Livin the dream

Sometimes I go to the grocery store by myself and meet the volunteers back at the house and we pack lunches and go downtown. I have a plan when I go to the grocery store. I have a planned path that I follow every time I am in the grocery store, and the groceries go in the cart the same way. The lunches are packed the same way and handed out in the same way every week. Some people think I am a little...ahem...compulsive? For me it is all about efficiency. If I follow the same path in the grocery store, the groceries go in the cart and come off the cart so the person packing the groceries can pack them in such a way that they are easy to unpack at the house and easy to pack back in to lunches. I hold these plans loosely, and if I have people with me at the grocery store, I don't mind if the capri suns are stacked neatly in the front of the cart, and I don't mind if the snack packs aren't stacked neatly next to the capri suns, and I don't mind if the bread isn't stacked on the capri suns, or if the sliced meat is in the child seat, I do mind, however, if my volunteers purse is in the child seat, because come on, that just looks weird.

I make plans and hope that everything goes to plan. I also have hopes and dreams for free lunch. The purpose of free lunch is to meet the physical needs of people, and try to get to know them and be in community with them. I don't know anything about being homeless or being poor, so I don't assume that I know the life of a homeless person. I also don't assume that I know how to serve them. My dream is that someone would ask me to help them, that I would be invited in to their life, and I would have the opportunity to respond with whatever resources I am able to offer.

I have this notion that no one really wants to know the problems and junk of my life, so I often don't invite people in to the messy places in my life. Its easy to show someone the places in my life that are in order and comfortable to share, but it is a struggle, even with my good friends, to invite them in to the messes.

Alejandro is from Guatemala, his wife has breast cancer. We were serving lunch at the community center when Alejandro approached me telling his story in Spanish. I did my best to try to understand him, but I couldn't fully understand him. I asked Santos to help translate for me. Santos speaks English and Spanish, and he was happy to help me. How about that, now I am the one with needs, and the tables are turned. Freaking awesome. Santos translated for Alejandro, and Alejandro began to invite me in to a place in his life where he doesn't have it all together, and its a mess. I felt so privileged to hang out with him in his messy place.

I learned the lesson that we all have a deep need to share our whole lives with eachother. To know that we are not alone in our struggles and troubles is one of the most fulfilling feelings in the world. In my experience, most of us are walking around pretending that we have it all together, but the truth is that we are all fragile, and we don't know how to hold it all together. It is so much easier to make the best of things when we are known, and when others know what is going on. It doesn't matter if they can fix it, or have resources to provide help, but for some reason being known helps to hold it together. My belief is that when our burdens are known, they are a lighter load to carry.

So my hope is for more open doors, not only with the people I serve, but in my own life. I think we all have the ability to put on a facade of perfection, but we aren't perfect. It seems like a simple enough lesson, but it is hard to put in to practice. Baby steps. It doesn't matter if the groceries in the cart are perfectly situated, the same every time. That's not life. Life sometimes means the groceries can just be thrown in the cart in no particular order. Maybe even taking a different path through the grocery store, everyone needs a little adventure. One step at a time though...it gets easier with time.

If you have the chance to have Alejandro in your thoughts, I am sure he would appreciate it. I didn't get too many details, but he doesn't see his wife very often, and I am sure it is a stress on the whole family. He would appreciate you keeping him in mind.

I Heart Google

And Google hearts me, #1 baby

However, I didn't give an update from the last free lunch, and the next one is right around the corner. On Cinco de Mayo. Maybe some sombreros are in order.

More soon.

Normal

After each Saturday I serve, I try to think about what was different, or what I learned, or who I met, and how it changed me. This last Saturday was just a normal non-eventful Saturday. I am thankful for non-eventful. It's good when it is just pleasant. When I know what to expect and when it goes the way I planned it, that's good.

We did run in to one peculiar fellow down in the hood. There is this small apartment building that looks like a crack house. There are usually about 6 or 7 guys who hang out in front of it and for some reason I am drawn to that place. It is around the corner from the drug dealers, but it is clearly a place where squatters squat.

There were a few guys hanging out in front of the place when I pulled up, one of them looked a little lost, and I don't think he spoke english. We asked him if we wanted a lunch, and he looked around for a while, and then he just started running.

