Susan Meckel for noticing my interest in magazines like “Critique” and “World” and subsequently introducing me to “re:generation quarterly” (whose byline is “community transforming culture). I’m fascinated by the articles I’ve read so far this afternoon. Here’s some food for thought (vol. 6, number 1, p. 13) by freelance writer Cheryl Sabas who while still single moved from her comfortable neighborhood to the Mission District, a ghetto where her church was located:
“..Certain subversive truths had been revealed to me by my relishing of the Mission District as sensual, intellectual, and spiritual feast: that the Mission wasn’t as bad as we were afraid it was, and our presence there wasn’t as sacrificial as we thought it was; that ministry is best understood not as a subject/object relationship, where one person serves a somehow needy other, but a mutual, reciprocal relationship (no matter who’s saved yet and who isn’t); that if you don’t want to meet people, you can’t claim you love them, either spiritually or otherwise — and if you don’t enjoy them, they don’t want your love anyway; that just as Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, so love that represents him accurately must be both divine and human.”
23 Comments
lindsay Apr 14, 2003 4:42 PM
you need to check out relevant magazine! (www.relevantmagazine.com)
rebecca Apr 14, 2003 5:29 PM
i looked at relevant online several months ago. i, for some reason, really don’t like to read deep literature on the computer — guess i just like the old-fashioned paper in my hands. do they have a physical magazine as well?
bethany Apr 14, 2003 11:44 PM
rebecca, they do have a physical magazine, but it’s not free (that’s the best part about the ones like critique! which i think is even superior to relevant in many aspects). i have the first issue, if you’d like to look at it and see if you think it’s worth the subscription price. i think it’s fairly cheap – maybe ten bucks for a year subscription?
rebecca Apr 14, 2003 11:48 PM
i’d love to borrow it sometime. first i need to finish and return susan’s stuff, though! otherwise the borrowed goods end up in a pile of tredway junk. ; )
bobby anti-blog Apr 15, 2003 7:31 AM
blah, blah, blah!!
rebecca Apr 15, 2003 10:14 AM
i love how bobby takes the time to write in for such a simple, yet profound, statement as “blah blah blah.”
andrew Apr 15, 2003 3:52 PM
some thoughts on mrs. sabas essay…
i’m not sure what to make of whitey heading into non-whiteyville for the sake of proselytization.
i’m also not sure what to make of christians who claim that a painful existense for the sake of the gospel is somehow not what Christ requires/asks of us. (she seems to say that we should enjoy loving other people, as if it OUGHT to be easy, simple, and based on love of man, when in fact it is difficult, amazingly complex, and based initally on God expressing love for us, then our love for Him, then a love of man shown through our expression of the gospel to him.)
in addition, i’m not sure what to make of sabas’ slumming habits. listen, women (meaning lindsay, bethany, and becca), because i know that last statement with the term “slumming” made you mad. i’m not referring to slumming as if she enjoys a walk down bumville for a hearty chuckle, but she enjoys the diversity of the crowd for the same reason that people enjoy the singularity of similar socio-ethnic relations. she just likes it. i, like 95% of the rest of the world, resides in a mostly homogeneous mass of ethnicity. i don’t mind it. she likes a very heterogeneous atmosphere, except that it is composed of 100% poor. again, she said she didn’t do it for God, she did it because she liked it. so, tell me, somebody, what was the purpose of her article? i’ve got ten bucks for the exegetical genius who pulls this one out.
was she 1) saying that she loves the lowest class, for she wanted to show God’s grace to the prostitutes and tax collectors, making her experience Christ-esque. 2) saying that others were wrong in condemming her experience in the Mission and that we ought emulate her example. 3) saying that she enjoys different people and different places simply because it is what she likes. remember: she said herself that her move into the ghetto was selfish.
the only reason i bring this up is because i read becca’s quotation on the blog and it semi-perked my ears. upon reading her article, i wasn’t really sure what in the crap she was saying. she voiced both assent and dissent concerning how we ought to act concerning ministry in the ghetto, so i don’t get it, i guess. she seems to say, don’t be whitey in the hood, because they don’t need you, whitey, whitey, whitey (yes, emphasize the whiteness mrs. sabas). she also seems to say, don’t neglect your family in the ghetto, love them. eh, two sides of the mouth make for an interesting conversation.
