminds us that love casts out fear and to be not afraid. If the Scriptures say, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil,” certainly we can make it through election day. No matter how we vote, let us vote more for the visions, ideas, and candidates that best represent our best values rather than voting against candidates simply because of the negative and often manipulative things that others have said about them.
As a people of faith, we do not find in our scripture, we can not locate in any sacred text, a mandate to support a particular candidate for president or vote for a particular political party during this election. While the scriptures may not say what box we should check on election day, we must strive to be clear about the priorities of the kingdom of God and how we can best impact the common good. Voting is one part of the prophet’s instruction to “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
Today we also pray for those who will vote differently than we do, for their own reasons also deeply rooted in faith. And we pray, despite the outcome of the election tomorrow, that we will find the ways to build bridges and work together for the common good of the country we all dwell in. And may our votes tomorrow be guided less by a fear of our neighbor and more by a hope for the future.
God has blessed all the nations of the world, not just America. But we pray tomorrow for God’s special blessing on our nation, and that the opportunities to fulfill our country’s greatest possibilities might be greatly enlarged.