I wonder what the story is behind all of those people. How did they get where they are? How do I find out? There are so many people I serve that rarely recognize people. A few people know me because included in every lunch is a Capri Sun. People love the Capri Suns. People ask for them specifically.

It's good that people are getting to know me. Especially the drug dealers. They know my car now. They know about the Capri Sun's too.

I am sure there will be challenges ahead, but it is restful to just keep the normal procedure running. The danger is still there and the ride is still exciting, but it is a familiar road.

Sweet ride

After last week's brush with death, I was encouraged by the past few weeks. Here's the scoop:

• There has been a significant increase in interest from volunteers
• Web traffic has increased
• Last weekend two brand new volunteers joined me
• There has been an increase in donations
• A friend of mine took his family and handed out lunches downtown

It is nice to have a positive wave of stuff happening. Starting Free Lunch has had its ups and downs, but one thing is for sure, it has always been a sweet ride. Its kind of like driving too fast through the mountains. The danger is real, the likely consequences of skidding off the mountain is death, going around a corner too fast and starting to feel the tires slip is exhilerating, eyes glued to the road, calculating every turn, planning each pass, then hitting the straightaway and just flying.

I love this life.

Stayin Alive

The weather is getting nicer, which meant that there were a lot of people working and the hispanic community center was nearly empty! I love going there. The people are nice and thankful, they always smile, and the awkwardness created by our inability to communicate is fun. It's empty because a lot of people were working, which I am happy about, but I missed seeing my friends.

Also, when the weather is nice, there are a bunch of people at the park on the east side. Lots of parents with their kids playing. There are a lot of people in need there, so the lunches go quickly. With the nice weather, I expected a large crowd. So when we started up Harrison Street, and I saw a lot of people, I told the two girls with me to roll up the windows because we always serve lunch there outside with the car doors locked so people won't be able to get in the car.

There are a few people who know me, and know what I am about, so I am never surprised when people approach the car as I am pulling up. I usually smile at them and get out of my car to serve them lunch. As we were driving to where we get out of the car, a guy was walking quickly toward the car, and I was glad that a regular recognized me. When he got in the street, I could tell he didn't know me and he assumed I was there threatening his turf. The park is prime real estate for drug traffic, and this guy was the neighborhood watch dog, a mean one too. I rolled down my window as he approached the car and he yelled at me in a way that made me more scared than I have ever been while I have been doing free lunch. I have been approached before, and scared before, but this guy shook me. I told him I was here to hand out lunches to whoever wanted one, and asked him if he was ok with it. He let me know he was cool with it, and walked away. When I got out of the car and started getting lunches out, it was immediately obvious who the drug dealers were and who wanted food. The drug dealers scattered, and the hungry people came and got lunch. Eventually the watchdog came and I gave him a lunch too.

There is good and evil that exist in this world. We will probably never all agree about who or what is good, but it is easy to agree on what evil is, and most of us know what it feels like.

I couldn't shake off my feelings about what happened, so I called a friend who could articulate the realisty of what happened when I told him the story. Encountering evil with kindness is dangerous work. Evil is real, and if you choose to go in to evil territory, you will probably be threatened. And it's not just your comfort that is at risk, evil uses guns and bullets to stake its claim. Death is a real possibility.

So it is important to be aware of the choices I am making, and to communicate the reality of the places we go to serve lunch. It is also important to choose what battles to fight. Is it worth the risk of death to bring someone a lunch? Why? I don't pretend to have an easy answer to that question, because I don't think an easy answer exists. For me, it is about a belief in something that is sometimes hard to believe. I'm really forced to choose when I am confronted with the possibility that my life my be threatened. Because if I don't really believe it, I am better off to stay home. I believe kindness can change another person, or several people. I believe that kindness is the best tool to infiltrate evil territory. Opposing force can wipe it out or destroy it, but I believe that kindness can change it. When it comes down to it, it's good vs. evil, and I'm in the fight.

T-shirt design contest update

Entries continue to come in for the t-shirt design contest, but there is no clear winner. My friends Becca and Patti put their heads together to come up with this design:

If you think you can design a better t-shirt than this, the design deadline is April 15th. Good Luck!

