Out of a sense of duty, I went last week to the monthly neighborhood meeting. "If I want to live in a healthy democracy, I've got to do my part,"- that kind of thing.
A neighbor gets up and announces that she and the Lyndale Walkers are leading a Thank You Walk in 10 days. [The Lyndale Walkers are a group of neighbors who volunteer to walk around the neighborhood wearing neon green hats, carrying cell phones, greeting people, keeping an eye out, and calling for help as needed. Back in the bad old days before we lived here, these people took back the streets from the drug dealers and johns by simply walking, greeting, and calling 911. Incredible.] If people write thank you cards to people in the neighborhood, and turn them in to the neighborhood association, she'll collect them and on Sunday, she and the Walkers will hand deliver all the letters with a sticker saying, "Hand delivered by the Lyndale Walkers." Anyone who walks is invited to her house for chili afterwards. Amazing.
Well, in one of those serendipitous moments I've come to recognize, I had just bought 3 packs of Christmas-themed thank you cards to have my kids give to people in the neighborhood who care for us. Is this cool or what? And it just so happens (wink, wink) that the person sitting next to me at the meeting is Phil from Youth Farm. So I lean over and volunteer to bring cards, markers, and help help write thank you's with the kids on Monday. By the time Monday rolls around, I've sprained my ankle and can't go, but I do send the cards and markers with Anjali who brings home the leftovers.
Yesterday, I woke up early, so full of gratitude and well-being, I couldn't sleep. I got up and from 6:30-9:30 a.m. I wrote thank you cards to people within walking distance who are great neighbors. I wrote 20 and my heart sang all day.
Hosmer Library- good books, neighborhood concerts, free homework help, and introduced me to Museum Adventure Passes
Post Office- smiles and good service even on crazy days, plus they greet everyone in their native languages
Present Moment Herbs- best collection of natural healing supplies in the state, maybe the Midwest
CAUSE Restaurant- participates in neighborhood events, donates food, pays for advertising in neighborhood newspaper, Anjali and I attended fun After Bedtime Party hosted there
Redeemer Residence- nursing home where my Gramma and Grampa White lived, have community cafe and Gramma's House Childcare, attend meetings and recently picked up a block on Garbage Out of Lyndale Day
Pilgrim Church and School- walk our block passing out monthly newsletter and offer scholarships to kids from 2 families on our block alone to attend their private school
Harriet Tubman Women's Shelter- care for battered women and kids, have 15-ft barbed wire fence around their backyard and playground, immediately across the street from police station, their lawn sculpture about freedom and healing inspires my own journey out of childhood violence
Butter Restaurant- provides food, sponsors fundraisers, buys ads in neighborhood newspaper
Painter Park- so many great memories at playground, neighborhood meetings, and now Mark's preschool
Solid Waste and Recycling- not only do they keep our neighborhood clean and safe, they've also befriended my kids, letting push the buttons to raise and dump our garbage bins
YMCA- celebrating 50 years in our neighborhood this fall, taught Anjali to swim, play with Mark, offer scholarships to my neighbor kids, safe place after school, and I've prayed many laps there, It was my sacred space through many years
Youth Farm- so good for so long for so many, hard work, cooking, healthy food, conflict resolution
Lyndale School- cares of kids and families, voting and neighborhood parties there, staff comes to neighborhood events
Crema Cafe- fantastic neighborhood involvement forever, beautiful gardens, gathering place for neighbors, and home of Sony's Ice Cream and Sorbet- yum
Inner City Tennis- fantastic free programs, super values and character assets, tons of caring volunteers
Zion Church- free community meal every week, emergency housing, addiction recovery program, houses Youth Farm offices
Sonny Carlson, my block leader- upbeat, knows everyone
Fire Station- come to every accident, helped my neighbor when she couldn't breathe
5th Precinct Police Department- come to every call, especially when I found the door open after Tim left for work and thought I'd heard footsteps, called 911, and a team of 4 swept the house, found no monsters, and left without waking the kids
Lyndale Neighborhood Association- these are the people who've connected me with almost every other group on the list and who are not only great neighbors, but have made me a better neighbor, too
And that's just my gratitude within walking distance.
Sunday night I asked God again for justice- not justice
upon people but justice
for me. Make right and whole everything that went wrong and broken.
Something inside me is breaking open- something spacious and deep and powerful and beautiful and unstoppable. I thought that my pain would spoil all this for me forever and that nothing was more powerful or inevitable than suffering; evil was the truest thing. But I was wrong. There is a goodness, a beauty so profound it breathes the universe into life. I've called it Beauty. I've called it Love. Joy. Satisfaction. Majesty. Holiness. Freedom. Today I call it Justice.
It is breathing me into life and apparently, inevitably, inexorably into Gratitude.
Justice and Gratitude are singing the universe into being today. For me.
