Colour Theory and Team Work

Did you know that if you mixed orange with primary blue, you get a rich, warm brown? I did not, until a few days ago, since I have known nothing of colour theory until my sabbatical. Most days you will find me in the annex of brotherhood centre mixing colours like an alchemist, and I discover something new every day: hues, values, darkening and lightening. Bright red turns into deep burgundy when mixed with green, its complementary colour. Fascinating…two colours, not that pretty by themselves, but when mixed together, they yield a rich, warm third colour which sings.

I cannot help but immediately draw the analogy. All of us have gifts, some of us more than we know what to do with. But often those gifts, skills, character traits are slightly one-sided, loud, even garish: they long for complimentarity, for something to mix with and blend. We all know the outgoing socialite, able to talk to anybody, the life of the party. Yet he often struggles to listen, to come alongside others, because he has already moved on to the next “victim”. Or the entrepreneur, who never lacks good ideas and is stimulated by change and newness; but to bring her ideas to fruition she needs the steady plotter, the details person, even the “bean counter” who makes sure the I’s are dotted and the T’s crossed. Just like with colours, it is the combination of those gifts and personalities which brings out rich harmonies and beautiful things: alone they stick out like a lonely Chagall hanging in a train station.

But for this harmony to come about I need to be ready to mix it up, to be yoked with others, to team up with those who are not at all like me. Yet my tendency is so often to seek out those who are of the same colour as myself; this is where it’s safe (and boring). But I guess sabbaticals are for mixing…so let’s see who I will meet next.

If you want to walk on water, you need running shoes!

Over the last five years, I have walked just about every day: for 35-60 minutes, in places as varied as Moscow and Vienna, Beirut and Berlin. Why all this walking? Because since my illness some years ago I have not been able to run: my doctor told me so, my body did, and I did so myself. So I resorted to walking; a few months ago I even bought myself a pedometer, and now know that I walk between 5000 and 8000 steps a day. The other day I was off again: a beautiful June Michigan day, not too hot, and the birds humming all around Island Lake Road. Two minutes into my walk, I broke into a run, I don’t know why. So there I was, huffing and puffing, but running for the first time in five years. At the mile marker I was sure I was dreaming, and by the time I reached the finish line after 2.5 miles I felt like Abebe Bikila when he won the 1960 Olympic marathon: I was on cloud nine.

So what happened? I don’t know. Somehow I felt confident to try something I had not done in years. And it worked- I have tried it a number of times since. But before last Saturday, I was not ready to go there: I had tried to run again once, and found myself on the ground exhausted after a mile. So I resigned myself to never run anymore, and this became like the electric fence I was not ever going to touch again. And the longer I thought about it, the firmer this prophecy engrained itself in my mind. But somehow a few days ago something egged me on, and I realized the fence was not there anymore.. A classic “out of the box” experience! I don’t know how far my running exploits will lead; maybe I break down in a week with a pulled muscle and resort to walking again, this time with crutches. But that is not the point: the lesson which stuck was that there are fences, limits, boxes which can easily become so strong, so immovable, that we don’t even dream of thinking or operating outside of them. And it takes some calling on, some unusual event, in order break out of that shell.

What is your box, what is the fence hemming you in, what is the prophecy about yourself that you believe? Is it that you will never be able to learn the guitar? Or that you cannot forgive a particular person? Or that you are no good at being a parent? It does not matter: if we hear it often enough, we start believing it and acting accordingly. So like an animal we find ourselves hemmed in, because we got stung once by that electric fence. We believe a certain lie about ourselves and remain boxed in, convinced that this is where we have to live for the rest of our lives. But not so…it is possible, with the encouragement of others to change. As Timberland Company says “Forget the box, think outside!”

John of the Cross, the Spanish mystic, once said: “To come to what you are not you must go by a way where you are not.” In other words, to change we need to change. It is obvious, but hard to do. When the apostle Peter heard Jesus call him from the sea shore he was in a boat; so how could he get to his master, across the water? Humans can’t walk on water, surely! Or can they? He obeyed the call, and the rest is history. So maybe it’s time for you to get your running shoes on…and see where they take you.

Detroit, My Love

My first day in Detroit, the capital of the American automotive industry: once the pride of the American Midwest, it now represents all that is corrupt and hopeless in big inner cities. Over the last fifty years Detroit’s population has shrunk by half, down from 1.5 million in its heyday. Even before the recent economic crisis the city was hard up; whole industrial complexes loom empty, the large train station is no more than an abandoned shell. Whole stretches of land within the city limits are overgrown because abandoned homes have been torn down or burnt to the ground and only the occasional stray dog indicates that there is still life here. The new mayor is seriously considering re-settling some of Detroit’s population and shutting down large areas of the city because the tax base has shrunk so substantially that it is impossible to maintain basic services such as water, electricity and roads in many parts of the Detroit.

I spend the morning in a soup kitchen run by a Catholic order: it is one of four that they run in the city, and six days a week they serve anywhere from three hundred to seven hundred meals a day. I help dishing out ice-cream, and my hands gets sore after an hour. The clientele is largely African-American, people without jobs, homes or a future. One of the men wears a T-shirt that says it all: “There is no American dream”- and most of them would echo that slogan. Both to shut out the sense of hopelessness and in the hope of making a quick buck, many turn to drugs: crack, cocaine, grass are all in easy supply.

