Making the write move

This past year has been quite a busy one. I think I’ll get into that more later but one thing is for sure. Things have changed. Life moved fast this year. I’m still in Michigan but have spent at least a week in Colorado, Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Minnesota along with traveling all over in-between.

I’ve been working enough part time jobs as to allow life to be a full time adventure. It keeps me busy. I’m still working at a running company and most recently took on life as a substitute teacher (#subs) which has been so much fun. Young Life has continued to be a blessing to me as I am now an “adult leader” and get some new opportunities of things I can do. We just had our Christmas party at Special Education Ministries which I almost quit but couldn’t bring myself to. I’ll be getting into full swing for planning of the Hope Greek Life Fraternity Mission Trip with Arc Ministries to Florida. Along with spring comes lacrosse season. We still don’t have a head coach and I talked with the athletic director about taking the position. Truth is I don’t feel prepared enough to take it on. So I’m just hoping we get a head coach I get along with well as I stay in the assistant position.

All of this makes me feel like the middle section of a Venn diagram. Truth is I love it. Grabbing so many parts of life together is a lot of fun for me. While it doesn’t come many securities we look for in life it does come with benefits of fun, adventure, relationships and a joy I wouldn’t get otherwise.

In it all I’ve kept writing about my time in Denver with homeless people. I’ve not been stuck on it but I must say it’s been a great experience. It is hard to stay focused on it with everything in life moving by so fast. It’s partially why I haven’t written so much here for a while but I have fallen more and more in love with writing.

Recently I’ve rededicated myself to it. I even transformed my bedroom to be more conducive to writing. I now have a desk and bookshelf taking up most of my room. It makes getting up early before work or staying up a little later at night a little more do-able. Papers, edits, reminders and notes hang all over my walls. I keep pictures of my Dale House kids above my desk to remind me of why I do all I do. Next to the kids a poster of a night time cityscape reminds me of the nights spent in Denver. A few more of my favorite photo’s and quotes stare back at me when I write. It all keeps me motivated which I need. Because I really do believe in what I’m doing and feel it’s important.

Like anyone else I’m figuring things out. It’s funny sometimes how we figure things out. This past summer I officiated two weddings which I thought was a funny thing for a single 24 year old to do but I learned a lot about love. I also learned you don’t need to be an expert on everything to do a good job. Most of the time it just takes effort, optimism and undying dedication. Put yourself in a situation to make it work. Want whatever it is you want bad enough and it will happen. For me it’s been this book. For my friends it’s been marriage, going to Africa or Australia, going back to school or staying and working at the Dale House.

Over everything this past year I’ve seen how we are all writing our story. I’ve seen a couple friends stories come to an end. They were two really lively guys. It’s sad but it reminds me to keep my story going. Live adventurously. As we are the author of our own story we need to remember it’s not always about making the right move as it is just making the write move. Find something you love and go for it. Don’t plan it so much. Risk it. Life will likely be a little more like poetry which sweeps in and out of seasons than a science book’s presentation of what is and isn’t. Be fine not managing everything. Just keep going.

Can’t wait to keep the write moving. Best to you in yours.

Trav

Thy will be done here as it is there.

Last Sunday I was invited to head up to Grand Rapids to see what a church was doing to reach out to the homeless. From 3-5 there was pizza and people just hung out and talked before a service started at 5. When the service started the guy who invited me, Brian, and I headed out to go down to a tent city where about 8 guys live.

We hopped a curb in Brian’s minivan and headed up a service road next to some train tracks. A little ways down the road I saw a huge Budweiser banner that served as part of a wall to a shack that was built up from boards and siding and other scraps. We kept driving a little bit more and a few more sheds showed up tucked back in the woods where a huge american flag hung like a canopy in the trees.

Brian stopped the van at the last shed. He told me that the church has mainly funded and built this shed and was way better than the other places. We knocked and walked through the door that led into one room that was about ten feet by twelve feet. Three couches lined the walls which wrapped around ladder in the center of the room that went up to a lofted bed. In the corner was a wood stove where food had just been cooked. The shed smelled like chicken and charcoal.

One man sat on the couch next to me was passed out snoring the whole time we were there. Another man sat next to him with a broken heel wrapped in ace bandage and a trash bag. He had long thin red hair, hands coated with dirt and had just finished a bottle of vodka which made him very talkative.

Cookie, who is the owner of this shed, sat across from us. He wore a hat and huge glasses that I’ve only seen in pictures of my parents from the 80’s. After we shook hands my palm took some of the dirt, oil and charcoal from Cookie’s hand leaving mine dirty and dark but I really didn’t care. It reminded me of times in Denver that I oddly miss right now. We talked for a while about how life was going, how he was holding up, what supplies he needed, what problems the tent city community was having and when we might see him again. Sooner than later, after taking note of the things Cookie and the rest of the city needed, we said our goodbyes and left them sitting there in the shed.

