Friday, November 30, 2012

ADVENT Week 1

Welcome to the ADVENT-ure 2012:
We will be posting an Advent Reflection each week of Advent in December. If you want to learn more, visit: http://theseed.ca/advent  

Week 1 (December 2 - First Sunday of Advent – December 8)

An Advent Reflection:
Preparing the way:
One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 40:3-5 (NIV)
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord[
a];
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.[
b]
Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The season of Advent is all about taking intentional time to remember the God who was, and is, and will come again. It’s about remembering his work and words on Earth, encountering His Spirit and presence here in our lives today, and it’s about preparing a way for Him while we wait on His return.
I love the verse from Isaiah, because it has so much imagery. It speaks of the wilderness. I often go through seasons in my faith where I feel lost in the wilderness, and in this verse a voice is calling out to me in that lost place and shouting, “prepare the way of the LORD” he is coming for you! The next image is of the mountains and the valleys, an image that resonates deeply with me through my work at the Mustard Seed. At the Mustard Seed we walk alongside the valley dwellers, and in Isaiah, I hear the promise that the valleys will be raised up and the mountains will be lowered all will be equal when the Lord returns. This imagery encourages me in my work as I attempt to create opportunities for mountain dwellers and valley dwellers to meet one another and from a relationship of solidarity, justice, and equality as we work to prepare the way for the Kingdom to come more fully here on Earth. The last part of this verse speaks of the glory of the Lord being revealed to all of us together. The glory of his Kingdom will be revealed to all. This image comforts me and gives me tremendous hope that one day, all of us will come to know his amazing love and justice!
May this advent season be one of preparing the way of the Lord in your own life. May you take the time to examine where there are valleys and mountains in your life and make them equal.  If you are wandering lost in the desert or the wilderness, above the din of the holiday season, may you hear the voice of the Lord calling for you!
The winter can be a dark season. At times it might seem that our spirits even mimic the season, we may go through a tough “winter” season, and find rebirth as the “spring” reawakens our spirit in faithfulness. I will leave you with a final video, one of Bringing Light and finding renewal in dark times. http://vimeo.com/33949006
An Advent Invitation: (an idea for getting active during the advent season)
Where can you see Valleys and Mountains in your community? Can you work this advent season to level that bumpy area?
How can you be a light to others in the darkness? Think of people in your community that you can be a light to through a random act of kindness today.
The Mustard Seed has many opportunities for you to get involved today and throughout the season. http://www.theseed.ca/christmas.html - Check out the opportunities in your city to be involved with bringing the light of Christmas to the inner city.
Have you had an advent reflection of your own to share? Write a blog for us and submit it to: JenniferFast@theseed.ca to be posted on our blog.
Prayers for Advent:
This week, please pray for people in our community who are wandering in the wilderness, or lost in a desert. Pray that they would see a light this Christmas and hear the Lord calling out for them.
Please pray for all of our community members who sleep outside in the literal wilderness. Pray that they would be blanketed in safety and protection, and that one day soon the opportunity for a real home would become a reality for them.
A Prayer Excerpt from Common Book of Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals:
O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you as the day rises to meet the sun.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Come, let us sing to the LORD: let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
May your justice be a light to guide us: and your mercy a help on the way.
Readings: Psalm 101:1-4 Isaiah 10:5-19 Luke 1:5-25
May your justice be a light to guide us: and your mercy a help on the way.

Sign up for our advent email list (paulacornell@theseed.ca) or follow our twitter feed (@mustardseedyeg) and our blog to receive a weekly Advent reflection focused on Justice, Poverty, and the reason for the season; Christ.

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Home is Where The Heart Is

Elvis Presley used to sing a song… 
I'll be home for Christmas   
You can plan on me
Please have snow
And mistletoe
And presents 'neath the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams


Unfortunately a home for Christmas is just that - a dream, for the over 3500 homeless in this city, over 200 whom are children. Christmas looks quite different when you’re homeless.

If you live far from home, some years you will travel far to be home for Christmas. You'll even suffer the indignities that traveling by air or bus presents this time of year to be home at Christmas. You'll gladly sleep on a fold-out sofa.

