Hi. We have a lot that is being born right now in our area. Often through the past year I have written about the challenges, the slights, the abandonments of our area needs by those in power be they in the government or marketplace or even social services and churches, the setbacks, the continuing bad choices our neighbors make, the persistent crime and creation of a culture of punishment and scarcity that cycles through generations...but...
Now I am moved to take you on a tour, or a detour, of a different sort during these Advent days leading up to Christmas and then the turning of the year. This time of the year is about celebrating new birth in unlikely places, new incarnations of salvation in unfamiliar people, about the manifestation of peace, joy, love, and hope where most people believe there must not be any. We have had a lot of it in just this past year. It is truly amazing, what some might call miracle...
Let's start at 6514 N. Peoria Ave. where we continue to create a welcome space for connections, for recovery, for food for the hungry, health for the sick, knowledge for the yearning, get togethers for the lonely and isolated, clothing and more for those in need, and art and music, and worship, all for free, all by volunteers. That continues to be a miracle in and of itself. [Here we will be having a movie, Powwow Highway, Tuesday Dec. 14 at 6:30 pm as part of our diversity movie nights; then Tuesday Dec. 21 we will have our community Christmas Party with live music and more, caroling, Christmas classics, etc.; then Friday, Dec. 24 we will have at 11 pm our Christmas Candlelight Communion Service; and each Sunday at 12:30 pm through Jan. 2 we are watching and discussing the wonderful new DVD program Justice For the Poor from Sojourners.]...Then let's go to out front where we have a guerilla gardening wildflower plot up an abandoned pole...then let's go to...
63rd St. by the Osage Prairie Trail crossing for the guerilla gardening wildflower plot we started this year...Then to 66th and N. Lewis for the guerilla gardening takeover of the intersection that had been a trashdump where we are transforming it into a multi year project of a garden itself...then over to O'Brien Park where we help with landscaping around the center, with gardens, and on the advisory committee to help the center grow its programs for the community, struggling to keep it rooted in serving those in the immediate area and not just those who come in from the suburbs...then over to 56th and Highway 75 where there is the new Skatepark just opened with soccer complexes to come, where we did plant rescue before the bulldozers started....Then down to Peoria by the Turley sign where this year we planted a new welcome flower bed and upgraded the sign to show our area cares how it looks, and along the streets where we continually pick up trash and more dumped on us...the down to the old Cullison store building where we have another wildflower plot...Down to the daylight donut store on Peoria where we planted a welcoming bed...Then to 6001 N. Peoria and Cherokee School where we have transformed the landscape and continue lately by planting with the Boy Scouts a new park of trees for birds and children on the southside of the school in keeping with our plans to create a circle of beauty and outdoor learning for the children as they enter the school so often coming from homes with none of this...then let's go to....
5920 N. Owasso just off Peoria Ave. where this past week we realized our outlandish dream of buying the 11,000 square foot building to house our expanded community center, community academy, community chapel, health hub and more. Already we have begun to decorate on the outside for the season to signal its comeback, even as we are working on getting utilities set up and the slow process of reclaiming and remodeling and cleaning from the vandalism. What just nine months ago was a dream for a five year vision has come true already, and we are excited about putting our resources into our own space and community and taking something old and abandoned, but beautiful, and giving it life again so it can give back life to the community as it first did 90 years ago. So many changes, not all of them easy, await us. We will be discerning and renewing in a way to serve more people, just as we did four years ago when we moved from our small church incarnation and opened ourselves up as a community center for all....then let's go to...
6005 N. Johnstown just blocks up the hill from our new building and from Cherokee, to where we have bought the acre of abandoned homes, had them torn down, and are now working toward clearing and preparing the rest of the land getting it ready for raised beds, for parkspace, and more here on a bridge space between neighborhoods overlooking downtown.....then let's go on west to 'Greeley School at 63rd and N. Cincinnati where we planted flower beds to beautify the entrance and begin relationships that will grow...then let's go to....
56th and N. Cincinnati where the ground is broken and work is going on for the new Health Dept. Wellness Center. We are partnering with the Health Dept. to work on a new grant for schools in our area to show how hydroponics work, to teach to families of the children, and interest the children in urban agriculture....Across the street is Gilcrease Middle School where an important school community forum process was held recently we participated in to help develop the priorities needed to break the low achievement scores....then to McLain High School on 49th and N. Peoria where this year saw new pride and new school uniforms and the school administration is bringing new life and the new foundation we have helped start will help them continue the transformation as we continue to increase the support from alumni and community partners and families. We look forward to finding ways to connect McLain students with all of our new projects and in our new space....then let's go right to the north of McLain where the mostly abandoned Northridge shopping center has been picked to be a focus of work by the also new this year North Tulsa Leadership School; there have been excellent articles in a series written by one of the participants, Tulsa World business columnist John Stancavage..then let's go to...a few blocks away near 54th and just off N. Peoria where the YWCA continues to work to bring families and women and communities into better health and connections and to fight racism and to provide quality child care....Next let's go see what's happening at...
36th and N. Hartford where the ground has been broken, the foundation will be laid soon on the new Wayman Tisdale Specialty Health Center from OU Medicine, providing not only specialists in our area but also some of the needed economic renewal in the area. We are working on the advisory committee for the Center and will be working to hold community forums in north and west and east tulsa to promote the center.....then on to Pine and Peoria where the new Gateway Market that also started this year continues to grow, to provide good healthy produce and other items.
