SPARKS

Week 1

In January 2011, I took part in a social and interpersonal experiment which I immensely enjoyed. One reason I was delaying my next letter is because I wanted to be able to update you about SPARKS and then continue to tell you about it when we continue in May 2011 without breaking the email cycle. That’s right; I’m leading a session of Sparks in DC with hopefully about 50 people. But I want to tell you about it now and how it went in January. Here is the letter we sent out:

Dear Friend:

Hey, this is Victor.
2011 is upon us. I want to share with you an event taking place January 11 through February 1 (Tuesdays @ 7 pm about 2 blocks from Union Station). For full details check out this blog post about the Spark Series in DC. I invite you to join me, or forward to anyone in your network who might be interested!

January is always especially full of possibilities – a chance to reset our priorities. But the rest of the year can often feel like a graveyard of good intentions that petered out back in February. This year I’m starting out with a bang – or perhaps I should say SPARK. And – if you live in Washington, D.C. – I invite you to join me.



For four weeks in January and February, I’m attending a SPARK series organized by my friend Andy Pisciotti. The series will help each person focus on this one question: What’s one thing I can do this week to make the world a better place, or myself a better person?

It can be in any area of life that you want…finance, health, romance, family, friends, spiritual, social justice, recreation/hobbies, etc. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is; all that matters is that you take a risk.

You’ll come up with an answer to that question, then we’ll come back the following week to share stories about how it went. We’ll repeat the process for a few weeks. It’ll be a great way to add some initiative to 2011, and it’s another excuse for a laid back evening with friends and food.

First, watch the 1-minute promo from SPARKgood.

Spark Promo from Spark Good Studios on Vimeo.

We’ll meet on Tuesday nights (January 11 through February 1) at 7 pm. Bring yourself. Bring friends. Bring some goals you’ve just been itching to get around to. I think you’ll find the atmosphere encouraging, inspiring and practical, too.
Contact me or Andy if you want the full details. How about starting your new year with a SPARK? Then, see it blossom in 2011.


During week 1, we just met. We had a total of about 8-10 people. In the first meeting, the concept was explained and we were given spark-generators, some worksheets that contained ideas about potential sparks (reconnecting with an estranged friend of 15 years, pursuing the man/woman of your dreams, building a home for someone in need, etc.). We ate food, talked, and discussed ideas. At the end we all shared what we thought we might do during the week. Because I have weekly communal dinners, I was hoping to open up my home to the homeless and invite them in for dinner, but because I don’t live alone, there are problems with that. So I decided what I wanted to do was to take a homeless person out to dinner. Now, I’ve taken homeless people out for a meal, but I normally have left after they receive their food. This time, I wanted to engage with them not prior to purchasing the meal and a bit afterward, but to sit down with him or her and spend time breaking bread and sharing lives. Next week, we’ll see how it went.

I’ve decided to start a new series in these email updates. Each week, I’ll tell you what happened in the subsequent week of SPARKS for me (I can only talk about me). It was an exciting time, and I quite enjoyed it. When it was over I didn’t want it to end.

Overall, it went well, though we had a few challenges about people wanting bigger and better things, about people risking bigger things. The problem was sometimes they didn’t, or they went for something that was easy instead of challenging, something that takes longer than a week instead of what could be done in a week, or something that wasn’t in their control, perhaps. So we’ll be doing it better, and we’ll do it again in May, and my friend Andy asked me to help co-lead. I’m really looking forward to it!!! VERY exciting!!

BELONGING, BEHAVIOR, & BELIEF

(Thoughts sparked by Peter Rollins)

I said that I currently don’t think the Way Jesus lived and about which he spoke is based on belief. I do not mean belief is absent. I’m just saying it’s not fundamental, the way we use it to divide ourselves in North American society. I was reminded this the other day when I was thinking about a baby.

A baby is born into a family. And instantly it is accepted. It is welcomed. It is loved. It is given a first name and immediately has a last name. It belongs to the family. It belongs.

Later, the baby grows up and begins to take part in the life of the family. The baby becomes a child and shares in regular practices or rituals with the family. They eat together, they play together, they shop together. They may go to church together, sing songs together, pray together, dance together, and watch movies together. This child now shares in communal behavior. She behaves a certain way.

Later, still, the child begins to question some of the beliefs she was taught. This self-examination period could last an uncertain amount of time. But the child, now a teenager, begins to reaffirm some of the beliefs of her parents and dissents with other beliefs of her parents. Some become her own and others are rejected and let go.

What is amazing about this is not that she believes some things her parents do or that she does things her parents do or that she belongs to her family. The amazing beauty is the order. She first belongs regardless of beliefs. She then hangs out and shares in common practices and rituals regardless of beliefs. Finally she learns to believe certain things (many will be shaped by that experience).

Why is that novel? Well, in the church we have done the opposite. We have said you cannot be a part of us (you’re not one of us) unless you believe, until you believe. Even more, you cannot participate in our common practices and rituals until you believe, without belief. So we have been taught, learned, and continue the practice of exclusion based on belief. It is many arenas---democrat versus republican, left versus right, etc. I see it all the time in D.C. and it makes my stomach churn. Why does it matter? Jesus, the person on whom Christianity is supposed to based, did the opposite.

He first accepted unconditionally 12 guys, mostly from the lower class of society. He didn’t ask them what they believed, he didn’t ask them to believe anything. He just said, “Come and follow me.” They were welcomed and loved, without doing or believing a thing. In fact Jesus did this with a lot of people. As I write in another section, he didn’t hang out with ex-tax collectors and ex-prostitutes, he hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors among others. He loved people unconditionally before any change in belief or action.