New questions

The last few weeks, Free Lunch has operated like a machine. Volunteers show up, lunches are made, handed out, and we come home. We know where we are going, and we know what we are doing.

When I first started Free Lunch, I drove around downtown for a few months just trying to find the right place to go. During that time, I was thinking through all of the logistical problems I would have to solve like: How am I going to tell people about it? What kind of lunch am I going to make? How much should I budget? How will volunteers find out about it and sign up? Where will I hand out lunches? How will I hand out lunches? Who will I serve? Who else should I think about serving? Questions like that.

Recently a new question has surfaced, How effective are the methods used in accomplishing the purpose? If the purpose of Free Lunch is to form communities with invisible people, and inform people that pathways to these invisible people exist, then how do I measure success?

Jim Collins is the man. He wrote a book called Good to Great, a book that profiles businesses that went from good businesses to great businesses. He first defined good and great businesses, and made a few observations about why some companies make the leap. He also wrote a additional chapter, released in the form of a monograph, about how to apply the great company principles to the social sector. One of the challenging questions that came from that book was, How do you measure output from a social cause? Can I measure community? Can I measure the effectiveness of my efforts? What is the effect? Is the effect in line with my purpose? These questions are more difficult to answer.

Floyd McClung is also the man. I had a chance to hear Floyd speak last night and he shed some light on answering these new questions. He made the point that a person's core values will determine how they interpret input and ultimately dictate how they choose to act. Floyd McClung has done some incredible work in his lifetime. He is unprecedented...sort of. He doesn't have a lot of precedence. Most of us live life similar to how the people around us live life. That isn't a bad thing, we are very lucky to have well developed methods for getting an education, getting a job, living accommodations are plentiful and comfortable. This is one reason why America rocks, we have a great country with lots of good role models that have preceded us, showed us what they did right, and what we can do better.

I don't know Floyd very well, but it seems to me that he had the energy and ideas to carve his own path. AND he has been effective in what he is doing. So when he says that a persons core values influence what they choose to do, I am going to start asking that question. What does Free Lunch value? What do I value? I don't answer that question by what I am saying, but by my track record.

I am going to be honest and tell you that I value having fun, and running a machine. I like how smoothly Free Lunch runs every time. I like the system. I like how everything is timed and it happens on time or just a little bit ahead of schedule. I don't think those are bad things to value and enjoy, but they are secondary.

So I will continue to ask more questions and get better at doing what Free Lunch is all about.

Now, since I do enjoy the systems part of it, I will share with you a few statistics:

First Free Lunch: 16 September, 2006
Number of lunches served to date: 350
Average Cost of Lunch: $3.16
Number of volunteers who have contributed: 23
Approximate number of volunteer hours served: 190
Fastest grocery store run: 12 minutes
Percentage of lunches paid for by donors (unsolicited, they gave out of their own generosity!): 65%
A lunch includes:

• 1 ham or turkey sandwich in a sandwich bag ($1.17)
• 1 chocolate pudding snack pack ($0.27)
• 1 apple ($0.45)
• 1 banana ($0.20)
• 2 granola bars ($0.50)
• 1 spoon ($0.03)
• 1 napkin ($0.01)
• 1 bottle of water ($0.16)
• 1 capri sun (woo! juicy!) ($0.23)
• 1 brown bag ($0.02)
• the man ($0.23)
• 1 smile (priceless)

Isn't it fun to keep track of all the stats? I love that part.

Warmer Weather

The weather was a little bit warmer this weekend and more people were outside walking around. The last few weeks it has been pretty freaking cold outside. A taste of warmer weather and sunshine brought anticipation for springtime.

The last few weeks we have got our foot in the door at the hispanic community center on the west side. Typically when I pull up, people pour out the doors and flock to the car to pick up a lunch and go back inside to eat. This week I really wanted to bring the lunch all the way inside and hang out with them for a little while. When I pulled up, we all grabbed the food and started inside. It was all smiles as usual when we started handing out lunches. I felt comfortable and welcomed being inside, which was a relief because I was a little nervous about how it would be once I was on their turf. They seemed to be comfortable, we communicated as much as we could to eachother, and then we took off.

I feel like we made a big step this weekend. We are on the inside. It has been slow going building a relationship with anyone and it feels good to see something forming there.