That is a lot of new things being born just in the past year here, but of course it only scratches the surface of the work going on through churches, schools, organizations like the North Tulsa Community Coalitons and the From TU to Turley coalitions group monthly meetings organized by State Rep. Seneca Scott, and the neighborhood associations made up of a few dedicated people in places like Turley and Lakeview and the new one in the McLain area, in Suburban Hills, in Park Meadows Estates, in Carriage Trails and a new one near Berry Park; in the places like the Dream Center that is working on a new community garden, through the churches like Antioch Baptist that are working on the youth ranch just over the county line, and also not far from us on the northside in osage county is the new Oklahoma Botanical Garden, and so much personal work with families in the persistent work of the 100 Black Men of Tulsa and the women's group helping their mission of gang intervention, and the work of the Christian Ministers Alliance in supporting religious connections as well as the goal of a new youth center at Apache and Lewis, and in that area is the growth and outreach of the Tulsa Community College Northeast campus that hosted the North Tulsa Farmers Market and the important work being done by Newsome Community Farms out here, and that campus will continue to find ways to connect their students coming from all over Tulsa with the needs of the local area. So many more projects and people, like at Sarah's Residential Center near McLain, a nonprofit serving those in need, and of course in our area we have four prison re-entry programs such as the Turley Residential Center, the Tulsa Women's Center, Centerpoint, and Fitting Back In, all doing their part trying to take care in a healthy way of the huge problem of sending too many women, mothers, to prison in this state; probably no other area like ours has so many such programs. And there is the Community Services Council's work in this area such as the initiative to stem the too high proportion of minority youth in the juvenile justice system; it affects all areas, but ours in particular.
So, with all that going on, and just scratching the surface (so many long established groups and projects to thank too) and so much of it being very new, still each time there is a crime and a killing in North Tulsa, the readers comments in the online version of the Tulsa World are full of those, from outside the area, who can't wait to cast their cynicism about any changes being made north of Admiral; I suppose it is their way of distancing themselves from being responsible for helping; they see only the crime and say that anyone still living here must deserve the violence or be a part of it. What's worse is that even when stories are written about some of these new projects, so many voices are heard putting them down; and of course what is especially hard is when some of those voices come from within our area itself.
Such was the culture and climate of the first century, when another Empire's peace was brought at a great cost to those with the least in society, when it was said that "nothing good can come from Nazareth" and yet when the spirit of God brought hope through a young, outcast unmarried family who became illegal immigrants journeying among strangers, being on the ground, being present, being vulnerable, making mistakes, starting over, right where they happen to be, waiting with peace even though all around them there was crime and military might, waiting with joy even though poverty and hunger and despair of being occupied for generations was all around them, waiting with love for one another and for God, living in the love of God, even though the dominant voices were telling them there were people to be feared, to be hated, that there were the "us" and the "them", waiting with hope even though false messiahs were beckoning and betraying, even though those with the safety of stoicism and cynicism were the loudest, safe back on their side of the Empire.
But like that young different from the norm kind of family, there are today, as the list above reveals, so many who are doing the 3Rs of community renewal; so many who have remained here through the years when they could have left for easier lives, so many who have returned here, bringing back their lives and skills to this area, so many who are relocating here from other parts of town and looking for ways to help, so many who are relocating through giving of their time, their talents in volunteering, and their treasure to support us and others, so many who are working on redistribution of goods and the Good, of love and justice in small acts, all for the sake of reconciliation.
Through it all the problems continue, the life expectancy suffers, the neighborhoods continue to be abandoned, despite all the grassroots ministry. As the Rev. Gordon Cosby of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C. used to point out about his area after forty years of tremendous ministry, the decline continues because so many issues on a macro-level that affected his local area were going unaddressed; the inequity in where the nation's resources were directed continued to starve the groups on the ground making a difference. Or, as Catholic Social Worker Dorothy Day said, when she feeds the poor they call her a saint, when she asks why there are the poor they call her a communist. But, knowing that, and working on those public prophetic issues, did not prevent her or him from still continuing to be present among the poor, because, as Jesus said, if you are with me, you will always be among the poor and they will always be among you, for there is no other way to be with me.
This season we celebrate in many ways many things, and we so often let many good things grab our attention---family, friends, our own groups and meetings---but remember the story that should grab our attention, of how God's Annointed One was found in only one place, the feeding trough of animals where no one else wanted to be, and in only one form, a vulnerable fragile human baby, and for only one purpose, to show us what God is like and likes, and how that upends Empires of all kinds. May that be our hope and our salvation and our own story too.
If you are so moved to be a part of this by helping us at this particularly tough financial time, as we have again emptied our bank account to be able to do all we do, it is easy to do online at www.turleyok.blogspot.com through the donate button. You don't have to use paypal; any credit or debit card will work. Or you can send end of the year deductible donations to A Third Place Community, 6514 N. Peoria Ave., Turley, OK 74126. Thank you to those who have helped in bringing about this amazing 2010 accomplishments. Your surprising gifts to us will allow us to make 2011 an even bigger surprise for our neirghborhoods here too.
blessings, thanks, and more soon
Ron
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