Generosity Abounds

Posted by: Kris Androsky on 4/26/2011 | 0 Comments

Generosity Abounds

This week I have been moved deeply by the generosity of the community of faith. Good Friday this year was really a miserable day: cold, dreary, windy and raining. While that might seem fitting for Good Friday, it wasn’t really an ideal day for

a group of people to walk through downtown Waukesha to learn about poverty in our community and to pray for the programs and ministries that offer hope and help in times of need.

I went to our gathering place expecting to find just a few other clergy ready to go for a walk in the rain; after all, we are paid to do this kind of thing. Instead, I found a large, faithful group gathered because of a passion that was beyond my imagining. 40 people showed up to walk in the rain and to crowd together to lift prayers above the howling of the winds and I was moved by an abundant generosity.

Throughout the weekend I kept returning to the reports of the abundant generosity that First Church has shown over the past five months. At the end of this week, the overflow shelter for men in Waukesha will close after operating for 20 weeks through the harsh winter. I cannot help but be moved by the outpouring of generosity over the past five months. Here’s why I’m giving thanks:

* 16 people from First Church worked on the set up of the shelter

* 6 people volunteered at least one morning a week there most weeks

* 5 people volunteered at least one evening a week there most weeks

* 13 people attended the Public Meeting in support of the shelter

* A team of 7-9 served a Sunday dinner every third Sunday of the month

* People responded to EVERY call for food or other supplies needed to keep the shelter running

* One person went to the store during the blizzard and delivered needed supplies when no one else could

* The “Blessing Box” was filled and refilled every week from December until April with food, clothes, towels, blankets, sleeping bags, paper goods, personal hygiene products, games, books, magazines and even a Christmas tree! (If you want to hear more about the “Blessing Box” you can listen to the sermon from January 30^th by following this link.)

* People delivered the items in the “Blessing Box” at least once a week to the Shelter, Hebron House and the Hope Center

* Almost $3000 was given to support the shelter in addition to all of the items delivered by hand

All of that totals 40+ individuals spending approximately 430 hours at the Overflow Shelter in a mere 20 weeks! PLUS, 20+ huge, overflowing boxes of supplies. PLUS, almost $3,000 in cash.

That kind of generosity makes me proud to be a part of this community of faith. That kind of abundant generosity calls me to be more generous in my own life. That kind of generosity makes me wonder what kind of world we would have if we all lived so generously.

To top it off, I came into the office today and received an email saying that our special offering for Easter brought in $4,272 for special mission giving that supports the Food Pantry, Healing Hearts of Waukesha County and the missionary, Paul Webster.

That kind of generosity is a witness to a faith that is deep. That kind of generosity says that we are not afraid of the news reports and stock market numbers. That kind of generosity points to a trust in the abundant goodness and blessing of God.

Today, I am giving thanks for you – for the ways that you live generously and for the ways that you bless the community and the world through your generosity. Thank you for walking and praying in the rain, for donating time and supplies, for giving money that represents your hard work. I have been blessed by God’s work through you.

Questions for Reflection (feel free to post your thoughts by using the “comment” button at the top of the blog):

How have you experienced abundant generosity?

What are you giving thanks for today?

How are you feeling called to live in response to God’s generosity?

Best Witness

Posted by: Kris Androsky on 4/13/2011 | 14 Comments

It’s been over five months since I’ve posted a blog entry. Part of me feels guilty for starting something and not keeping at it like I thought I would or could. I’ve got lots of great excuses for why I haven’t posted: I had to put up my Christmas tree (that covers December, right?) In January, I had to take it down (another month covered!) In February…ok, maybe I don’t have lots of great excuses.

The truth of the matter is, I’ve been writing, but nothing that feels worthy of posting on the web for all to see. The other part is, my last post was about an experience I had with a man who was homeless on the riverwalk and I was unprepared for the response that would come from posting my experience on the World Wide Web.

In some ways, the response was amazing: members of First United Methodist Church gathered to discuss the issue of homelessness in our community and they voted to open the doors of the church if needed. As the overflow shelter found a new home, members gathered to clean, organize and prepare the space. In addition, they have returned on a very regular basis throughout the winter to provide food, cook meals, play games and visit with the men staying at the shelter. The box for donations to the shelter was emptied at least once a week and yet, it was always full! It was a great blessing for me to experience the tremendous faithfulness and generosity of this church in response to community needs.

In other ways though, the response to my last blog was more sobering. I received phone calls, emails and letters blaming me for lying, denigrating police officers, and attempting to politicize issues that don’t really exist. None of those are actions I would ever intentionally choose. The response did, however; make me realize the power of our words.

I was simply telling the story of my experience. As is always the case, when we hear a story we connect what we hear with our own experiences. And, we translate and evaluate what we hear with the filters of our own life experiences of joy, pain, pride, outrage, etc. That’s one of the reasons that we can connect with some people so well – we share common understandings. And, it’s one of the reasons that we find it difficult to understand others – we may have very different life experiences.