There are always a lot of people walking around on the east side. As the weather gets warmer there are even more. I don't exactly know how I am going to form relationships with anyone up there, because I don't see the same people very often. I became curious about a small group of people standing outside what looked like a small abandoned building. They didn't appear to be the most welcoming people, but when I talked to them they were nice and appreciated the lunch. I am going to try and see what they are all about. I don't think I will make any efforts to go inside their building though...it looks like dangerous territory.

Woo! Juicy!

We just finished handing out lunches a few hours ago, and I couldn't wait to write about it. The word that best describes my experience this Saturday is 'juicy'.

First, we stopped by the Latino community center, and everyone there was happy to see us again. We always get such a warm response when we go there. The people that hang out there are so happy when we pull up. I went inside for just a minute and made sure that everyone got some food, and I really felt welcomed when I stepped inside. I think that is really rare. A white boy stepping in to a different culture, and getting nothing but smiles and greetings. It just feels good to serve there. Most of the guys don't speak English, so communication is pretty limited, but dang, I really like that place.

We took two cars again because we had too many volunteers for one car, which I think is a great problem. I really like the people that were helping, so it is fun to serve with friends. I have been working pretty hard to tell people about Free Lunch, and to get everything set up, and I was surprised at how much joy is packed in all the work. We just laughed most of the time. We met funny people as we were heading over to the east side. There were a few creepy people too, but people were funny today.

I was driving down a road and saw a guy walking that looked like he could use a lunch, and we rolled down the window and handed him a lunch. We also give out a water and a capri sun with every lunch. People love the capri sun. It reminds me of elementary school cafeteria, and it usually makes people smile when I give them one, I think it is an unexpected surprise.
When I handed this guy his capri sun, he let out an emphatic, 'Woo! Juicy!' He laughed and we all laughed. And we continued to laugh about it the rest of the car ride. I would not have experienced that if I had been at home fixing lunch by myself, and I would like to think that he would not have been able to joke around with someone if I had not pulled up. Free Lunch changed my afternoon. I just really enjoyed it.

Free Lunch is also currently accepting designs for the first annual t-shirt design contest. Submissions are due by April 15th, and shirts will be available in the summer.

T-Shirt Design Contest

Free Lunch is hosting its first annual t-shirt design contest. Submit your design by email in jpeg format by April 15th, 2007. T-shirts will be available to purchase this summer.

The winning design gets a free t-shirt and publicity on the site and some other prize that I haven't figured out yet.

If you have questions, my email address is jasoncarrigan@gmail.com

A design review board will pick the best design. All proceeds go towards free lunch.

No Hablo Espanol

One of my regular stops is a latino community center on the southwest side of the city. It is one of those places where you can pick up a truckload of day laborers if you can pay in cash. When I serve lunch there, everyone is very appreciative, but I can't communicate with them because the ones I talked to didn't speak english, and yo no hablo espanol. I usually just smile.

This week I took some friends with me that know spanish, so when we pulled up, Kurt asked the dude out front if they wanted lunch and if there were more people inside that wanted lunch too. We ended up staying for about 30 minutes. Kurt and Emily went inside (they are both fluent) and met a bunch of the guys. I waited outside with Santos. Santos told me about his 8 boys and 1 daughter (and 2 wives). I hardly had to say a word, Santos had a lot to talk about.

I was curious to know the story on the community center. The area is heavily populated with latinos, and before the community center, they all hung out at a local liquor store. That started causing a lot of trouble for the community, so someone built the community center (I think there are some apartments above it), and people wait there to be picked up for day labor. Santos said that it helped to clean up the neighborhood.

I have worked with the latino community several times on different projects, and I always go away feeling thanked and appreciated. It is different from the feeling I get when I leave the east side location. Up there when I leave, I feel glad just to be alive. I don't know what the difference is, the circumstances are about the same, there is just so little hope on the east side. I think that is what keeps me going back. It doesn't matter how much money anyone has, if someone loses hope, they are in a bad spot. Nothing is good.

I want to be able to offer what little hope there is in knowing that there is a meal coming on Saturday. I don't know if that makes a big difference in someone's life, but from what I have observed so far, it makes some kind of difference in their day. And that is good enough for me.

