Before we get to the exciting week ahead of us here in the
74126 next week during our Week of Serving (see the schedule for the week at
http://www.turleyok.blogspot.com/2012/03/join-our-community-service-week-mar-12.html), let me begin with the amazing things we have been participating in
during the past month. But be on the lookout for an article on our week ahead
that may be published in the Saturday Tulsa World Religion Section. Next week we
will feature a Tour, free meals, hands-on projects at the Center, partnering
with a librarian, with crafts and sewing people, with carpenters and others,
hands-on projects at the GardenPark to transform it and finish our work for
which we received last summer a home loan bank grant, classic country music
concert and classic Rock concert, parties, movie of The Way and discussion of it
by one who recently walked the Camino de Santiago, projects in the community
with our partners, and more in the week ahead. Come join us. See that link above
for details. Share and come celebrate next week with us.
On Saturday, Feb. 18 we were part of a Board Retreat for
McLain School Foundation and on Sunday, Feb. 19, we had the privilege to be one
of the featured food justice groups at the Interfaith Trialogue Series Food For
Thought sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice; we
introduced our work here in the 74126, our great needs, and the many
opportunities people have for connecting with us especially in our community
gardenpark and blight to beauty projects. We have been working clearing our park
site and planting for the season ahead already. We are beginning to work with
the local women's correctional facility on a gardening project too.
On Tuesday, Feb. 21, we showed the documentary and had a deep
discussion of Dr. Cornel West and others in "Stubborn as a Mule" on the need for
reparations and the history of injustices toward African Americans past and
present, and about our calling for joining in the struggle in the ways small and
large that the work still presents itself for us everyday here. On Wednesday,
Feb. 22 we joined with Turley United Methodist Church for Ash Wednesday
Service.
On Feb. 29, we were honored to travel to Houston to receive an
Award from the Southwest Regional Network of the National Recreation and Parks
Association for our work in creating our community garden park and supporting
public parks in our area; this was after receiving the statewide parks award; we
may be nominated for the award on the national level, so stay tuned. What I say
in talking about our work particularly in food justice is that it illustrates
the point Jim Wallis of Sojourners in D.C. and others make about the necessity
of combining individual and private and non-profit and governmental funding and
cooperation to attack the roots of poverty and hunger. Our park site is a prime
example of how that is taking root here. And we hope to see it bear fruit not
only at the park but also through our work at the community center and out in
the community with partners. You can see the award citation information about us
at this link: http://turleyok.blogspot.com/2012/03/our-turleynorthtulsa-park-receives.html.
Plan now to join with us for our Park Dedication and Celebration
Saturday, May 12, from 10 am to 2 pm, with ceremonies beginning at 11 am. and a
party the whole time, especially for all of you who have helped in those hot
summer days last year. It is great to see the beautiful blossoms on the trees of
the orchard.
We also last month had the first of our two part volunteer training workshop; stay tuned for the scheduling of the next session this month; you don't have to take the sessions in order, but you do have to take both.
Recently we have begun work with local leaders in senior
nutrition and senior living on revitalizing a foundation and the hopes of
creating more free senior nutrition sites in our area; the only one is some five
miles away and it has already reached its maximum capacity and can't take any
more seniors. And we are trying to find a way, now that Cherokee School has been
closed, to still provide the summer feeding program for all under 18 years old
that we have been doing all summer long for the past three years, feeding more
than at any other site in Tulsa; stay tuned as we hope we can actually work out
a temporary lease to continue to use the closed school facility for all of our
healthy food justice projects and more community renewal work. And our Food
Pantry continues to serve more and more families; at the end of April we will
again host the Mobile Food Van as we did in January when we gave out 11,000
pounds of food to those in our zips.
We are looking for a commercial refrigerator to help us be
able to offer a site for feeding the children and youth; and we are looking for
donations for a new hot water heater, and plumbing assistance to install showers
at the community center, and creating our own kitchen space at the Center.
