Ordinary Revolution {in a bologna sandwich}: Day Three

There is talk in different circles about a revolution happening in Christendom. Shane Claiborne wrote a book about his radical activism and lifestyle in an attempt to provoke people with an irresistible message of sacrificial living. (You can read my Amazon review of the book, which I described as "annoying and compelling" HERE)

My biggest problem with Claiborne's book was that it did not take into account the ordinary living of everyday ordinary people. He wrote it as a monastic person who freely travels to and fro from whatever political rally his kind heart chooses to engage with. Good for him. But tie him down with a forty-hour work week as a 7-11 clerk and then write a book about revolution. Doesn't sound so sexy, now does it?

That's the revolution I'm interested in. The one that is proletarian in nature, a revolution of the everyday guy who's been shamed into thinking that his life doesn't count because he doesn't have much power.

I'm on the prowl these days for indications of a revolution of the powerless and voiceless. It's not easy to find, because regular people don't have platforms to shout from. They wander on the backroads of obscurity and choose to remain anonymous. This, I am discovering, is a great spiritual discipline, to be intentional about being invisible and unknown. It goes against human nature with the ego's craving for credit and attention. Jesus so often refused credit for even the most spectacular miracle he had just performed. Let me tell ya, if I prayed for a guy blind since birth and he got healed, I'd be on the phone to CNN. And then I'd write a book about healing, and I'd begin a national tour to promote my special anointing.

There is, I am convinced, a quiet undercurrent, an underground movement of changed thinking that is affecting many citizens in Christendom. Jim Palmer is one of them.

Jim used to be a big somebody. He pastored in a big church. He had pulpit power and spiritual influence. But then something happened inside of Jim that made him pay attention to the nobodies, to the everyday men and women who lived simpler lives then he did. It ended up changing his life, paying attention. He wrote a book about it, Divine Nobodies, and though he didn't launch a coast to coast publicity campaign, he did manage to sell a few books (to people like me) who felt a resonance with his message.

Jim, I believe, begin to listen to the true revolutionary voices of the common people, the overworked and underpaid, the blue collar folk who make up most of America (and the church).

This is what I'm talking about. Jim pursued finding God outside of his small box of being professional clergy. He found Jesus in the waitress at the coffee house, in the homeless guy on the corner, in nobodies who will one day die and be forgotten.

Radical living is agreeable and doable for some people, like Claiborne (though seriously, I'd love to see him work full-time for minimum wage and use that radical energy of his to inspire economic change!). But most people most of the time work for a living and get by one day at a time. And when we stop to think about things, some of us detect a fog of shame hanging over our inner life and ghosts of broken dreams quietly mocking us asking, "Do you really matter?"

That is the where the battle rages, I believe, against the lie that my life doesn't matter. For my whole life messages from my culture have told me to be successful and prosperous, to do something great that inspires others and makes the world a better place. I've heard many stories about ordinary folks accomplishing extraordinary feats of compassion or inventiveness or leadership. It's good, really, we need our heroes and legends, those who live exaggerated lives that the rest of us are spectators towards.

I'm not discounting that. What I'm determined to do is look for inspiration in the unlikely places, like in the daily slog of my routine life. Or the small acts of kindness I see in those around me. Like Denie.

Denie is my friend from Boise. She makes about 30-40 bologna sandwiches every Sunday and takes them down to the park. The guys there have gotten used to expecting her. She doesn't do much. She hands out bags of chips, water bottles, and bologna sandwiches. A larger church group shows up shortly after she does. They haul out bbq's and roast up hot dogs to give out to the hungry folks who hang out in the park. But Denie goes a little further. She hangs out and talks with the park people. She learns their names, their stories, their crises. She gives them her phone number and hands out hugs. She's a mama to the orphaned souls who call the streets their home.

Denie doesn't have much. She tells me that she spends about $10 a week to make all those sandwiches. She collects loose change to help foot the bill. It truly is a change of heart!

Here's something she wrote on her blog recently about a Sunday in the park with her friends who live outside:

Went down as usual to the park Sunday. There was a Blues Festival going on so the park was crowded. It was kind interesting to observe. Hundreds of people attending this festival and not more than a hundred yards away, there were at least a hundred people without homes. One of the men said the music was good. I asked him why he didn’t go over and enjoy the bands? He said we were asked to leave, that people felt uncomfortable with us there. I about blew my top. Come on people, are we all not entitled to the same privileges as everyone else? Just because someone has less than you, that doesn’t not make them less of a person.

When we were visiting Denie a few weeks ago I was thrilled to watch my teenaged daughter play kitchen assistant and help Denie make all those sandwiches. Just a couple of weeks ago my daughter and a neighbor girl decided to run an iced tea stand on a nearby busy boulevard. Rose decided that whatever money she earned she would send Denie. Before the afternoon was over, she had ten dollars. Just enough to help pay for a Sunday's worth of bologna sandwiches.

This is the stuff of revolutionary living, of doable everyday gestures that meander through our routines. Resistance to the lie of living big is found on the kitchen counters of compassionate warriors like Denie, who's inspiring the next generation (like my daughter) with the value of the small.

A bologna sandwich in the hands of the right person can become a revolutionary tool. But you won't hear about that on CNN.