On a side note, I handed out more lunches, and had more volunteers this week than I have ever had before. That was fun.

New Years Eve Eve

I served lunch on the 30th. It was raining that day, and there were a lot of people walking around. Sometimes it is really hard to find people and sometimes it is really easy. I went to the east side and met some more scary drug dealers, but it was pretty uneventful. I went to the southwest side and met up with my Mexican friends. There is a pretty severe language barrier with those folks. I don't really know spanish, so I have to get out of the car and show them I have lunch for them. When the first one gets served, they all come running out of the building and I never have enough lunches. I would really like to get to know those folks. I don't know anything about why they congregate there.

The first guy I served that day was pretty funny. I was driving up towards the east side, and I saw a guy walking across a bridge. When I offered him lunch, he smiled and laughed and said, 'now I don't have to go to church!'

Most of you that read this blog know that I do go to church, so I was a little alarmed by his response. Did I just make a mistake? Did I take someone away from church? I came to the conclusion that I brought a little bit of church to him. serving lunch = church. It's really that simple.

I hope you all had a great holiday season. Have a great 2007!

Tis the Season

The Winter Months

It is a little unexpected that the winter months make it harder to find people to give out lunches. It makes sense though, when it is cold, people stay inside. This past Saturday was unusually warm outside, so there were lots of people out and about. The turf war was on again, although this time it was with the forces of good instead of the forces of drug dealers. There was another group serving lunch at my turf on the east side. They had a pretty sweet set up too. They brought tables and it looked like they had hot food to serve. Most of the folks that were walking around got their lunch from my competition.

There was an article in The Pitch, a weekly Kansas City publication, where they interviewed a few homeless folks around town. Most of the people had some wisdom to offer about what it takes to live on the street. One guy said it is a constant turf war. You have to claim your spot and daily let others know it is yours. You can't afford to let another person stake a claim on prime real estate because the take will be diluted. Most of the guys had well developed strategies for bringing in tax free money.

The interviewer didn't include anything in the article about why the people were homeless, and if it was a choice, or if they have just fallen on hard times. I wonder...

This Saturday I took two friends with me, Jessica and Julie. I was a little concerned taking two girls with me, in light of what happened last week. I think that we have the forces of good working for us though, so we were once again safe.

I saw something I have never seen before. We were driving around the east side of town, and I saw a rough looking dude walking behind a building. When I pulled up, he was searching through a dumpster apparently looking for food. I gave him a lunch and drove away and that image stuck with me.

I think I am a little naive when it comes to understanding the reality of life on the street. The article in the pitch highlighted people who seemed to be relatively healthy, and made a pretty good living for themselves. I think it was a rose colored view of the homeless community. This guy was looking through the trash for food. And that is his life. I don't know where he had come from, or where he was headed, but he was looking through the trash for food. I have never had to look through the trash for food. I have no idea what this guy has to do to survive on a daily basis. I complain when my roommate accidentally erases an episode of The Office from our TiVo before I get a chance to watch it. This guy does his grocery shopping at Deffenbaugh.

Being exposed to the reality of the life of a homeless person has created more compassion in me for people who don't have much. I have to admit that when I started this little adventure, I was more passionate about building a nonprofit organization, the business of charity. It is a pleasant surprise that this is changing me. Certainly not something I planned for.

Turf war

It snowed here a few days ago and today it was still pretty cold. As I pulled up to the east side location, for the first time there was no one on the sidewalk. I ran in to one lady and she told me the people were all scattered because it was cold out and I would have to drive around to find people. I told her about what we were doing, and she told me she would help "drum up some business", so she just started yelling at a few guys who were walking a block away. One of them came over and I was talking to him for a few minutes. He was clearly troubled in some way, or on crack, and his conversation didn't make much sense. When he started getting upset, I told him to have a nice day then I turned around and got back to my car as he started yelling louder and louder. I have mentioned before that this is not really the safest part of town.

When I got back in my car, another car sped up from behind and pulled along side me. I rolled down my window but the guy and girl in the car just stared at me without rolling down their window. I asked them if they had lunch yet, and offered them both something to eat. I was a little scared because I knew I was on his turf, and I was also sure that he had more guns in the car than I did (I don't carry a gun). The tension broke, the girl laughed, the guy smiled, they rolled down their window, and told me they had already had lunch.

