At the corner of Cypress and Pine Streets in Santa Ana sits this tree with a hole in its trunk like Boo Radley's tree in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout and Jem, Atticus Finch's children of the novel, lived next door to Boo, making them all neighbors. Except, as happens in neighborhoods and communities and the world, Scout and Jem were warned to stay away from Boo who, they were told, was strange as in different as in not right in the head. He could not be trusted with scissors.
In the end, of course, the children trust Boo with their lives. He
saves them when they need it, and by saving the children, Boo makes the
neighborhood whole again. Meaning safe. What was different is given
permission to participate in what has always been the same.
Isaiah House sits a few houses down Cypress from this tree, and for 20 years Dwight and Leia--two Catholics working in the spirit of Dorothy Day and her boss on the cross--have been feeding and clothing and giving shelter to the homeless. Out of the kitchen of their home, and with the help of volunteers, they feed about 2500 people every week.
Every Sunday morning, the room adjacent to the kitchen just inside the large front door and past the stairway becomes a gathering place for volunteers who instantly accept their role as sous chefs. Eggs are broken, potatoes and peppers chopped, and a mountain of fruit is sliced and arranged in bowls. Service begins with a prayer. You must hold the hand of a stranger--one of those you will soon serve--while grace in English then Spanish is offered.
The rules of service are simple: With each plate of food you serve, you offer a kindness by sharing your name. The stranger does the same. Soon enough, the courtyard you have served is filled with food and people eating it together. It's familiar. Like family.
In yoga, there are five yamas: observances and behaviors that regulate how we relate to one another. The first is ahimsa, non-violence. It sounds easy, but it is hard. I have failed at it many times. In Kannada, one of many languages in India, is this saying: It takes two hands to clap and make a sound, which means conflict arises when both hands are clapping.
Today, I learned that two hands can instead appear like this, lending a hand and taking a hand, neither hand in need of announcing itself by making a sound.
Isaiah House sits a few houses down Cypress from this tree, and for 20 years Dwight and Leia--two Catholics working in the spirit of Dorothy Day and her boss on the cross--have been feeding and clothing and giving shelter to the homeless. Out of the kitchen of their home, and with the help of volunteers, they feed about 2500 people every week.
Every Sunday morning, the room adjacent to the kitchen just inside the large front door and past the stairway becomes a gathering place for volunteers who instantly accept their role as sous chefs. Eggs are broken, potatoes and peppers chopped, and a mountain of fruit is sliced and arranged in bowls. Service begins with a prayer. You must hold the hand of a stranger--one of those you will soon serve--while grace in English then Spanish is offered.
The rules of service are simple: With each plate of food you serve, you offer a kindness by sharing your name. The stranger does the same. Soon enough, the courtyard you have served is filled with food and people eating it together. It's familiar. Like family.
In yoga, there are five yamas: observances and behaviors that regulate how we relate to one another. The first is ahimsa, non-violence. It sounds easy, but it is hard. I have failed at it many times. In Kannada, one of many languages in India, is this saying: It takes two hands to clap and make a sound, which means conflict arises when both hands are clapping.
Today, I learned that two hands can instead appear like this, lending a hand and taking a hand, neither hand in need of announcing itself by making a sound.
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