JoeTucker’s Weblog

**(Note: I have posted 3 posts today and a new Philly Epistle link –>, check them all out at your leisure and expect more next Friday!!)**

Throughout this Philadelphia adventure there have been many words spoken in training, passing, meeting people, and new conversational interchanges, but perhaps no word has been profound as the insight I have gained on the F-Word.

No, not that f-word, the other one. The one we tack on as an extra rule at camps and programs, the one that is a cultural norm for my generation, the one I didn’t see coming.

Fun. The new F-word.

During training, one of the Mission Year staff spoke about the normative changes in sociology that one undergoes throughout mission year. The most pointed sociological shift was leaving fun behind. Let me elaborate.

There’s a theme among my peers. We like things that are enjoyable. We ask each other if events were fun or not, if we had a good (i.e. ‘fun’) time. We do things that are fun. Sometimes at the expense of others, sometimes in abuse of the law (consider speeding or sneaking into abandoned buildings), sometimes just at the expense of expense (i.e. $$). We like things fun.

And fun permeates our ministries. We allot ‘fun’ days during mission trips. We often advertise events based off the quality of the entertainment. We seek out fun and use fun as a lure to invite people. I can recall encouraging people to work at Camp Carl because it is ‘fun.’

And it is. Camp is fun. But it is more than that. However one of my ‘selling’ points is that you will have an enjoyable summer. Consider if I were to advertise camp as the following, “You will work harder than you have ever worked in your life, you will often be exhausted, you will more than likely be irritated with your co-counselor, campers, and leadership at some point throughout the summer, but you will know what deep joy there is in service for God and living out the love of Christ.

When I began telling people I was going to Philadelphia for a year to work with Mission Year, a common reply was, “Oh, well that will be fun for you.” And it has been fun sometimes. But witnessing vast unemployment isn’t fun. Understanding the still present injustices of racism and classism isn’t a good time. Watching educational systems flounder isn’t enjoyable. I have moments of ‘fun’ in the city, eating cheese-steaks is fun, having BBQ’s with neighbors is fun. But for the most part I do not have a good time here.

But there is joy here. Deep joy. The deep joy that comes from treating people with an eternal dignity. A lasting joy that comes from praying for a change that is beyond the scope of your abilities and trusting in faith that God will provide (even in ways you don’t expect). There is a joy in simplicity here, even though it is not always fun.

And that was the normative-sociological shift the Mission Year staff member spoke of, leaving behind the sole pursuit of fun and enjoyment and embracing a mindset that sought out lasting joy. I have been slowly putting this on. But it is not without its challenges. I have been conditioned to seek out entertainment for a long time. So reader, if you happen to call me or talk to me whence I return and ask me how my time in Philly has been, I may pause and try to fashion an honest response. What I hope not to say is that I’m having fun. Because although that is true at times, it is not the fullest expression of the truth. Time will tell what my answer will be.

Until then I care not whether you have fun or not, but pray your pursuit of joy.

And as always, grace and peace.

So since I’m having a hard time watching the Office online, I decided to finally post an update from Philadelphia. Today has been my first ‘off’ day since I’ve arrived. I’ve finished training and starting volunteering with a couple of groups already. Check the Philadelphia Epistle page for a link to the latest pdf file!!

As for life, here’s the scoop: I am reading a lot, present books include Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Elizabeth’s Elliot’s compilation of Jim Elliot’s letters In the Shadow of the Almighty, and Dr. John Perkins CCDA handbook. They are all fantastic reads and I would recommend them to you all. I am also working through II Corinthians.

My day to day looks something like the following:

M-Th I volunteer from 9-1 or 2 at a GED center or health clinic (this is still in the works), then from 3-6 I work with LOGAN Hope after school program tutoring and hanging out with K-8th students. The evenings are a menagerie of dinners, Bible studies, neighborhood times, house nights, further trainings, and whatever else comes up.

Friday is my free day or Sabbath (which I am trying to honor, by not working {and desperately looking for a better NBC.com connection!!})

Saturdays are house chore days (laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, and neighborhood times in the afternoon, this can vary from tutoring, house cleaning for neighbors, picking up trash, or coffee with people from church. Then Sundays I have church and house meetings.

I am finally starting to have a concrete schedule and have been consistent in morning devotions which have come to be a quite enjoyable (albeit early) time of the day.

I’m processing a lot and am on the verge of putting those thoughts into words, but until then, let me present a collection of themes that I will post on within the next couple of weeks:

+Relocation

+Beloved Community

+Neighbor & Friend

+Intentional Self Disclosure

+Redistribution and Economic Development…

So soon, expect some depth, at present I’m going to return to my download battle with NBC,

Grace and peace

I posted this a while ago on my Mission Year blog, here it is belated on wordpress:

Wow, it has been an amazing past week in training and I have learned a great deal. So the summation of a great many speakers on justice, crossing cultures, urbanization, theology, poverty, and city life can best be expressed by the following tenant:

I have found that the greatest honor in following Christ is not found in being termed “saved,” nor even in the prestige of being called a “child of God;” the greatest honor in following Christ is that God invites us to follow in the fullness of the walk of Christ. Let me elaborate God invites us to follow Christ in baptism, servant-hood and truest, deepest love, death, and resurrection.
Throughout training I heard story after story of someone who had an established, good life, developed a love for the marginalized of society, forsook their career to live with the poor or marginalized and in doing so truly love them through fellowship. Then after a rough suffering death period, they are resurrected into a new, exciting, joyful life shared within the community that they both serve and are served by.

And what struck me is that these individuals weren’t just sharing with me their stories, they were sharing the story of Christ. Deepest love, death, resurrection. They were Christ incarnate incarnated. And there it is, the greatest honor that I have found in following Christ is that God offers us the opportunity to follow Christ and live as He lived to a full extent! We can know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death as to somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead (Check Philippians 3:10-11)!!

Let me tell you of my first step in this process my baptism. Today I spent my first full day in my neighborhood. We explored the North of my neighborhood and found the library, we investigated markets and stores in search of groceries and fresh produce, and we sought out the infamous Philly Cheese Steak! And as we sought out this delicious lunch, it started to rain. So we took shelter in a local corner store, only to find that they indeed served Philly cheese steaks!! So we ordered them and waited for our order to be filled. And as we waited, the community arose. Like the waters of the Jordan rising, locals came out of the woodwork to this cornerstone to order food and drink. And as they emerged we met them and heard their stories.

A Muslim man who had lived in the neighborhood for 40 years kindly instructed us of the ins and outs of the neighborhood, the characters to trust, the ones to look out for, who you had to worry about and who you didn’t. He also assured us that the place where we had chosen to dine served the best cheese steaks (no one in Philly calls them Philly cheese steaks) this side of Market.

A man who had recently been assaulted and couldn’t close his jaw properly. A woman who seemed mentally unstable. Workers. Brothers. Friends. Cousins. Blacks. Whites. Asians. Some simply said hello, others shared with us their stories and their lives. But as our large order (6 cheese steaks is no easy task) was filled, a sense of understanding overtook us as we left that corner-store and reentered the downpour outside.

We walked briskly through the rain. We returned home drenched. It was a baptism by drip, but our clothes felt as if they had been submersed. We had been baptized into the Jordan of our community. The community began to understand why we were there, to serve and teach (and hopefully to love and befriend) and we began to not only care for and pray for the community, but to share in their existence; for now their burdens were our burdens, their joys were our joys.

And the Lord was well pleased.

Grace and Peace