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On the Agenda
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Every Day
2:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Our House is open
85 Grand Street
M,W,F at Noon and
Thursdays at 7:00 p.m.
Meditation
85 Grand Street
Sundays
1:30 p.m.
Weekly worship
77 Grand Street
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This is a song for Jesus devotees. Recorded in 1972 by the Doobie Brothers (irony noted) this version is the most popular.
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Spread the Word
Help us spread the word about our work in the Burgh. In addition to telling your family and friends about us over lunch or dinner, you can also
Then go to
 where you can "like" us.
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Fund Our House
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| | Thanks to so many of you for helping us to match a $3,000 challenge grant. Together, we've raised enough money to keep Our House running through the end of May. Click on the photo to learn more.
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Greetings!
Did you miss us? The Gram never made it to press last week. Steve barely caught up from being away at the meditation retreat when he zoomed off to Ithaca for a week of teaching assessors how to value real property . . . He ran out of gas and the Gram succumbed.
Since we didn't ask you to read anything last week, we thought we'd make up for it this week by sharing news about our first ever poverty simulation, tell you that Amy and Larry are responding to the call to "Go west, (not so young) wo/man," and Steve kinda talks about prayer and includes a link to an extraordinary song by Andrea Bocelli. Speaking of songs, check out the Doobie Brothers' version of Jesus is Just Alright and our other links. We also ask that you help spread the word about what we're up to by forwarding this epistle to a friend and "liking" us on Facebook (The links are over there to your left).
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Poverty Simulation August 14th
We're overjoyed to say that we'll be hosting our very first poverty simulation from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., August 14th at the Greater Hudson Valley Family health Center, 147 Lake Street, here in Newburgh. The event will be co-sponsored by the Health  Center, the Newburgh Ministry and the Greater Newburgh Ministerial Association.
"What is a poverty simulation," you ask. A poverty simulation is a guided experience that exposes participants to the realities of poverty, including the challenges of navigating the complex world of government services and other essential service providers. During the simulation, participants assume the roles of up to 26 different families facing poverty. The task for each family is to provide basic necessities and shelter during four 15-minute weeks, while balancing the requirements of various service providers with the realities of daily life.
Gandhi called poverty the worst form of violence, Dr. King identified it as one of the three great evils (the other two are militarism and racism as understood in their broadest sense), and along with our cosponsors, we believe that poverty is the disease that is killing our city. An estimated 7,600 women, men and children live below the poverty level in this city of 29,000 people. We have been treating the symptoms (drugs, crime, high teen pregnancy and infant mortality rates, low educational achievement among them) for decades but unless we begin to understand and tackle the disease, nothing will change. It may be one reason why Jesus said we'd always have the poor with us . . .
That brings us to the purpose of the simulation. We've all agreed to sponsor this event as a means of educating ourselves, service providers, public officials, and folks like you about the realities of poverty and begin to build support for real change in the way in which impoverished people are served. We first heard about poverty simulations when we listened to this 2006 NPR story. A year later Ruth and I visited Savannah to experience one and came away convinced that sponsoring these simulations would help open the door to change in the city we call home. The brothers at Holy Cross Monastery agreed and, last year, donated the money we needed to purchase the materials and get the training we needed to do the work. After months of trying to get others interested, we were approached by Diahan Scott of the Family Health Center who asked if we knew anything about the simulations because the Center was interested in putting one on . . . You can learn more about simulations and how they work by watching this video. Better yet, find out through personal experience - Join us on August 14th. All you need to do is send an email to sower@ecclesia-newburgh.org. Give us your name and phone number. We'll send you a confirmation and look forward to seeing you at 12:30 on the 14th at GHVFHC, 147 Lake Street.
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Albuquerque here they come . . .
It is with a mix of sadness and joy with which we tell you that Amy and Larry Malick will be heading for a new home in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the 5th of August.