I have been scared before, and I was certainly scared then, but thinking back, it is freaking amazing that when I offered him a lunch, everything was cool. We were just two people. He was not a drug dealer protecting his turf, and I was not a scared white boy. We were equal for that akward moment when our lives intersected. I don't get it, food is magic peace potion. The tagline (the one in the banner at the top of the page) became true today.

In other news, I found a new community to get to know, and that is why I have started asking for help. I need more poeple who believe in this vision to step up and get started. SO, I have a favor to ask you...please tell others about the website. Put a link on your page. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell them I need help. Tell them they don't need to raise their own money. I just need their time. I will help them get started and get comfortable. Unfortunately, I can't issue guns to any volunteers, Free Lunch policy states that you must serve lunch at your own risk.

Help!

Here's how:

I need help each week making and handing out lunches. The typical schedule goes something like this:

10:30-11:00 - go to the grocery store and buy food
11:00-11:45 - make lunches
11:45-12:00 - drive downtown
12:00-1:15 - deliver lunches and talk to people
1:15-1:30 - drive back to the house

If you are interested in helping, send an email to the following address:
freelunchvolunteers@gmail.com

Rest

There are all kinds of personality test books that give language to describe the kind of people we are. Last spring a friend of mine forced (not an exaggeration) all of her friends to take a test so she would know the inner workings of all of us. She took the book everywhere, and if there was a person who had not taken the test, she stopped everything and forced (not an exaggeration) the person to answer all 70 questions and then do the analysis to find out what kind of person they were. I am an INFJ.

The most beneficial book I have ever read that describes personalities is called Now Discover Your Strengths. The author made the point that if a person focuses on their strengths, and lives out of them, that person will be a much more effective _______________ (fill in the blank).

One of my strengths is responsibility. As with any strength, it has good stuff and bad stuff. The good stuff is that I make sure things get done. The bad stuff is I take responsibility for things I have no business being responsible for, and sometimes so much responsibility (without cutting myself any slack) that I run myself ragged.

In order to keep my life straight, I have to write down a task list of all the things that keep my life moving in the direction I want it to. When I construct my list, I have 3 sections: past events, present events, and future events. Every time I look at my task list, I have to tell myself (and I always use the stereotypical psychologist tone) that I can't change the past and I can't control the future, so I am left to focus on my present tasks. When I don't get a task done at the scheduled time, I have learned that it is normal to feel some pressure, but it is no reason to have a nervous breakdown. I am practicing my breathing techniques right now.

I have been serving lunch every other Saturday for the past few weeks. This past Saturday, according to the schedule, was the next lunch. But I was sick. And tired. And I didn't sleep the night before. And I am sure I could come up with three hundred and twenty seven other excuses, but the truth of it all is that I just wanted to rest. So I did. And the world kept turning. The sky is still firmly in place.

A friend pursuing a similar goal with his work told me that his work is a product, or expression of who he is. When he delivers his product, it is a result of what is going on in his life. When life bears down on him, he has to outsource his manufacturing process. I am not being very clear here, but what it brought me to realize is that I can only do what I can do, and I asked myself if it was more beneficial to maintain a thing that in the end might wear me down to a ragged mess, or to maintain myself and take a breather when I am out of breath. I assume that the disclaimers about laziness, and self-serving are understood here.

A few months ago, I read the best book I have ever read on business and life. It is worth reading whatever your occupation, check it out here. The book kept hammering the idea that healthy people have a healthy influence on the people around them, and they benefit the people they care about, the more healthy they are.

So at the risk of going against my compulsion to run myself ragged in order to keep my "system" in place and causing a nervous breakdown, I gave myself the day off and I will be eating lunch with my friends again this Saturday.

Fifth lunch

After a lunch, there are so many things to write about. I always get something from going through the process of feeding people. It has been a month since I have done Free Lunch (I was out of town during the last Free Lunch at Billy's wedding, Patrick filled in for me). This week I took Billy and Holly. Holly's brother does a similar project in San Diego. He is associated with a church and it sounds cool. Check it out here.