We have been having meaningful weekly Thursday Lenten Vespers
services at 6 pm incorporating reflections from Father John Dear's book The
Questions of Jesus, and plan to see him when he speaks in Tulsa Wed. Mar. 28 at
7 pm at Fellowship Congregational Church. We traveled to Stillwater on Sunday,
Mar. 4 to preach on how transforming the world requires us to transform our
approach to faith itself; to adopt a new theology of the cross for progressives;
the sermon "Bless This Mess" available at http://www.progressivechurchplanting.blogspot.com/2012/03/bless-this-mess-transforming-faith-and.html. I am going to be travelling to Washington, D.C. later this month to
coordinate the progressive Christian Revival, see www.uuchristian.org/revival and then will be in
Midland, Texas Mar. 25 to preach the installation sermon "The Possible Church"
for the Rev. Thomas Schmidt. Looking ahead, On May 5 I will be preaching the
theme sermon in the Boston area for the Ballou-Channing District at Fairhaven,
Mass. Title is "ReShaping The World: church in the likeness to a different God"
and the subject is how the hurting world needs both missional church and
progressive church to combine and be transformed by one another in order to be
the kind of leaven in the world that the radically subversive God requires. We
invite all to join with us in our small missional community worship services on
Sundays between 9:30 am and 1 pm including common meal, and also check out our
daily morning and evening prayer communities online at the Facebook site above.
We continue to host and coordinate the Future of Turley
meetings, and held one recently where we advanced our plans to work on disaster
response networking, incorporation, post office, school support for the new
public charter school The LightHouse Academy going in where the Greeley School
is now (we have been helping the new school spread the word and attract
applicants and we will become a main community partner for their program which
will eventually offer K-12 school nearby, even as we deepen our commitment to
help the other public schools such as McLain). We have also been studying the
new census and demographic and ethnographic material about our area which in the
past decade has lost another almost 15 percent of its population (and that is
just in the unincorporated side of our service area), the second highest
percentage drop in the communities in the Tulsa area; while health data keeps
getting worse for those who move here or remain.
Looking ahead to next month: We will be a part of an April 17
presentation and discussion on issues of homelessness and immigration sponsored
by Phillips Theological Seminary and featuring the Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith.
More will be coming soon on this event.
In acts of one to one service, in working on larger justice
issues, in connecting people who want to make a difference in this abandoned
place of the American Marketplace Empire, in sowing seeds of hope, we live out
our mission to grow healthy lives and neighborhoods by empowering residents, and
in all we do to seek to make visible in the world the loving and liberating and
radical hospitable to all presence of Jesus.
blessings, Ron
ps if you don't want to go to the link on next week's
highlights, here they are:
Join In Our
Week of Serving Turley & Area
Mon. Mar 12 – Fri. Mar.
16
Monday:
10 am to 2 pm: Tour of Area and
Discussion of Issues and Projects. Free Lunch included. Meet at the Welcome
Table Community Center, 5920 N. Owasso Ave.
2-5 PM Service Projects at the Center
and new Community KitchenGardenPark and
Orchard, 6005 N. Johnstown Ave., and in the
community
5:30 pm at the Center Free Dinner
Movie and Discussion of “The Way” with presentation by the Rev. Jonalu Johnstone
of First Unitarian Church in Oklahoma City who recently took the pilgrimmage.
Tuesday:
9 am to 6 pm Various Community
Projects for all ages; 3 to 6 pm Food Pantry; gather at 2:30 for a quick prayer
and blessing service for the work of the food pantry and the lives touched
through it.
Wednesday:
9 am to 6 pm Community Projects;
11:30 am free lunch for helpers at Turley United Methodist Church, 6050 N.
Johnstown Ave., 6 pm Classic Country Concert with Johnny and The Oklahomans, and
6:30 pm free dinner for helpers at the Welcome Table Center.
Thursday:
9 am to 6 pm Various Community
Projects for all ages; Food Pantry 3 to 6 pm; gather at 2:30 pm for a quick
prayer and blessing service for the work of the food pantry and the lives
touched through it.
Lenten Prayer Service 6 to 6:30 pm,
Welcome Table Missional Community
Friday
9 am to 6 pm Various Community
Projects
3 to 7 pm Turley area Litter Pickup
Event and Jupiter Jump and Party at The Welcome Table Community Center
7 to 9 pm Live Rock Music,
featuring the band “Built For Comfort”
For
more information, or to sign up to help, contact Ron Robinson, Executive
Director, A Third Place Community Foundation at 918-691-3223, or see www.turleyok.blogspot.com
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