Every day of the year we long to belong, but at no time is that more true than Christmas. You want to go to some place where everybody knows your name. Your home is where they understand you. As Robert Frost put it, "Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in."

I think Jesus understood the homeless…

Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at this time of year, knew what it was to be homeless. He once said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Luke 9:58) When he began his earthly ministry, he really had no place to call home for very long. He wandered throughout Galilee and Judea. He had some friends who gave him a place to stay. There were Martha, Mary and Lazarus in Bethany. But a place of his own he did not have. He was homeless.

In fact he was kind of homeless at birth if you think about it, in that he was born away from his home. And when he got to Bethlehem there was no room at the inn – so he was born in a stable.

The homeless that I know are amazing people, with amazing stories, and often amazing gifts. Life has happened to them in ways we can sometimes not even comprehend, but they have become my friends, and in some cases, part of my extended family.

They are those who we choose to reconcile ourselves with and to provide a home. And it is in that relationship, in that partnership, that we discover that change is possible, and the greatest motivator for that change is a home - a place to belong.

A home is a place where the first steps for the homeless are taken. A move away from whatever symptoms have overwhelmed their lives, where they can find hope and be whole.

- Bill Nixon,  Director of Public Education, The Mustard Seed
@billbytheminute 


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Friday, November 23, 2012

Blogger Challenge - Rylan - Eating Limitations

I like eating.

Anyone who knows me, knows how true this statement is. Whether they’ve made the mistake of looking away from their dinner for more than two seconds, or accidentally tell me they’ve ordered pizza, one of my best skills is making food disappear.

So,  when The Mustard Seed put out a challenge for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, I thought the most difficult of all the Awareness Adventures would be to cut down on how much I eat everyday. By a lot. So for the last week:

1 - I haven’t eaten breakfast.
2 - I haven’t snacked.
3 - I have eaten lunch and dinner at specific times. No eating outside those two meal windows.
4 - Meals I do eat are smaller portions than normal. No food comas allowed. 
5
- All the meals have been inexpensive, high calorie, and accessible to the inner city community.

I’ve tried to adopt the routine that directs life on the street: organizing your day around when you can eat. If you aren’t at an inner city community agency when food is served, it means you’ve missed a meal, or maybe even having food that entire day. This danger causes a lot of stress, and put limits on health, well-being, and happiness.

Aside from my 5 point eating plan, I tried to keep everything else in my schedule the same. This meant working full-time, exercising 1 to 2 hours a day, and going to the social events I’d promised Facebook I’d be attending. At first, it was kind of fun not to eat any vegetables, but after a few days I was actually craving broccoli. And carrots. When all of a sudden the foods you’re used to having when you’re hungry (or just feel like eating because you’re bored), are out of reach, it changes your daily frame of mind.

Food becomes the main priority. Going to bed with your stomach grumbling becomes the new norm. After a few days, my energy levels dropped, exercising became harder, and it took my body longer to recover. Sleeping more seemed like a sneaky way of countering this, but since homeless people don’t have that option, I instead started sleeping less every night – from 7-8 hours to 5-6. Focusing on tasks was more difficult, and articulating ideas was harder than usual.

Then, 5 days in, I started getting a sore throat, which soon turned into a harsh cough. Normally, when I get run-down and feeling sick, I eat lots of good food, and get lots of rest. Unfortunately, homeless folks don’t have that option either, and so I stuck to my diet plan. There’s vitamin C in cheap bologna, right?

On the last day of the fasting challenge, an awful feeling in my stomach was added to my symptoms. My body was starting to get really mad at me. It was my final indication of what it’s like to be homeless everyday. To set your routine around eating. To be worried about going hungry. To be tired. To have your body feeling sore. To get sick, and not have an easy way of getting better.  And then, while facing these problems on a daily basis, the homeless have to confront other issues, like finding work, shelter, and staying warm.

Good food goes a long way to giving folks a foundation to take on these other problems. To contrast a week of eating meals people in the inner city have access to, for the next week I’m going to do the reverse: eat balanced, healthy meals which are unavailable to the homeless.  It’ll be more expensive, but I’m guessing the benefits will outweigh the monetary cost.