After making the lunches, we drove around the usual route and tried to find people under the bridge, but I didn't find anyone. We drove through downtown, and it was pretty quiet. For the first time ever, I had enough lunches to feed everyone on the east side. I learned that 3 people make the east side much more manageable. It felt good to have enough food. I also forgot my glasses, and me driving without glasses is not so good.

I don't know what it will take to break the ice with the people on the east side. For the most part, they still grab and go back to their spot on the curb. I haven't formed any real relationships with anyone yet, and I don't really expect to for a little while, but I am still holding out hope (and that is allowable under the protocol for building relationships as outlined in an earlier post).

Free Lunch puts my feet back on the ground and reminds me of what I can do. If you take a look at the 10 commandments from the Bible, the first 4 deal with a relationship with God, and the last 6 deal with relationships with others. Honor your parents, Don't murder, Don't commit adultery, Don't steal, Don't lie, Don't covet. That's a lot of don'ts for me. Some are easier to follow than others, but if I walk around keeping in mind all the things that I am supposed to don't, I am afraid that I won't do anything.

The new testament keeps it simple (and simple is good). Do love God. Do love your neighbor. I was talking with a friend this past weekend about the ability of humans to do any selfless act. Her thesis was that it is possible to accomplish a selfless act, even if that produces a good feeling for the giver. The good feeling is not the motive, because the act of giving may or may not produce a good feeling. Sometimes it does, and that is great, but I don't think it is possible to prove that a good feeling is always the product. I forgot to ask her how she completed her argument, because I was too selfish to ask her any more about it and I probably started talking about myself. This is probably tied to my need to have everything planned and under control. God forbid I learn anything new from another person. In my experience, my own selfishness has been the single biggest roadblock to getting to know others and being surprised by what the world has to offer. Don't listen was not one of the 10 commandments, neither was don't be teachable, don't wonder, don't explore, don't ask questions, don't be open to change, don't ever be wrong, don't learn, or don't speed while driving.

The transition from don't to do offers a lot of freedom for me. Of course there are still rules, but the produce is more important than the protocol.

Do you like how I slipped in the fact that the 10 commandments says nothing specifically about speeding in a car? I have 5 speeding tickets in the last year and I am trying to figure out some way to justify myself.

On vision

There is this older guy that I know only by what is written* about him. He died a long time ago, but from what is written about him, he sounds like someone I would have liked to know. This is a speech he wrote down before he spoke it one Fourth of July toward the end of his life:

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Children-
When I was a young man the Lord came to me and put His hand just here on my right shoulder. I can feel it still. And He spoke to me, very clearly. The words went right though me. He said, Free the captive. Preach good news to the poor. Proclaim liberty throughout the land. That is all Scripture, of course, and the words were already very familiar to me at the time. But it is clear enough why He would feel they needed special emphasis. No one lives by them, unless the Lord takes him in hand. Certainly I did not, until the day He stood beside me and spoke those words to me.

I would call that experience a vision. We had visions in those days, a number of us did. Your young men will have visions and your old men will dream dreams. And now all those young men are old men, if they're alive at all, and their visions are no more than dreams, and the old days are forgotten long before we are.

The President, General Grant, once called Iowa the shining star of radicalism. But what is left here in Iowa? What is left here in Gilead? Dust. Dust and ashes. Scripture says the people perish, and they certainly do. It is remarkable. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still.

The Lord Bless you and keep you, etc.
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I have written before about this project being a vision. if you have been reading this blog for a while, you would have noticed that I changed the title to the first entry from 'the vision', to 'the purpose'; I am still not resolved as to what the title should be.

In graduate school, I worked at one of the worlds leading visualization research labs (VRAC, Iowa State University, go Cyclones). Part of my project was to figure out how to create an image in three dimensional space that would describe multi-dimensional equations. We see things in three dimensions. Math uses equations to describe complex systems with equations have more than three dimensions. So part of my job was to figure out how to render images of these multi-dimensional equations so that we could interact with them and see how the shape changes as variables change. I was not very successful creating anything of value in this part of my research, but I had good coffee and muffins in the small room where I defended my thesis, and I think the aroma satisfied my professors enough that they let it slide. Although I think there is a solution to this problem, no one to my knowledge has found a good one, so I hope anyone who has tried to present a solution also has good coffee in the room. It's helpful if the presentation is made first thing in the morning; academics are notorious for working late nights.

