Dreaming the Possibilities and Walking Its Edges

            As many of you know, I walk for my health.  Each week, I push a little further, extending the possibilities.  This week, the push is out to four miles a day.  Final goal, somewhere between 5 miles (the proverbial '10,000 steps' a day-the 'gold' standard of the Walking for Health literature?) and 7 miles (Biblically inspired as the distance between Jerusalem and Emmaus).

            The first part of the journey is on familiar ground.  Right up Centre Street through Merchantville.  I appreciate how “Centre” is spelled the ‘Canadian’ way.   Most days, my walking takes me along a portion of  Merchantville’s ‘main drag’.  This time, it was out to Cove Road and then Rt. 130.  I will often take this time to argue with God to sort out some of the finer bits of my understanding of God, the Bible, ministry, and everything. 

            What does a pastor argue with God about?  Well, deeply pastor-nerd things like: "Are the passages in the Bible where God reveals God’s nature to us meant to be ‘descriptive’, descriptions of the divine in the language of the fallen human, or ‘prescriptive’, prescriptions for how we must define and understand God?"  Like I said, deeply pastor-nerd.  

            Took Cove out to Rt. 130, placed my life in God’s hands as I dared to cross at the light, and continued on up to Westfield Avenue in Pennsauken.  Again, very familiar ground.  This is how we drive home from 73, 295, the Turnpike, and when coming south on 130.  On the corner at the top of the hill is a tavern that advertises good burgers.  One of these days, they will move from my ‘gunna try’ list to my ‘did try’ list. 

I took the left onto Westfield Avenue into the ‘downtown’ of Pennsauken.  It’s not really a downtown in the way Centre Street runs as Merchantville’s ‘downtown’, but it is a central corridor through the community that is NOT a highway.  It’s a bit different, more spread out, different economic and residential mix, a more diverse community.  But it is FPC’s Neighborhood.  There isn’t another Presbyterian Church in town. 

So, now my thoughts toward the Lord are more conversational, more interventionist in nature.  This is a drift from the nerdy to the necessary.  How do we reach out most effectively to this part of the neighborhood?  What is different and what does Pennsauken have in common with Merchantville?  Intercessory prayer-asking for God’s intervention-lead to intercessory prayer.  So, God lead us to serve Pennsauken led to a reflection of our Healing Service yesterday.  General intercession to more immediate needs.  For me, any pastoral care ‘list’ begins with intercessions to enter the lives of our people from the Lord.

So I’ve been up on Westfield Avenue before, and the question becomes, when pushing the loop, where to cross back over Rt. 130.  I’ve come back across at Merchantville Road, by the Pennsauken Library and the Starbucks.  I’ve come back across Browning, passing the Dunkin’ (can you sense a theme?) .

From the church side, I have also gone up Maple Avenue as far as and over the pedestrian bridge on Rt. 130.  So, today, looking at the map, it seemed right to close the loop.  That means taking Westfield Avenue out to Federal, and taking the left.  Because Maple Avenue, from the church, turns into Federal on the other side of Rt. 130.

Somewhere along Westfield Avenue, this means crossing from Pennsauken into Camden.  I knew I was in Camden for sure when, along Westfield Avenue, I passed a Spanish-speaking church that used to be one of the Presbyterian congregations serving Camden.  I recognized it from the orientation to Camden I received from my brother in the Lord, the Reverend Floyd White, who, in retirement, continues to provide pastoral leadership to the last remaining Presbyterian church in Camden (on the other side of the City) as well as being a community organizer, social advocate, missions organizer, and outreach specialist in this community.  And this does not even begin to touch on the work and support that his wife offers to the community.

            In Camden, the housing stock is different, more connected housing and ‘row homes’.  Pennsauken has homes that were built as single family homes that are often divided into smaller units in the present day.  A little history to consider here.  After World War 2, we praised the GI bill that paid for higher education and bought homes for generations of returning soldiers.  The mandate for the homes were single family homes.  Urban housing ‘stock’ in cities like Camden was ineligible for this aid precisely because they were connected.  Urban paid the price for ‘suburban’ expansion.

            In addition there are more boarded up locations, everything has the tighter feel of a 'real city', there is a lot of ‘urban armor’ in place, grills over a lot of windows and doors.  One streetside exit to the former Presbyterian church has a whole armored cage built around it.  But even so, beauty exists.  The corner unit on one length of connected housing had serious urban armor, grills over the window and front door, but also beautiful hanging baskets hanging in a row along the porch.

Took some time to realize that I wasn’t talking to God anymore as I walked.  I was in a state of what my police chaplain education identified as ‘hyperawareness’.  What is going on around me?  Who is coming close?  Where is there a blind corner?  Is this space dangerous?  Who is coming toward me?  It was during this time, when I wasn’t talking, that God had a moment to enter the conversation (It was a realization too that shutting up can be an excellent thing in times of contemplative prayer).

It was just two reminders.  The first, that here, like on Centre Street in Merchantville, like on Westfield Avenue in Pennsauken, like at the Starbucks or the Dunkin’ or the Station (old train station downtown Merchantville), that here, in Camden, every face I see is the face of Jesus, if I have eyes to see.  

The second is that this too is our neighborhood.

I took Westfield Avenue out to Federal Street and took the left.  Federal Street is Maple Avenue, depending what side of Rt. 130 you are on.  And instead of the game of chicken that crossing a light on 130 feels like, there is a pedestrian bridge (but after three plus miles, its a whole new game of making the knees bend to the steps...).

Walk along Federal Street toward Rt. 130 and you will see what God’s work in Camden looks like.  I passed by the Urban Promise Campus, school to aid to community garden and Brittin Village, a housing community of Volunteers of America, built on the old Army Reserve Center. 

This is our Neighborhood.  Or part of it, the parts to the north and west of our location.  And that’s on the earthly side.  There is another Neighborhood that we are called to be, that is a Neighborhood in the Kingdom of God.  That is a way of thinking about church that came to me early on in my ministry. 

As many of you know, I walk for my health.  Some days it is simply to enjoy God’s creation.  Some days it is just to clear my mind and sweep out the unnecessary.  Some days it is time to ‘get into it’, whatever ‘it’ might be, with the Lord and see where it leads.  Sometimes it just about dreaming the possibilities.

Pastor Pete