Bang. Bang. Bang-Bang-Bang. Bang. Six shots. That’s what woke me up this morning. My clock read 4:02am. As far as I know, no one was injured. We called 911, though I don’t know how they responded, since my tired body went back to sleep. Then the morning started over again at 6:30am, just like normal. As if nothing happened.That is a picture - or one frame - of life in Boyle Heights. Most days, normal equals kids playing on the street until 9 or 10pm, ice-cream trucks circling the block (playing “Its a small world” too many times), mom’s walking with their children before school, or the teenagers next door landing their skateboards on top of the metal grate over the service ‘hole’ in our front yard.

But normal also includes new grafiti tags on the corner wall every weekend (some are beautiful, others not so), or ‘ghetto-birds’ (read–”helicopters”) flying overhead every few weeks. Or gunshots like last night. Even though last night is rare - maybe once or twice a year - it is still part of normal. Even in sharing what is normal here in Boyle Heights, I know that some folks will stear clear of visiting me, wary (or straight up afraid) that one picture of normal might spill over onto another picture of normal, maybe altering both.

My life in East LA has changed my perspective on a lot of normal life. I say “normal” not ideal. Gunshots in the late hours are not ideal. Grafiti is not ideal (though I have seen some beautiful tags…) But at least where I live, they are normal. Which reminds me that my life here is not heroic, nor very romantic (except with my wife.). Romantics change the world. Heroes leap tall buildings, swoop in to save the day, to do the impossible. I’ve been unable to do any of those things.

Probably the best thing that we’ve done since my wife & I bought our home year 5 years ago, was to do nothing. During our first week in our home, we were surprised by our 1st ghetto-bird visit. One time, we came home to see our house tagged (though never again). In our first year, 2am gunshots claimed the lives of two young men just a stones throw from our front door.

At each of these points, we’ve experienced the most normal of human reactions - fight or flight. But by grace - through prayer, through everyday choices of faith and obedience, through friends, through the word - we’ve instead “done nothing.” Nothing but continue to make our home here, get to know our neighbors, pray for our neighborhood, and prepare our home for our kids. Nothing that other people aren’t doing in their neighborhoods.

Mother Teresa once said: “There are many people who can do big things, but very few people who will do the small things.” I may never be half the saint that she was, but, by God’s grace, I’m learning neighbor love - by being in my neighbor”hood” of Boyle Heights.

This past Thursday, March 24th, Cal. State - Los Angeles hosted an educational forum put on by the Civil Rights Project of Harvard University to discuss research about high school dropout rates in California. Some of the enormous disparities are highlighted below:

• Nearly half of the Latino and African American students who should have graduated from California high schools in 2002 failed to complete their education, according to the report.• In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the situation was even worse, with just 39% of Latinos and 47% of African Americans graduating, compared with 67% of whites and 77% of Asians. The troubling graduation rates are most alarming in minority communities, where students are more likely to attend what researchers call “dropout factories.”

• Statewide, just 57% of African Americans and 60% of Latinos graduated in 2002, compared with 78% of whites and 84% of Asians.

Unfortunately, even for the small percentage of Latino & African American students that do graduate, their preparation for college has been significantly damaged by these very same “dropout factories.” Many of those students are at CSULA.

What we’ve had to come to grips with in our ministry is that teaching the Bible and making disciples of students necessarily involves righting this wrong. For us, this has included math tutoring & paper writing & reviewing, as well as seminars on financial aid and filing taxes. This is part, we believe, of what Jesus talked about in bringing “good news to the poor.” Not just good news that heaven will be better than earth, but that the kingdom of heaven can, will, and does break forth to transform the kingdoms here on earth.

I’m still learning what this means on a systemic, social & political level in how we minister and influence change in the greater university & in our city. But it has already involved changing the structural and systemic leadership within our ministry. Now, not only do I care the concern for their spiritual development, but I long for the day when I get to celebrate with my students their academic development in their graduation.

“May justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”

–Amos 5:24

This weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in a men’s retreat at La Canada Presbyterian Church, which took place in Ventura. (I asked Veronica, my wife, if she thought I should go. Her response was: “It’d be good for you, since you don’t get to be around a lot of white people very much.” She was right - it was a good weekend for me, and I don’t get around a lot of white people very much.)The speaker for the weekend was Dr. Mark Labberton from 1st Presbyterian Church of Berkeley (click here to hear his message.) The theme for the weekend was about HOPE - about hope in the midst of our manifold appetite and our search for satisfaction. It was about hope in God to be healed of our blindness, in order to see the world rightly and restoring not just our sight, but also our vision.He shared a story about a mountain bike accident that he had, in which he landed on a handle bar in such a way as to push is eye ball into 1-2 inches inward. Amazingly, after 1 year and 5 to 6 surgeries, he was able to recover his sight. But then he made a comment that really drilled me. He said, “While the doctors and surgery could restore my sight, no one but God can renew my vision.”

I was challenged by this juxtaposition of sight and vision because I realize how much I am consumed by what I “see” about the world in which I live - particularly the urban realities and challenges of my ministry - that I am easily thrown off from the “vision” of God.

It is easy to ask the question, “Does any of this - the day to day of urban ministry - really matter in the greater scheme of things.” Or I can ask myself, “Am I crazy for living like a missionary in the center of Los Angeles, instead of just… (fill in the blank idea of the American Dream)?” To which God kindly reminded me this weekend, “Let me fill your vision again. I promise you, I’m not playing around.” I am reminded that when the land around me looks dark, it is Jesus light of the World that I need to fill my vision.

Occasionally, I forget to turn off the morning news, start working in my office, and then I end up catching the routinely trashy morning talk show that follows. This morning they were interviewing a young pregnant woman, maybe 20 years old, about why she stayed in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend. Despite ongoing ‘threats’ to leave him, she never had.

After watching for a few minutes, I turned it off because I am tired of seeing these kinds of issues on TV. I’m tired of seeing it on TV because I experience it almost daily on campus with college students. It is the exception, not the rule, to interact with a woman on campus that hasn’t been molested, sexually abused, or who is promiscuously - and elusively - searching for love from some guy. Unfortunately, it seems, even broken love is better than lonliness.

I’m also tired of the sensationalism and emotional manipulation of these shows. As the shame of this woman’s dirty laundry is being broadcast into thousands of homes, the host appears compassionate as he ‘consoles’ her and charges her to take charge of her life. And yet, his show exists on the ratings that this woman’s brokeness produces. I’m tired of that.

I’m reminded of why I do what I do. For all of the limitations and shortcomings of human influence, I still know that people are influenced by other people. People influence people. I’m reminded of one women, “Tamika” (not her real name. She witnessed abuse in her home growing up & was reproducing that brokeness in her own relationships with men. And yet now, I’m reminded of the wholeness in Tamika’s life since she traded in broken love & lonliness for Jesus. She is a different women today. I’m reminded of how powerful the love of God reinforced through encouragement is in shaping the lives of women and men, and how much personal investment - and love - do to transform.

Another woman, Sharifa, and I are reading a book together called “Rise Up” by Sylvia Rose (great book by the way.) I laugh everytime I pull this book out to read it, because the subtitle is “A Call to Leadership for African American Women.” I laugh because only in the kingdom of God does a big gringo reading a book “for” African American women make sense. It ‘makes sense’ most as I see Sharifa, a great black woman with leadership in her, being empowered by God - in part because I’m influencing her. People influence people.