JoeTucker’s Weblog

I had a great discussion with some of my roommates the other night concerning the discipline of living a certain way for a period of time in order to understand the depths of a rule, lifestyle, culture, etc.

Presently, I have been without the TuckTruck (my black Ford Ranger) for 6 months now (with the exception of a 2 week stay home for Christmas…). To get around Philadelphia I rely on one of three ways.

1.) Public Transit. Subways, trains, buses. I have used them all many, many time while living in Philly. I have had just one experience of a subway breaking down and needing to walk to my destination, and I have also experienced a near hour long wait for the bus (in the cold).  Public transit could warrant a post/reflection in and of itself, but I will have to get to that later…

2.) Getting a ride with someone else. Whether it is a friend from esperanza or church, if we need to get a large group of people somewhere we generally hop into someone’s car or utilize the classic 15 passenger church van. (I have only had a few chances to drive these due to stupid insurance policies…)

3.) And my personal favorite mode of transport in the city: Bicycle! Today I rode to Esperanza (4 miles)  and I will ride back home shortly (another 4 miles)! Philly has bike lanes on some of its street and for the most part is a bicycle friendly city. (With the exception of bikes [or bike seats] being stolen, which isn’t as friendly).

So that is how I get around. More to come…

Grace and peace

Actually it is not always sunny in Philly. It is generally overcast, especially around this time of year. and in keeping with my blogging tradition when it rains, I update my blog (at least this appears to be the trend). And my oh my is there much to update upon!

+Come and See Weekend! This last weekend my sister Lindsey and my friend Anne came to Philly for the weekend to visit and see what life in Mission Year is like (kinda). They visited my community service sites, Esperanza, the medical center in Kensington (www.esperanzahealthcenter.org), LOGAN Hope, my after school program (www.loganhope.org), and quickly walked through Indo-China where I do GED tutoring (I don’t know their web address…). We spent the day Friday being tourists, seeing the Liberty Bell, running the Rocky Steps, walking around Love Park and City Hall, drinking coffee and catching up, and enjoying a great Afghani dinner together at a restaurant (you would think that living in Philly, I often go out to eat, but that is not the case. This was my first time being in a sit-down restaurant in some time). Saturday was a community day true and true. We grocery shopped, attended the Friends of The Library meeting at the Logan Branch, visited neighbors and chatted, and hosted a dinner for neighborhood friends and visiting family, including great games of Boulderdash, home-made hummus, and laughs had by all. They left Sunday after a brief visit to the Cambodian church and I am still uber-glad that we were able to be together.Good times indeed!!

+Friends of the Library meeting! I while back I posted about the Philadelphia libraries and their potential closings. I am excited to post an update now. The libraries are still open, for now. After the initial protest by many within the affected communites and some legal manuevering the libraries were declared ‘untouchable’ until June. The city has dropped its claim, but is reworking some new claim to find the solution to their dire budgetting crisis. And this is where the amazing thing starts, the library is beginning to foster a neighborhood community. At this last local branch meeting of the Friends of the Library, a group of local residents of the Logan neighborhood met together to discuss and dream as to what could be done to not only keep the branch of the library open, but to bring it to a point of community livelihood. The group envisioned programs running from within the basement of the library (a wide open area suitable for any form of community gatherings), they debated volunteer labor to help repair some of the libraries structural flaws, they dreamed of gathering local businesses to help support the library and the library in turn to help the businesses. It was an amazing meeting to sit in, for it was a time when the neighborhood where I have lived in for the last 5 months now, began to dream for itself. I couldn’t have been happier.

More to come ans soon, (i hope)!

Grace and peace

Paul makes a statement in the Bible that I have always selfishly wrestled with. Paul states that he would forsake eating meat if it (paul’s eating meat) caused a brother to sin. This was in reference to meet sacrificed to idols, but the thought has permeated (and rightly so) Christian thought. The idea is that if some action causes someone else to sin, then in love you would forsake that action.

So in the back of my mind I fear that one day I would have to stop eating wings, or forsake a delicious steak because it caused a brother (or sister) of mine to stumble. (This is generally why I ask vegans and vegetarians why they choose the diet they choose). Well I have not given up meat, but I did forsake something that I haven’t missed for quite sometime.

This last Sunday, I missed the Superbowl. I didn’t see any of it. No commercials either.

And it wasn’t because the Steelers were playing and as an avid Cleveland fan I didn’t watch in protest. No, I didn’t watch the Superbowl, because there is a friend of mine, here in Philly, that has a gambling problem. So we (myself and other friends) forsook the Superbowl and all its game-day glory for a night of food and video games.

There wasn’t a high degree of spirituality about the room as we played and laughed together. We didn’t;t discuss the deep things of God, but there was a spirit of love. It went without words that the Superbowl wouldn’t be flipped on for a second just to see the score, or that we would watch just the commercials. No, throughout the whole night, we played with the understanding that in love, this was the better choice.

Love is hard. It is costly. It would have been easy to watch the game elsewhere, but I found it invaluable to be there with my friend and to not watch the game at all. For I would rather cast it off entirely, then to cause a brother to sin.

Grace and peace