Vagabond Dreams: Stardate: 1.31.2010:
Sunday morning Nick and I get up and head over to Susanne's to meet her for church. Normally we would be going to New Hope in the Airport District of Modesto. New hope used to be situated in a more affluent section to the north, But has recently purchased an old and abandoned church down near the airport in a neighborhood that needs some good influences and is busy renovating the church building and holding services in the dining hall. It is a good congregation and I seem to fit well there; Susanne once said that when she first started attending, she asked someone (jokingly) if she needed to get a tattoo to become a member. I have not attended church in years, and have only recently began identifying myself as a Christian again. I have flirted with many paths, and think that many may well lead to the same place, but God has been giving me some not so subtle hints over the past year and I have decided to fall in line. Last week, after services, both Nick and I talked to different people and both conversations went in similar directions. When I walked out to the picnic table he said, “I am quitting drinking today.”
“Well shit,” I replied, “So am I.” He did not take another drink. I kept sipping until I finished the Sprite bottle full of vodka I had in my back pocket at about ten-thirty that night, but I did not refill it. Rather I poured the rest of the Half Gallon bottle in my backpack down the toilet at Susanne's house. He was sick for a day. I was sick for about three and shaky for two more, but I did not have a seizure and I think that prayer is why. After a week, I feel great, and I have no cravings to drink. That is indeed a miracle.
Anyways, as I said, normally on a Sunday we would be heading to New Hope, but today we are heading to Merced to participate in the Gateway Christian Fellowship's service day. Susanne knows one of the women who organized missions and outreach for Gateway, name of Monica, whom she met through social activism some time back.
Susanne and I went to Gateway once before and began painting a bus with them. This time Nick is accompanying us, last time, he was still in San Diego visiting his sister.Susanne is in charge of the project as the “artist,” but her philosophy of communal art dictates that a collaborative art project is such that if even one person who participates was either not involved or was replaced it would be an entirely different piece. So, Susanne is in charge, I am her gopher and a semi-competent painter though I have done many more houses than works of art, and the youth group members help with every facet of the project from design, to outline, painting, cleanup, etc. This communalism is carried to the point that the entire group participated in voting on which pieces of clothing from the bus would be strung on a clothesline as a model to paint from. This makes the project fun, but time consuming.
To clarify what we are doing here, Gateway is starting a new outreach program known as The Bus Boutique, They bought an old bus from a local Rock Station (The Hawk, 104.1) that had used it as a concert/party bus of all things, and have converted it into a clothes locker. The Buis will take in donations, and distribute them to those in need. The Boutique part of the name comes in with their innovative idea for getting people to be proactive. The distribution of clothing is contingent upon trade. For instance, for my participation in painting the bus and working as Susanne's gopher, I am entitled to select any clothing I might need from the buss's store. When the Bus becomes active, people will contribute time, work, or some sort of output on their part in exchange for the clothing that they receive. This helps the church be able to provide more services for their outlay, and enables people receiving aid to feel that they have earned it, which helps build self-esteem in a demographic badly in need of some. So, the bus is painted white, Now we are in the process of painting clotheslines, complete with clothes of various sorts hanging to dry, on each side of the bus, and also, painting logos to identify what it is.
Later that day:
We attended a brief service at Gateway, then the entire congregation split up into color coded groups and were assigned various tasks. The Bus painters were the Pink group. Other groups did trash pickup in various parts of town, landscaping for a sick widow, and so forth. We had mostly completed the driver's side of the bus on our previous foray, and today we mostly finished the passenger's side. It is looking good, but we will have to come back at least one more time. After working on bus we headed back to Modesto and went out to eat at a Vietnamese place for great, spicy food. Then we went for a walk in Greseda Park in downtown Modesto to burn off that stuffed feeling. So we walked for a bit, then played on the Jungle Gym like little kids, climbing and swinging and playing tag. Laying on our backs on the sidewalk and looking up through winter bare branches at the starry heavens reminded me of being a teenager running the streets of Santa Barbara at night. Then I was drinking and getting into trouble with my best friends, now I am sober and happy with even better friends, and I am content. We hear music playing from nearby and go to look for it. We find The Queen Bean Coffeehouse is having an open mic night across the street from the park. We stand in the parking lot and listen for a while, to music and poetry under the stars and a nearly full moon. A fat young man begins playing an Irish Jig with lyrics about an alien spaceman who stops to take a pee on the dark side of the moon and then visits earth, Susanne starts dancing to the tune and grabs my hand. We skip and twirl and collapse against the wall laughing helplessly...in time we walk back to the car and go home, she drops us off at the bridge and I miss her already. That girl just makes me laugh, and we are always doing some kind of cool, creative, crazy shit. Thank God for days like this one, and for friends like Susanne and Nick.
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