Once in his circle (and there more than just the inner circle of 12), people joined him in communal practices and rituals. They broke bread and ate together. They sat and listened to stories and parables together. They hung out with the poor and children together. They fed people. They healed people together. They spent time with those with no friends, no family. They loved people. They befriended the unfriendly; they loved enemies. They spoke with the occupiers. They healed the lame, the blind, the lepers (those with skin diseases). All this was done without a single plea or appeal to change their belief of God or who hey thought Jesus was.

In fact, it wasn’t until after joining Jesus and after already participating in shared practices that Jesus asked them who people thought Jesus was. They gave him answers like “Some say Elijah” and “Others say John the Baptist.” Jesus then asked them who they believed (key word) he was. Peter spoke up and for the first recorded time, we find that he believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the awaited one spoken of in the scriptures of the Jewish community. Belief came last. Belief came last. Not only did it come last, it wasn’t fundamental but a natural outworking of belonging to this community of Jesus and learning to do the things that Jesus did.

I believe in the power of change by behavior especially behavior of service. It’s the guiding principle I accidentally “discovered” and used while teaching and still use to this day especially in my own life. I never saw Jesus exclude people on the basis of belief. And I love churches and places where people are accepted even if they disagree with what is said, where people are allowed to ask questions when they don’t understand including questions without answers, where people are loved, forgiven, and welcomed unconditionally into a community that practices the Way.

THE SAVIOR

I have a pact with my best friend to visit a different country every year. This year we chose El Salvador. I had been there before, but I took one for the team. Plus I have a relationship with the country. My friend pretended he didn’t know that I went there. He should more properly use the term “forgot.” Anyway, he also “forgot” to tell me he was bringing his girlfriend until the moment right before he bought the ticket. I kept trying to figure out why he was telling me to bring a girl friend. Then he subtly mention, without asking, that his girlfriend would be going. Ha!
It’s funny how life works. I thought I was going to be a third wheel, but one person in El Salvador, upon observing us, told me SHE was the third wheel! Imagine that. I think that was temporary or just because that person wasn’t used to our relationship because between all the kisses between the two, the cat calls (mwah, nwah), the “babes” and “cute,” I had to increase my medical doses to cope with the nausea. Well, . . . ok. . . . sometimes I wanted to make a cat noise, too, but they would look at me with that singular look which when translated into human speak is “Three’s a crowd.” So I would make dog noises behind my breath.



Other than not being invited to play with mice, We had maybe 5 nights where I had to pay for my own room which changed my price expectation (normally I would have shared a room the entire trip or with my friend, and all three of us DID share a room for the other half of the trip—those were the best days :D ). But the trip was grand. I enjoyed it. We toured the country and got to know the people somewhat. I became familiar, again, with the pupusa, that ingenious invention of the Salvadorian mind. I love the food and if you put the right food inside it, it’s maaaahvelous.
I don’t buy clothes, but my friend was going to buy a shirt for me if I didn’t so I purchased a matching shirt to his to show solidarity. I wore it at the party in DC and people liked it. I like the colors of the indigenous clothing and cloth here. It’s a beautiful country.

For part of the time I was there we stayed at a site where there were two Peace Corps friends. I was hoping to talk to them about possibly restarting the high school summer international service program that started in 2005. [Quick summary: In 2005 I helped to start a summer international service program where we took high school students in groups of 10-12 to a foreign country for 1 month to do service work including a large, tangible/visible primary project plus many diverse secondary projects; the kids had language training, project training, and fundraising meetings throughout the year preceding the summer trip, and they engaged in pen pal relationships with kids at the site, in the community they would visit; There were reflections each night, strong relationships built and life-changing experiences held; the students became more globally cognizant, understanding, considerate, other-focused, responsible, etc.; the difference with our program is that it didn’t cost the kids anything as long as they were willing to work, and our preferred mode of working in the country was paired with a Peace Corps Volunteer working in his or her site/community; each year we returned to the same country and added a new country, maintaining old relationships and building new ones; Long story short, the program won a national character education award in 2007 and I went to the National public Charter Schools conference that year to speak about service in education. There I was told that I should make the program its own non-profit; I left the country and didn’t think about it much though it’s been on my mind. I was going to wait until there was a proper way to generate revenue but I went to El Salvador and they were interested in having someone now and. . . . . I could start it and simultaneously work on the business model; so this program that was so successful (at least with the trips I was involved) is restarting, and it’s going to be an exciting ride!]



Well, both of the Peace Corps Volunteers were ecstatic about me brining a group of American high school students to El Salvador in the summer of 2011 to do service projects in their community. Not only were the Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) excited, but the townspeople. I met with the ex-mayor and the head of a private school in the community. The community board in the town disbanded a few years ago, so the private school used its building. The community board has reformed (fortunately; this is good), but they demand the building back. I asked why they don’t just build another building; they don’t have the money. So the director looked in my eyes and told me “Everything happens for a reason.” It was a chilling moment; of course, he didn’t know that I went there with the intent of discussing possible projects with the PCVs. They deftly had us sit down for a meeting together during my last night there and mentioned that I am part of this program. They let him connect the dots and he loves it. But the meeting snowballed too quickly. I just wanted the seed of the idea planted. The school owner did more; he called someone to come in with architectural plans to show me; this was the ex-mayor. I just wanted to see if there was interest. I didn’t mean to discuss details. I still hadn’t found a school! The program started in Houston but I now live in DC and it was going to be hard to run it while not being a K-12 teacher. How was it to work when these people were already thanking me in advance showing me the new building my kids (I didn’t have kids) were going to build and the life-savers my kids would be?