I’ve been a little shy to post my writing on the internet after realizing how easy it is for us to misunderstand one another when we have computer screens between us. As society continues to become more polarized, our words appear to hold more power to divide than to unite. It seems that words are easily tossed about or even hurled at one another without an understanding of the hurt they can cause.

So, while I’ve been writing, I’ve also been trying to focus on having one-on-one conversations with people about difficult topics. I’ve been trying to understand how people with different experiences might see an issue. And I’ve found myself saying things like, “It’s okay if we disagree as long as we uphold our covenant to treat each other well” or “Maybe our best witness is to disagree and still be in conversation.”

I do believe that our best witness in a broken world can be the way we treat each other when our life experiences, political backgrounds and theological understandings are different. I hope and pray that we will take time to do the difficult work of having conversations face-to-face. I pray that we will have the courage to disagree AND treat each other with love and respect. I pray that the church’s witness will be our covenant to live well with those around us – because I believe they are the ones God has given us to love. It is difficult work, but I pray that it will be so.

Questions for Reflection:

Why is it so difficult to love those with whom we disagree?

Who is God giving you to love these days?

What would it look like if we relied on face-to-face conversations when it came to difficult discussions?

Since When?

Posted by: Kris Androsky on 11/11/2010 | 10 Comments

I really enjoy the walk along the Fox River in Waukesha because it weaves around downtown, provides a great observation spot for the small waterfall and makes its way through Frame Park, complete with ducks and geese feeding and caring for their young. I love both the sound and the sight of the river. Because I grew up on the shores of Lake Superior, water has always easily calmed my spirit, connected me with God, and called me to pay attention to the world around me. But yesterday, it wasn’t the river that had my attention and my spirit was certainly not calmed by my walk by water.

I meet lots of people as I walk along the river. For the most part, I exchange a friendly smile, a silent nod or a quiet “hi” as we pass each other on the path. Occasionally, I’ll comment on how popular the guy with the breadcrumbs is and he’ll respond with the number of ducks or geese he has following him that day. Every once in a while, I’ll meet up with someone that I already know and we’ll talk as we walk or stop for a few brief minutes to chat about life. But yesterday, I met someone new and it unsettled my spirit.

I could see the man sitting on the bench long before I could hear him. It was clear that he was carrying his possessions in the backpack he cradled in his lap. His head was bowed down, almost resting on the tattered pack and I found myself praying that there would be a place where he could get better rest than a park bench. When I walked past him I could hear that he wasn’t sleeping. He was crying.

I stopped. I turned around. “Excuse me, are you okay?” The crying stopped abruptly and he looked up to slowly study me before responding. Holding up the straps of his backpack he said, “Look at this.” “Oh, it looks like the straps of your backpack are broken.” “They aren’t broken. They were cut.” I looked more closely and I could see that they did, indeed, look like they were cut. Certainly they hadn’t frayed into brokenness.

“How did they get cut?” I didn’t know where this conversation was going but as I asked the question of the man on the bench another conversation flashed through the back of my mind in which an advocate for the homeless in Waukesha explained that some of the guys had had the straps of their backpacks cut by police officers as they were hustled out of the shelter of a park. All of a sudden, my stomach began to churn and I began to dread the answer that the man on the bench would give. “LAW enforcement…what LAW is THIS?!” he asked as a stifled cry escaped and he held up the cut straps in clenched fists.

I know that homelessness is a complicated, many faceted issue but since when is it acceptable for law enforcement to destroy the personal property of another person? When did preventing loitering come to include vandalism? Since when is it permissible for anyone, not to mention a civil servant, to destroy the dignity of another human being? When did it become acceptable for us to pretend that people living and dying on our streets is okay? And since when is silence our best answer?

I went to the store and bought a backpack and a roll of duct tape. I cried the whole way there because I know that the broken spirit sitting on that park bench cannot be fixed with duct tape. And I know the pain of betrayal by a police officer and the city he represents cannot be shoved into a new backpack and tucked away under a bench.

I drove home wondering when we began to see those without homes as those unworthy of justice. Since when are our neighbors only those who live in warm houses? And now that the waters are troubled, when will our spirits be troubled enough that we give up our silence?

Yesterday, I met God on my walk as he sat on a park bench crying. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop looking for answers.

Practice What You Preach

Posted by: Kris Androsky on 9/17/2010 | 6 Comments

I was the first car of a long line stopped at the railroad crossing. I sat, annoyed that I had not made it across the tracks before the safety arm had descended, blocking my ability to get to the office and the work that awaited me there. Sometimes getting stuck at the tracks allows for me to read a few extra pages of a book or to send a text message to a friend. But then there are the days when the metal-on-metal screaming and screeching is one more nuisance that prevents me from being productive and efficient and on time.

On those days, I sit at the tracks and count the train cars as they pass, as if a certain number of them will justify my annoyance. Somewhere between 113 and 120 (which seems to be a legitimate number for a decent dose of annoyance), a boxcar decorated in spray paint caught my attention as it flew past. Now, I grew up in a town that held a switching station for many tracks, so I’ve seen more than my fair share of boxcar art. This car was exceptional. Bright, BOLD, filigree letters filled the car with a demand. “Practice What You Preach!”

