Some Fresno thoughts...

The commute across the street to the Dickey Youth Center was one of the best--and, I was able to speak to the Leadership Fresno class about Ruby Payne's "Framework of Poverty." Talking to a group of middle class people, about class differences between poverty, middle class and wealth. It was personal, because I was speaking with a backdrop of my own neighborhood, standing where I had a clear view of my own house. I could use examples of my own neighbors, but, I did not want my neighbors, my friends, or my neighborhood to be the "check that I keep cashing," or to be the great punchline to my little message. This is MY life here, too. This is the LIFE of my neighbors, they are not sermon illustrations, or calls to action, or emotional tools, they are people, with lives that matter.
I will return in a few hours to give that "call to action." I will ask people to get off the proverbial bus, to engage rather than just be exposed. I will suggest that they touch, rather than react. I will suggest that they should move, rather than stagnate and simply "feel" concerned.
In my 8 years here in Fresno, I have seen very, very few organizations, and even fewer churches make any significant difference in the lives of my neighbors, or in the lives of people living in poverty anywhere in this city. Few. Rare. Exceptionally rare. There is a god-knows too much talk about "transformation," with no transformative actions. There are classes and seminars and chats and forums and luncheons, breakfasts and dinners about the needs, but, little consequential action>which just seems to intensify the problem, and magnify the need. For all the talk about an "asset-based approach," the often well-meaning "sages" of Fresno transformation have yet to make a dent. Yeah, I know, I'm included in that tribe--as much as I would like to delete myself from that grouping--I don't want to be known as a "former..." or as an "at large" or definitely DO not call me a "relocator." I LOCATED with the intention to stay--if I was a "RE..." anything, then, I could have the option to RE...again. But, I don't think that I do. I am NOT a relocator. I am an investor. My house, my savings, my profession, my values, my life. Invested here on Divisadero St., Cultural Arts District, Lowell Neighborhood, Downtown Fresno, Central San Joaquin Valley, California. I put my stake here, and I was asked to come here "for the rest of my life." I don't think they meant it with that invitation, or ever thought that I would. But, I am here. (essentially, now deal with it. )
The transformation tribe never quite understood "equipping." They just didn't "get it." Maybe they were chasing skirt too much, maybe they were allowing others, even their beloved pastors, to be distracted by lust and money, or the "lust for money." But, they didn't and don't have the theological framework to understand Ephesians 4:11, 12, or the moxie to do something with it. In equipping, you are required to give away your power, to yield your influence, to release your own agenda for the agenda of others. You have to stop being fascinated by your own influence and agenda, and live for another's glory and agenda. In many ways, you must yield your dreams for the dreams of others. Buying an old house and moving into a lower class neighborhood is no more than a sham if there is no equipping of your neighbors to be able to leave the neighborhood and take their kids to better schools, safer, quieter streets, and real community.
The failed nonp;rofits in Fresno, many led by so-called "faith-based" leaders were failed by this ego, failed by this lack of yielding, failed by the vice-grip of control and "good ol boyism", even if the good ol boys were/are the white/black evangelicals and quasi-evangelical episcopalians and armenians. These organizations failed due to lack of LEADERSHIP, not lack of funding. There is a consistency of names on those board rosters--some of the same names were on each of those boards. It stems back to more than the "mennonite mafia," but to the tiny cluster of larger than life egos that started some organizations in Fresno many years ago. They see themselves as the rscuers and heroes, they cannot relinquish the control. They still have their hands of influence in city hall, though that is diminishing daily. They still strut their stuff at their monthly luncheons.
So, what is my call to action this afternoon?
If you have never been a part of a board of directors before, then, we want you.
If you have never stepped up to serve on a commission before, we want you.
if your name has never been in the Bee, or you have never been asked to pray before a council meeting or a Grizzlies game. We want you.
If you name is unpronouncable. We want you.
If the words "tolerance" and "pluralism" have a positive place in your vocabulary, we want you.
We don't just want you, we NEED you.
Get off the bus--and do something.

and once again, you rise...

Seems odd to think now that I am launching into a new endeavor in my life--at this point in my life. I have peers who are knee-deep in their retirement planning, even in this economy, and who seem to be moving strongly in that direction, and I'm stepping into phase 2 (or is this phase 3?)
Teaching in the American Humanics program with Dr. Matthew Jendian is a gift--and it feels like life, it feels like another chance, it feels...well, right.
I have admired the program that Matt has bred at Fresno State-the quality of students, the practical process, the academic rigor, the hire-ability of the graduates, and when I began to teach one course, I was grateful, at 2 courses, I was amazed, and now at 3+, I am astounded.
I am accustomed to the classroom-I feel like I was born there, and I am approaching the 30 year point of teaching in higher education. Some days, I am nervous, and tenuous, and fearful. Most days, I pray and pray and pray that I will not screw up, that I will remember all that I need to remember, and that I will be a better listener than talker. I want to connect with at least one student on a deep, thinking level. I don't want to frustrate the learning, but, enhance it.
Gosh, I was teaching when I was a kid--and, all I ever wanted to be was a teacher. I didn't really care where/what/who I taught, I just wanted to teach. And, teach, I did. In Aiken, Charleston, Ft. Worth, Garland, Anaheim, LaMirada, Mill Valley, Indonesia, Inner Mongolia, Fresno...and, I have taught Marketing, Economics, Bible, education, speech, communication, small groups, teaching methods, early childhood education, child/family/community, History of Education, Philanthropy, Grantwriting, grantwriting, grantwriting... I get to continue.
Do people really get to spend their lives doing exactly what they wanted to do when they grow up?
After the brain hemorrhage, the episode, I somehow felt that I would probably never teach again. I thought I would plutz, sputter, ramble, get lost, ramble more, chase rabbits, lose track..and, admittedly, I probably do all of that--but, at the end, I look at the faces, and see the eyes, and glimpse at the minds--and, I got to do it again--I get to teach.
It sounds so cliche, but, I never think about possessing the "gift of teaching." I think of teaching AS the great gift TO me. The pleasure of communicating truth, and sometimes theory, and sometimes stories, and sometimes dreams--to others.
I recall Leon. A first grader at Ladson Elementary in Ladson, SC. A low-country poor, poor school. I was the "man teacher" in first grade. The black kids were still trying to adjust to the school, in 1976, SC wasn't that far away from it's history of educational apartheid, and, I had spent my summer in Charleston at Sacred Heart School, teaching music as the "white teacher." I had learned "Stoned in Love with You" from my students, and I had taught them "Bill Grogan's Goat" and an Appalachian Carol--they had taught me to eat shrimp--shell and all, and to drink cheap beer after a Mass in Creole and Gullah, and they had taught me to....breathe deeply before I spoke, and to look intently at their faces, and they had taught me... to be a teacher. Leon called me "Mr. Cinnamon" and other names, and he completed my degree in education--by giving me a real, live student in which to focus my efforts and gifts. Leon to Zenobia to Chuck to Ramey to Todd to Charity to Matthew to Quincy to Amardeep to Philip. Decades of names and faces, and lives that have intersected with mine. The "man teacher," the white one.
I walked in the footsteps of Pat Conroy and Carole Ricketts. I read Parker Palmer. I breathed in the Charleston air, and exhaled all that I had learned from loving parents and a life surrounded by faith and food and family. I was foreign there, but, I learned to love being the foreigner, the "white one" the "man teacher."
And, today, in Fresno, again, I am foreign, I am the white one, the man teacher--and it feels so right, again.
When I thought it was over, once again, I rise to teach.