That all made me think about how people often ask me why or how I can justify just going and being with people “like that”. Aren’t they addicted, jobless, beggars, smelly, scary, weird and not trying to become un-homeless? Well yes sometimes they are but I think what people are really asking me is how I can care about them when they don’t seem to be trying to be “normal” or “good like us”.

It really is an interesting question. Why do I do it?

I guess because I’m messed up too but I want to be perfect. I want others to be perfect. Not the perfect that is attained by our own effort and not messing up at all but the perfect that is given to us when Jesus died for us. We’re told we we’re made perfect by that. We can be seen as perfect because all our bad, our sin, our flaws, self centeredness, pride from achievements and shame from failure can be sent away. It’s how Jesus see’s us. It’s how the Bible tells and pleads with us to see each other.

So that’s why I do what I do and why I love doing it. Because in the shed next to the muddy road that lines the train tracks I believe what the Bible said could happen, why Jesus came, and how we’re supposed to live our Christian lives started to come into fruition here and now on earth. In a sense I saw 5 perfect people sitting with each other in a space that was created out of forgiveness and understanding and having the kind of value that God gave us on the sixth day when he said “this is good”. It’s the same space that was created last night when I got to hang out with 15 Young Life guys and the same space that I experienced in a brunch at a hotel with my uncle and a businessman that was worth 50 million dollars. Hobo’s, high-schoolers and millionaires… all equal and perfect and loved and enjoyed. I imagine that this space is what we mean when we talk about heaven on earth, when we say thy will be done here as it is there and when we ask to see the world through Jesus’ eyes.

Life is not about the conditions we or others are in. It’s about space we make.

*If you are interested in helping out here are a couple things we’re trying to get for Cookie and the community this week. Just an opportunity for you to be part of that space.

-Candles (tall thick ones that don’t burn out quickly), pancake mix (Meijer or Wal-Mart gift cards could work too), an acoustic guitar (if you have one sitting in the basement or one to spare? Cookie is quite the guitar player and plays for all the guys at night).

**I also need help raising my support to work at the Rescue Mission… part time at the running shop isn’t cutting it. My goal is $800/month any help would be great. Gas cards also really help out too since I do a lot of driving.

Contact me at travis.rieth@gmail.com or comment below if you’re interested in any of the above.

Thanks and God Bless.

Becoming part.

Hello!

This is pretty much just my new project. After the blog I kept this summer while living with the homeless in Denver (you can check that out here) I’ve moved on (kind of) and I figure it’s finally time for something new.

The idea here really came to me when I was living out on the streets. I realized most people we’re treating me, my peers and each other in a way that wasn’t so great.

People treating people badly. This is not the intention of anyone. Not when we wake up in the morning. Not when we’re on our way or at work. Not when we get home to our friends and family. No one wakes up in the morning and says “I really feel like going out and treating a homeless person poorly today”. No one walks out onto the streets for the sake of judging people by how they look. No one gets a job just wanting to be greedy and make money their world. No one gets married just planning to get divorced or becomes a parent with the intent to hurt their child.

It’s never what we intend to do.

Yet we see that happening every day.

We desire to be good.

Why in everyday interactions do we often treat people badly?

That is not where our value is. It’s not who you are and that is not who I am. It’s not what we strive for.

But then why does it continue? Why are our intentions so far from the reality of our life everyday? Why are our ideals not lived out?

I think those are the questions we have to start to ask. We have challenge ourselves. We have to be bold enough to wonder and test and define our lives by our actions rather than our thoughts.

What I’ve found is that the reason for most of these situations is that we just live without much preparation. We don’t challenge our weaknesses and we don’t look at our potential to do things right. Sure we’ll throw a quote up on twitter or facebook or slap a bumper sticker on our car or write a post it note on our desk but when it comes to actually doing something we leave that up to the non-profits, churches, teachers, mentors and people who are often labeled as radical. All those things are great. They are needed. But they aren’t enough.

In order for real change to happen everyone needs to get involved. Life as we know it doesn’t need to change radically (it could) but there is a lot that could be done in our every day life that, cumulatively, could have a much greater change than any group or organization could have by itself.

I also understand that people often don’t act because they don’t know where to start. How to interact, love and join in.

People also don’t act because it’s kind of scary. We could fail. And failing isn’t fun.

But if we avoid failing we don’t discover what we could be doing. My life that last couple years has been about that. What I COULD do. Along my journey I’ve seen how easy it could have been to give up. Anybody can give up. That’s easy.

It’s when we don’t give up where the world changes.

And this world changing stuff. It’s not just in certain people. It’s not just in people who write books or people we admire in history or those we look up to but write ourselves off as never being able to become.

The people we see and look up to and who make history, I believe, are the ones that didn’t give up. They are the ones that used adversity as motivation rather than devastation. I think somewhere along the way those people realized their potential and strived after it in an intentional matter. What is in those people? I believe it’s in everyone. It’s part of the potential that comes with being a human.

All we have to do is realize that we have it.

If we want to be a part of the change, we have to be intentional, understand each other, live for others and make a claim.

I am part.