People ask me if we’ve “started anything” in Columbus yet, and sometimes I get the sense they might feel let-down by my answer. And then I get news like I got today, and I’m reminded that what we’re doing is exactly the right thing to be doing.

What we’re doing is breathing, listening, remaining open to discernment, and loving everyone in our path. It’s no small thing, but sometimes it seems like it doesn’t count in the way that finding a group under a bridge to share a meal would count. But I’m wrong. It does count. Check it out…

Today’s news was from a friend from our cohort (think “house church”), Scot, whose life was changed by an encounter with a guy holding a “spare change” sign.

…as I came off the ramp and onto Easton Pkwy aiming for the curb lane I saw “him”…ominous black clad figure holding cardboard sign. I reflexively jerked my vehicle toward the outer left turn lane so as to avoid “him”. In a flash I remembered the aforementioned resonations…I whipped it back over for curb service. Thankfully the light was red and I was first in line and there he was 3 feet away.

You can read the rest of the story at the Central Ohio Emergent Cohort blog. I definitely recommend it.

P.S. Someone asked what video we showed. It was from the Urban Entry series from Mile High Ministries. It’s called Anything Helps.

The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.

And I’ve been thinking about some folks I know. And a guy who was given $100,000, and six months later was homeless again.

Some of the folks I know are literally transient. They live a camping lifestyle, travelling from town to town, visiting national forests when they can. Others stay in one town for a long time, but really seem to crave freedom. If that’s true, and especially if some folks (note: some) choose to live outside, free of monthly obligations like rent and utilities, does that mean we don’t have to worry about them?

Crossan, by the way, says (at least in the “Blessed are the poor” verses) the word is more accurately translated as “destitute”–not just poor people living paycheck to paycheck, but people who have nothing but the clothes on their back.

If those people will always be with us, maybe the answer isn’t that we don’t have to worry about them, but that we get to include them. Maybe a place where it’s expected that the poor will be with us is a city where it’s not illegal to pitch a tent, or even to create a whole city of tents on unused land. Maybe a place where it’s expected could be friendly to the folks who live outside, happily encouraging those who like to share, instead of outlawing “unauthorized feeds”. Maybe parks for all citizens would spring up, with sleeping benches included as a matter of course.

What do you think?