- Rylan Kafara

You can visit Ryaln's blog at: http://thepastisunwritten.wordpress.com/
Follow Rylan on Twitter: @pastisunwritten


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Thursday, November 15, 2012

A New Narrative

I started work at The Mustard Seed in January of 2012 and met with Jim the very first week. He sat across from me and told me that one year prior he had a full-time job, allowing him to move into his own apartment. With all his bills paid for that month, he was under no financial strain for the first time in a long time. Better yet, he was clean from alcohol after an almost lifelong battle with it. Sober, financially secure, and housed independently, Jim had achieved a level of stability. Jim sat back, looked around at his furnished apartment and then asked himself, “Now what? Is this all there is to life?” He proceeded to buy some alcohol, drink it, get drunk, and slide back into alcoholism and eventually homelessness.

Jim has been in and out of treatment for years, and since I first started working with him, he has gone from sober to being completely dependent on alcohol several times. I have met with him consistently over the past 9 months and have at times hit a wall in my ability to hope for him. Our goal was to find him permanent, sustainable employment, but we were always thwarted by his dependency on alcohol. I never stopped caring about Jim or wanting to see him succeed, but there were moments in which I wondered if he could succeed.

I have thought about and tried to understand Jim’s story often. What was lacking in this story? What might have kept him from throwing it all away? I do not know the answer to that question. The causes of addiction are complex, as are the impulses that sometimes cause us to choose that which hurts rather than helps us.

We seek to support our guests and to provide resources that will enable those guests to change for the better. However, that change does not always occur on a clear, linear trajectory that makes sense to us. One of the major challenges in doing the kind of work we do at The Mustard Seed is to keep a positive, hopeful outlook when faced with so many setbacks and daily obstacles. This challenge is faced by everyone doing this sort of work. 

The question for us as front line workers remains: how can we have hope for those who appear destined to fail?

In Matthew 11:28-30, we read, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.

Jesus tells us to come to Him and let Him lighten our heavy load. Without shedding that load at His feet, our backs get so tired that we can barely walk, and so we can barely walk alongside those who need us to lend an arm and help them on their way. We have to hear a new narrative, a new story, in order to keep ourselves from losing hope.  We find that new narrative in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. He overcame the grave and put death under His feet, effectively making null and void death’s power. If that same power lives in us, what do we have to fear? We do not have to fear the worst outcome for our guests; we can rest assured that though we have trouble in this life, Christ has overcome the world.”

We do not always see physical evidence to demonstrate that the redeeming power of Christ is at work around us, but by faith we can rest in the Truth, which is that nothing can separate us from Him, “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons…” We carry this hope and share it with everyone we meet, and though we cannot carry all the brokenness we see around us, Christ can.

--Laura U, Employment Coach, The Mustard Seed

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The Mustard Seed's Calgary Employment Centre is currently in need of work boots, especially men's sizes 10-12. If you would like to donate, items can be dropped off at:
  
102 11 Ave. SE
Hours: 7am-7pm

The Mustard Seed Shelter
7025 44 St. SE
Hours: 7am-9pm

The Mustard Seed Resource Sorting Centre
Bay 27, 4216, 54 Ave. SE
Hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Blogger Challenge - Michelle - Panhandling



I'm trying to put my thoughts into words, but my thoughts are literally everywhere. Bear with me.

The Mustard Seed is running a blogger challenge for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. You choose from 7 different challenges relating to these issues, complete the challenge, write about your experience, and send it to them to post on their blog. Here is the list of challenges.

The challenge I chose was to panhandle for 2 hours. All money collected must be given to a local agency or used to buy another panhandler a meal. I wasn't allowed to say why I was panhandling.

I want to be honest about this challenge, and about how much I struggled with this.

Actual time spent panhandling: 1.5 hours
Actual money collected: $0

I chose to spend my day off work on the streets appearing as if I were homeless. I guess a lot of people might think I am out of my mind. Going into this challenge, I wasn't sure what to expect. For this challenge I dressed in old/oversized sweaters, sweats, shoes with holes in them, old toque etc. I also applied eye shadow under my eyes and on various parts of my face to appear dirty and tired. I figured nobody would think I'm actually homeless unless I went all out.