I probably should have used the rest of my time sitting at the railroad tracks pondering the message I had just received. Instead, I sat there being self-righteously annoyed by this message sent by a few hoodlum artists…or perhaps God, in the form of a few hoodlum artists. But, as the week went on, I couldn’t get the image of the boxcar out of my head. Maybe I DID need to reflect the practice of what I was preaching…

Recently, conversation after conversation has been filled with lamentation over a lack of balance. It’s no wonder that we feel out-of-whack with all the number crunching we hear about national deficits, unemployment and poverty rates, spending freezes, and countdowns to elections. Add in an unhealthy dose of anger and frustration over political, religious and moral differences and you end up with a pretty heavy serving of “bleak.”

But “bleak” isn’t really how I’d like to characterize my life. I’d like to think that as a person of faith one of my greatest attributes would be a sense of balance and wellbeing in God. So, the boxcar art has me really pondering what I need to do to practice what I preach.

What returns the color to life when the bleak takes away the vibrancy? Where will I find the balance I need to be healthy? What will be life-giving and how do I get a healthy dose of it to balance the bleak? What will be my sustenance?

Here’s the list I’ve started: Reading a good book. Coffee with a trusted friend. Studying scripture. Praying. Taking time to journal. Playing Legos with a kid whose laughter fills the room. Buying flowers for no reason other than their beauty.

These are the perspective givers for me; the glimpses of an abundant life that remind me to cradle this life in my hands and explore the joy it offers. These are the things that stop me long enough to remind me to practice what I preach. What’s on your list?

Haunting Numbers

Posted by: Kris Androsky on 9/8/2010 | 6 Comments

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? All day long one phrase runs through your mind and you find yourself singing while you walk down the hallway or humming as you wash your hands. Lately, I’ve been haunted…not by song lyrics, but by numbers. I usually leave the numbers to Pastor Dan, but for over a month, I’ve had numbers following me around all day long.

33: The number of abandoned and boarded up houses in the four block stretch of road that the Motown Mission team worked on in Detroit.

4 Million: The number of people that live in Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco, combined. Those three cities have the same square mileage as the city of Detroit. But in Detroit, a city that could hold 4 Million people, only 880,000 reside. The rest have had to leave their homes to find a way to make ends meet.

0: The number of grocery store chains remaining in the city of Detroit. EVERY grocery chain has left the city.

4: The number of HOURS it took for one Motown Mission Intern to get from her home in the city to the nearest grocery store using public transportation. This is an urban feasibility study used to determine the ease of attaining the food needed for a healthy, balanced meal. By the time she returned home with groceries; milk would have soured, cheese would have melted, veggies would have steamed and eggs would have either cooked or cracked. In the sub-zero winters, this trip could be deadly.

I feel as if I’m living in a house of numbers like the one I saw as a part of the Heidelberg Project (a neighborhood being reclaimed by artists) in Detroit! None of these numbers sit well with me. They haunt my thinking about how I live my life here in Waukesha; a city that often feels suburban yet deals with urban issues. The haunting numbers also make me want to seek out and find God in the midst of the city…whether it be Detroit, Waukesha or elsewhere.

So, while these numbers have been following me around, I’ve been on a search for God. And I’ve found that when I look for and seek God, I tend to find God. I saw God in the writing of the Motown Mission team as they constructed a house made of their prayers. God showed up this week in a man named Bob who is working as hard as he can just to find work to provide for his family. Our Carroll Nursing partners showed up for our staff meeting on Tuesday and I realized that God had walked in the door with them. I even expect that I’ll see God in a variety of places and people at the carnival this Saturday as the community comes together to play.

I’m finding that it’s really not so bad to be haunted by the numbers. They seem to be following me around and keeping me honest about what I’m doing to change the reality they represent. They’re also keeping my eyes open to where God is in this city. And for that, I’m grateful.

Questions to Ponder:

What “haunts” you and makes you reflect on how you live your life?

Where do you see God at work in your city?

If you had to name the biggest challenge facing your city, what would it be?

1 2 3 Go to Page:

A Note From Kris

The Soul's Playground
I consider myself a seeker; someone who is always looking to find a different way of living - a way that moves into a deeper creative spirit and welcomes the things that offer a larger picture of the Holy One. I can't help but ask a lot of questions and look for the fun and creative places in life.

In looking for something different in the world and in our lives, it seems that some days are meant for climbing trees and sitting in reflection while other days are made for playing in the sandbox with friends.

Here you will find my questions, my reflections, my greatest hopes - for our community, for the church and for the world. Often, I'll share one of the "soul collages" made while playing in my art room as an image of where God is speaking in my life. I hope that this space will be a place where we can share our tree-sitting reflections and our sandbox conversations. And, I pray that through the community gathered here, our souls will find the playground they need to connect to the creative spirit of God.

Pastor Kris' Blog