I sit in on a small group with ten people, eight of them men, all of them with a drug history and problem. They have lost family, jobs, dignity and turned to crack to dull their pain, only to wake up twice as miserable the next day. One day they hit rock-bottom and ask for help, in the form of food, shelter, and detoxification. Some of them have been clean for a year, some for a few months, some are high even as we speak. One amongst them is new today: he is 27, good-looking, but sad. He is married and has two children, down in the South. But he got into drugs and eventually his wife kicked him out. “Come back when you are clean”, she said. He still loves her and wants her back; but he seems powerless to kick his habit. As others share their story, he breaks down and cries: “I want out, before it kills me”. At the end of the group he empties his pockets: no ID, but a knife, and plenty of drugs. We take him to Salvation Army: there he can get his head straight, while my friend works on getting him papers. Then he can be admitted into detox.

The next day I am in a Christian school for poor children from the city. When you see the pupils in their uniforms, how respectfully they relate, you would not believe that they come from really difficult backgrounds. But then the teacher tells them that we are missionaries and they can ask any question they want. “Why do people suffer?” is the first question, and it is not a purely academic one. Most of them struggle against enormous odds, but thanks to truly dedicated teachers and very generous sponsors most of them will graduate from high school, which is unheard of in this part of Detroit.

I get to meet the music teacher: she has worked in Salzburg and Vienna and so the report is immediate. It is clear that this woman is very gifted and could have landed a job anywhere. But she chose Detroit and now teaches children right here to play a string instrument. Would we like to hear a piece? Sure. So they play Vivaldi’s Gloria, and for a moment you forget where you are. Beauty seems to have conquered suffering, and the faces of the young artists prove it.

Next we drive by a set of apartment high-rises; they are empty and my guide explains that they were so drug-infested that a few years ago the city decided to shut them down. We go to see Sister Judy. In her little kitchen we make sandwiches, and once the lunch bags are made (complete with a kind word written on the outside of the brown paper bag) we set off in her little van. We drive around the wastelands of Detroit: abandoned houses, long without water and electricity, boarded up. Sister Judy stops in front of one of themm and honks the horn, waiting patiently. Eventually a pregnant woman comes out, whom Sister knows by name. “Hi, dear, how are you? Here is your lunch!” The scene repeats itself forty, fifty times: people come out, to get their lunch, a word of encouragement, sometimes a prayer, and a biscuit for their dog if they have such a friend. “Do you have socks? No, but Friday I will be back!” As we drive on we notice smoke billowing out of one house: we call the fire service. What happened? Did the house catch fire because the inmates fell asleep with their cigarettes still lit? Did they light a fire to warm themselves? Or did the police torch it, because it was another crack house? All of the above are possible and do happen regularly.

My week continues, and many more are my encounters, both with stories of pain and suffering, but also of hope and renewal: Herman, a former drug dealer who did eight years in prison for murder; now he pastors and a church and visits people who are “doing time” just like him to tell them that there is a way out. Numerous volunteers at the soup kitchen who, rather than fishing on Lake Michigan or sunbathing in Florida, decide to make food, collect clothes or counsel clients; young people who give up their summers so they can run after-school programmes for children who have never known their dad- the list is endless.

My last day: ten of us set off to South West Detroit, an area also known as Mexican town. As the name indicates it is heavily Hispanic in make-up, and while it is slightly better off than some other areas we have been in during the last few days, drugs and crime related to them are just as prevalent. Our destination is a little park, 20 meters by 20: the walls surrounding it are full of graffiti, and our task is to paint over them in bright colours, so as to make the place more inviting for children and young moms. So why is there a police car present as we pull up? The organization we work with has requested their presence because the graffiti we are about to blot out with bright and innocent colours is gang-related, and our activity is eyed with suspicion. Every so often teams like ours get threatened or worse, so officer Gomez is there to make her presence felt. The neighbours are also there and eye us, initially with suspicion, but then with gratitude: “thanks for taking the time to make our community more beautiful”. After five hours we agree: the park looks more inviting, cheery, fun- as if somebody cared. How long will it stay that way, one is tempted to ask; when will they come and spray over our handiwork again? Is it not futile to try and compete with them, a bit like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the mountain only to see it rolled down again? Maybe, maybe not: but I prefer a different metaphor, that of the man who sees somebody on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. When he asks the stranger whether he thinks his activity makes a difference, the stranger picks up another starfish, throws it into the waves and says “I sure made a difference for this one”.

Of Chipmunk and Other Friends

6 days ago we arrived here, after a long (but cheap) flight which took us all the way to Houston and then Detroit. Here, where is here? Chelsea, Michigan, the home of Jiffy Cake Mixes, and of the Servants of the Word. An very large, wooded piece of land (80 hectares) owned by Tino’s brotherhood, about 30 minutes outside of Ann Arbor. As you come up the driveway you realize somebody has been working this piece of land for some time, for it is immaculately landscaped and mowed. You then stumble upon two large houses: one is where we live (13772) together with six other men, the other is the an office building for brotherhood business and for Servant Systems, the brotherhood’s software company.

But what strikes you most is the wildlife: every morning when we sit on the balcony and look over the swamp, twenty or so different species of birds gather to feed. We also walk every day and have already chased up deer, wild turkeys, grouse, rabbits, frogs and chipmunks. Now the latter is my favourite, because they are about the same size as me (though not as intelligent). In other words, the feeling of waking up here is nothing like London or Belfast, where the only animals you ever see are pigeons and foxes; here birds wake you in the morning, during sunset you hear the frogs croaking, and you go to bed with the sound of crickets.

Tino is beginning to settle in and has amassed tons of books on his shelves. But there are a few unfinished work projects which he had to see through before really getting stuck in. So anyway, a good first week in the Wild Midwest, though the weather could be better (too much rain for my London taste). That’s it from me- I am off to see the chipmunks.