Even as I started my journey on the LRT I felt like an outcast. As soon as I got on, I didn't want to see anybody so I literally stood facing the wall. I felt disgusting. Once I arrived in central downtown, I headed towards Chinatown (where a lot of Edmonton's homeless individuals spend time). I roamed the streets for a while, wondering what people would do as I walked past them. After about half an hour of walking, I chose to sit on a step outside of a closed-down store in Chinatown, as shown in the picture. Here are some things I've observed:

  • People either completely ignored eye contact with me, or stared right at me as they walked by. Nobody offered to help. I'm a fairly small girl, so I'm assuming I didn't look too harmful. Maybe they felt sorry for me? I'm not sure.
  • Two homeless men (one who appeared to be in his 40's and another in his 20's) said "hi" to me as they walked by, so I said "hi" back. Mutual understanding of the situation I was in, maybe.
  •  I witnessed some kind of alcohol exchange happen in front of me. A homeless couple pulled out a couple bottles of booze from under their jackets and handed it to another homeless guy that approached them at a cross walk.
  • Nobody threatened me in any way. Also, nobody helped me in anyway. (Well, the homeless people who briefly talked to me made me smile.)

So here I am, left with a mix of emotions. This was emotionally draining. I felt extremely alone and uncomfortable, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I know my challenge was to 'panhandle', but I really just couldn't do it. Part of it was because I was embarrassed of who I was and I just didn't have the nerve to ask people for money. I'm usually on the under end of this relationship (aka the one being asked for money), and I know I (like others) respond by ignoring panhandlers. The other part was that I couldn't always tell who was homeless or not. I think I'd feel bad if I asked someone to give me money, if they were also struggling with finances.

Eventually, I built up the courage to ask someone for money. He was was a business man who walked  past me while I sat on the steps. The only thing I said was, "excuse me, sir". In return, I was straight-up ignored. I should have expected it. This was sort of the 'breaking-point' for me. After being ignored, I felt hopeless and cut the challenge half an hour short.

So did I fail at this challenge? Yes and no. I didn't last the full 2 hours and I also didn't receive any money. However, this did allow me to get a bit of a better understanding of how it feels to be homeless. I can't comprehend all of my thoughts, but I'm definitely encouraged (and encourage you!) to learn more about hunger and homelessness. My 1.5 hours of struggling is just a mere glimpse of how thousands of others feel on a day to day basis.

As a result of this challenge, I'm going to scrimmage through my pantry at home and find some non-perishable foods to donate to my local food bank.

In addition, I've also recently started a project called Three Six Five (threesixfive.ca). For 365 days, I'm going to be completing an act of kindness each day, taking a photo of it, and posting it on my website. I would really appreciate if you checked it out, because this project is what has prompted me to The Mustard Seed's blogger challenge. Please check it out!

- Michelle Lam, www.threesixfive.ca
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Monday, November 05, 2012

The Mountain We Must Climb

I believe that there is something of a significant paradigm shift taking place in this country regarding homelessness, and, for the most part, that young people are pushing that agenda.

However, passions and desires to do the right thing are often overwhelmed by the reality of just how difficult a task we face. 

The “mountain” just seems un-climbable.

In 1849, surveyors made a great discovery of Chomolungma, also known as Mount Everest - the tallest mountain in the world, at 29,029 feet.

Everest was also considered un-climbable. Anything over 24,000 feet was referred to as the “Death Zone”. Sadly, hundreds have died in the attempt to reach the top of Everest.

The first man to officially make it to the top of Everest was Sir Edmund Hillary.

Turns out, the mountain was climbable after all… it just took 100 years to do it.

Caring for the homelessness, social justice, justice ministry… call it whatever you want, but we can climb this mountain if we work together.

Homelessness is not just a mountain that we can observe from a distance. It’s not just a mountain that we attempt to climb, make it halfway up, and then turn around and go home. It’s a mountain that we can and need to intentionally climb and refuse to allow ourselves to not make it to the top.

At The Mustard Seed, with the help of literally thousands of volunteers and supporters, we will keep on climbing until we make it to the top. 

- Bill Nixon,  Director of Public Education, The Mustard Seed

@billbytheminute