-eh
rebecca Apr 15, 2003 4:07 PM
andrew, i don’t believe cheryl sabas IS talking out two sides of her mouth. her article is an enjoyable piece of literature (enjoyable’s okay with you, right? or does an article regarding spiritual things have to be 100% on the money theologically?) that both describes her own sinfulness and selfish motivations and addresses the call of Christ into all corners of the earth, including oh-the-horror, the ghetto. the small paragraph on the author (in the physical mag) says this:
“cheryl sabas is a freelance writer living in queens, new york, with a husband and two little girls who don’t take her chronic ethical dilemmas [read the last three words again, ed.] as seriously as she does.”
and noon, just because lindsay and bethany and i are the only ones who post comments, it doesn’t mean we are the only ones who read this blog. don’t lump us together… we are very different people who may or may not get offended at your accusation of “slumming.”
thanks for your thoughts. they helped me decide why it was that i liked the article in the first place.
lindsay Apr 15, 2003 4:48 PM
you gotta love those sister-brother fights.
(:
bethany Apr 15, 2003 5:23 PM
slumming slumming slumming!
not only am i not offended by it, it inspires me. in combination with this and my last-night viewing of 8 mile, i think i’ll move to detroit and start working on my rap skillz. i just have to think of a cool nickname first. cheddar bob is apparently already taken.
andrew Apr 15, 2003 6:23 PM
as literature…being a good read and such, i didn’t find sabas to be offensive or stupid or otherwise theologically poopy. i just didn’t really get it. from the quote i read, which was why i read the article, i would have guessed that she was going to make some sort of astute point concerning me, the christian, and them, the ghetto. it was quite a provocative and thoughtful little quotation. phew…that’s all…i think.
otherwise, hah! i live in DADE COUNTY. that doesn’t mean much to you yankee whites up in nebraska, but i actually watch the church people drive through my neighborhood, roll up their windows, and put a gentle hankerchief up to their aghast face. when she talks about 65 bucks a week housing…i talk about my weekly rent — IT’S $21.88! i qualify for federal housing. when i go slumming, i have to go to calcutta! (note to readers: i still buy a&f, br, ae, and other notable name brand products)
rebecca Apr 15, 2003 7:03 PM
i like to think of my hood experience as my one year stint on shaw boulevard in st. louis. but really that doesn’t count… we were, to be precise, one city block from the hood. : )
i was witness to the amazing numbers of dogs and cats roaming wild and free in andrew’s (red)neck of the woods as well as alton park in chattanooga. perhaps this is why bob barker has ended “the price is right” with the spaying/neutering reminder for 20+ years.
8 mile. it’s going in my collection.
rebecca Apr 15, 2003 7:07 PM
we lawtons love a debate. i think it must come from my dad somehow — though he really seems to be quite peace loving.
sarah Apr 15, 2003 9:46 PM
hey, i read this blog routinely, thank you very much…i just don’t comment as often as i should or would like to.
and yes, i would have to agree that 8 mile was very good indeed. (if you had…..one shot…)
rebecca Apr 15, 2003 10:16 PM
sing it, sistah!
bethany Apr 16, 2003 11:01 AM
yeah, sarah, tear this (record scratchy noise reeee reeee) roof off like two dogs caged.
lindsay Apr 16, 2003 5:52 PM
i have a good rapper name 4 U, bethany—
BETZDOG.
or BETZDAWG, whichever spelling suits U best.
bethany Apr 16, 2003 6:59 PM
you callin’ me a dog, beeotch? :)
lindsay Apr 17, 2003 2:40 PM
you betta believe it, gurl!
(okay, i hate alternate spellings and such, so i’m quitting it now.)
rebecca Apr 17, 2003 9:56 PM
just watched 8 mile again — jeremy enjoyed his first viewing. it may not be added to my collection… the, uh, “language” is a wee bit harsh. did you koenig’s wait till the little k’s were sleeping to watch? ; )
bethany Apr 18, 2003 12:04 AM
just sarah and i watched it :) yeah, it’s not going to join our collection either. it’s not one i’d watch over and over, but it’s a good flick
rebecca Apr 18, 2003 8:33 AM
agreed.
Cheryl Sabas Apr 25, 2005 6:44 AM
This is a test to see whether I can get in on this thread even though my email and my browser can’t run simultaneously…
Cheryl Sabas