Larry has not been well for the past few months. A change of climate (nice weather . . .  warmer, lower humidity and just enough snow to make one remember . . .) will help ease some of his health issues. They'll also be closer to Amy's parents who are in their late 80s. What's more, the city is home to a budding Ecclesia and Amy will have plenty of opportunities to do the street work she loves.
Since joining us here last year, Amy and Larry have been a source of inspiration. Amy has given new meaning to getting "out there," to walking the streets and getting to know so many of our neighbors, making connections with women that led to a women's group and talk about a women's center, an empowering and affirming place where neighborhood women can begin to make a real difference in their own lives and the lives of their family members and friends. She's also connected Ecclesia with a host of service providers with whom we are beginning to partner with the work.
Larry is the force behind what has become our meditation program, organizing and leading our noontime program as well as our Thursday evening Centering Prayer session and conversations about the contemplative life. He's also been a counselor offering advice and support to all who come his way and going the extra mile with folks others have decided were too much trouble.
But, more than that, they've partnered with us in building the foundation of the Hope Center, helping to flesh out our vision of community, revisioning the work of Our House, plans for a spiritual center, and the park. We've laughed a lot and struggled together as we've tried to make sense of and process the pain and suffering we see all around us.
I hope you'll join us in thanking them for all they have done to make Hope's first year so very good. And, I hope you'll join us in blessing them on their journey.
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Reading between the lines
 Next Sunday, we get to talk about prayer in a passage (Luke 11:1-13) that begins with Jesus' disciples asking him to teach them to pray and ends with promises that don't seem to be kept . . .. We take an awful lot for granted in this life don't we? We take it for granted that the sun will come up tomorrow and that we'll be around to experience another day. We take it for granted that the car will start, the lights will come on, that our family and friends will always be there for us and on and on and on and on. And, there's so much we do that we do automatically without really even thinking. Stuff like brushing our teeth, putting on our shoes . . . breathing. It's second nature, part of who we are . . . The Lord's Prayer is one of those things. We memorized it in Sunday school and say it at nearly ever religious gathering. The button gets pushed and out it comes. We make nice cards and posters with wonderful images on them along with the words (The King James version is the most popular) and we've set it to music as in this magnificent rendition by Andrea Bocelli. It's comfort food for the soul, a common ground for Christians.
Maybe I'm projecting but it seems as though we say or listen to the prayer but don't really hear it. I mean, if we did, would we really ask God to forgive us just as we've forgiven others? Would we really ask that God's will for us be done where, more often than not, it's our will that we want done? It's enough to make you cringe . . .
Then there's the rest of the passage that seems to suggest that, if we ask even to the point of nagging, God will give us what we want. But, wait! How can that be true if we've not gotten all the stuff we've repeatedly asked for? And, what do we tell someone who's dying of cancer or suffering from abuse or lost a loved one to some horrible accident or ________________ (fill in the blank)  ?
Before someone chimes in with worn out cliches about God's will or God's plan or about the great mystery of God, let me say that there's something much deeper going on in this piece from Luke, something very deep about the nature of God and our relationship with God and with one another, something that transcends cliches and quid pro quos and what my friend Larry keeps referring to a dualistic thinking.
Verse nine keeps calling me - "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." It's a verse about the Kingdom of God, a verse about discovering a way into the place where God abides. It connects very nicely with the Gospel of Thomas, among the earliest of the non-canonical texts. Here's how Lynn Bauman translated Logion 94:
Yeshua (Jesus) says,
Those seeking will find
what they are looking for.
Doors will swing open
for the ones who knock.
What sort of seeking is required? What sort of knocking is he talking about? What does it suggest about the stuff we ask for?
And, by the way - if you're asking me to explain prayer, forget it. What I know about it is that God calls us to pray and that God listens. But, more than that, I know that God wants us to be the listeners, listeners to our own voices as we pray, listeners who wait in private for God's tender message of abundant love.
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