I got the opportunity to get away for a few weeks this month. One of the things that was on my mind a lot over that time was the practice of prayer. It is a practice that for me has always been a pillar that new growth comes from, and also the first practice to fall when my Spirit feels down. It is a practice that means something a little different to everybody.
If you have been to Love City before you may have seen an old bus, painted blue with graffiti all over it saying Love City. We referred to this as the Love bus and have had it since the early days of Love City. It had 5 rows of seats and when in use would be packed to the brim with team members and all types of equipment. It would be used to go give out food, provide our neighbors rides, and shuttle team members and supplies to and from Westonia for events and camps.
Last week, our 1st-3rd graders joined us over at the greenhouse. They took a tour of the plants and critters that call it home. They learned about the different stages that different plants were in and the conditions those plants like to survive. And they had an absolute blast getting their hands dirty and planting some garlic. They got to see a vibrant garden with greenery and vegetables everywhere, brilliant flowers and pollinators galore, but the garden did not always look that way.
As we begin to reflect on the past 10 years over these next couple of months I thought it would be good to cover where some of our team was 10 years ago. If you have followed Love City for a while you may be familiar with my story. In 2015 I was in a church group and had been assigned the task of finding a non-profit that could accommodate a large number of high school students to volunteer.
I got a gift a few weekends ago. A vase with a net on top containing a parsley plant. I accepted with feigned enthusiasm. But then they told me to look closer, a small caterpillar crawling around, munching on the leaves: a swallowtail caterpillar. It was a gift intended for the kids at the school. I took it into school with me that Monday and gave it to our Pre-school class to care for.
Saint John the Baptist Church Building on 26th Street was originally built as Grace Lutheran Church in the late 1890s. The most recent operating congregation in the building was a small group of breakaway Catholics who would have traditional Latin Mass. In 2019 Love City owned and was renting out the rectory next door, and Shawn had gone down to check on that building one day.
The smell of warm cinnamon rolls, the sound of excited giggles, and the view of toothless smiles filled the halls of Mighty Oak once again every morning this week as school resumed on Wednesday. We welcomed a lot of little ones with our Pre-K and Kindergarten classes packed full of excitement and some nervousness as many of them stepped into their first ever day of school.
There is plenty of excitement in the air as we gear back up for another year at Mighty Oak. Final enrollment assessments are finished and teacher training is under way, we are excited to be bringing back all of our returning teachers. Seeing so many familiar faces is an important step in creating a good atmosphere as our students return to school next week.
People are creatures of habit. In one way or another, whether you are 5 or 75, dis organized or organized, care free or structured, we all have habits. These habits shape our lives in visible and unseen ways. Maybe that is because we were created in the image of God, the ultimate constant, the one thing that never fades, superseding time and space altogether. Maybe that is why we seek things out repetitively, in search of that constant. At Love City, we have also had our constant.
There is an old adage often attributed to Albert Einstein, “Once you stop learning, you start dying”. We all know that in reality we are all constantly moving closer to death whether we are learning or not, but there is a truth in this old adage that holds true. It is ingrained into the fabric of our humanity, a need for learning, a desire to understand the world around us, and an innate curiosity that drives us. It has been present since Adam and will be present to the end of days.
For decades our community has been plagued with litter, illegal dumping, overgrown abandoned lots, and houses in disrepair. At some point, our neighbors came under the illusion that this was an okay way to live, that this is what their neighborhood deserved to look like, what their kids deserved to grow up in. The ones who cared felt powerless, felt alone, felt like they couldn’t keep up and one by one they resigned, moved out of the neighborhood or just stopped trying.
One of Love City’s four pillars for creating a healthy community has always been economic sustainability. A part of economic sustainability is creating jobs for our neighbors. While we are always excited when our neighbors join us in any capacity, it is particularly encouraging when they choose to take on more responsibilities to help out their community. We have been excited to welcome a few of our neighbors to do just that this year.
There is one week of school left for Mighty Oak. The end of the year brings a lot of fun projects and events to help celebrate the accomplishments of our students throughout the course of the year. These end of year festivities include field day. With fun games and activities, snacks, and more time outside, it was a day filled with fun, the way field days and education should be.
Back in 2016 we had a meeting with the Principal of JB Atkinson Elementary school, Dr Nutter. JB is located just down the street from the Mackin building. In that conversation we asked, “What is one thing we could do that would help you?” Her response was that we clean up Westonia Park so that her students could walk there and use it.
If you read last week’s Love Letter then you know that we started to sell the pews out of the Saint Cecilia building to create more space. While the building was decommissioned as a Catholic church in 2009, it still holds a special place in many families from the community's heart. It was once the most popular Catholic parish in the neighborhood with nine priests living and working out of the rectory at its peak.