After studying that problem, I concluded that a vision was something I could re-create in the form of an equation, and ultimately something that could be conveyed through a projector to a screen. Like TV. In a world where tele-visions are the primary media in which I receive a majority of the information that forms my perspective of reality, I have come to expect that any-vision will come by paying 90 bucks a month to Time-Warner. And since I am too busy to receive my vision when they have scheduled to transmit it, I pay an extra 5 bucks a month for the ability to record the visions and watch them commercial free when it is convenient for me. Just as an interesting side note, 'tele' is Greek prefix meaning distant. I looked up the Greek word for 'vision', and found one definition that read, 'the power of sight'. I never thought of sight as a power...I wonder what other secret powers I don't know about.

The speech above caused me think about visions in the form of an experience. An experience is more like art than math. Although, I would argue that math and art have a high correlation, but that is for another thought. Free Lunch is the product of a journey. The journey is an expedition to discover the unknown. An exploration of the places where truth and beauty and love and understanding are hidden. An excavation of ancient ruins to find out what remains of lives and cultures from history. When light hits the unearthed artifacts that remain, maybe I will know what will remain from my life and my community. These are all things I want to experience in my life.

I am having trouble creating some thing that renders the whole vision of Free Lunch, when I try, the vision eludes my description. It’s like trying to use a bucket to skim oil off the top of a lake. When I lift my bucket up thinking I have all the oil contained, I look back and the oil I didn't get has once again re-covered the small amount I was able to scoop up. I use the same method to try again...this vision is expansive.

It doesn't matter what you believe about life and death and God, but the Scripture that was referenced in the speech has been one of the most studied collection of letters and stories ever written. I think that so many people have studied it (regardless of belief) because it contains this mysterious power to speak to you wherever you are at on your journey, at whatever depth you are traveling. And no matter what depth you are at, or what depth you think you are at, its depths are not charted by any earthly map. My point is not to get you to read the Bible, but to draw some conclusion as to why I am compelled to write about Free Lunch. I like the stories in the Bible. I know a little more about who wrote them, and the people they are about when I read them.

I write because I want to be known. I want to share my life with the people I care about. I want to open the doors to the parts of my life that I have a hard time talking about in conversation (which is nearly everything, I am shy in a crowd). I write because it is the best I can do to convey a vision that I think is worth sharing. I won't be able to do it well, and that is why I am not satisfied to let this vision turn in to a dream. I am going to do my best to experience it. I hope the remains that are found one thousand years from now are more than a pile of dust and ashes.

*Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, see also, Gilead

on wisdom, naivete, courage, fear, beauty, truth and the fourth lunch

i had a chance to sit down with nancy last thursday. actually, i sat and she stood up, nancy cuts my hair. i go to see nancy about every other month, and for an hour we share our lives with each other. i look forward to our conversations because nancy is my friend. nancy also has a better understanding of style than anyone else i know, and that is why i trust her with the all important haircut. my vanity and high maintenance lifestyle become abundantly clear to me every time i go see nancy. last week nancy and i talked about giving with wisdom.

a good friend of mine commented on an earlier post by giving a quote from gordon cosby, "The most helpful experiments are accomplished by people who are too naive to know what they are getting into. The wise and experienced know too much to ever accomplish the impossible." I don't know the full context of cosby's comment, but it got me thinking about wisdom in giving. nancy told me a story about how a man approached her and her grandmother and manipulated them in to giving some money. the man got the money, and nancy got to give to the poor. sounds good, right?

weeeeeeelllllllll, i don't know. i feel a little uneasy if i give it the ok stamp. similar to a feeling i had when another friend asked me if it was ever ok to lie, and gave the situation of hiding jews during the holocaust and being questioned by german soldiers on the hunt.

the uneasy feeling comes from using a lie, or manipulation or whatever you want to call it, in order for a person to get what they want. a homeless person wants food, and a scared german wants to protect their jewish friend. the result is good but the methodology is broken. business books classify a productive member of a company as one who produces good results, methodology is secondary. i want friends, and i want to feed homeless people.

i am going to go out on a limb here and make a few statements that may be wrong, and that i have not done the work to fully prove, so if you disagree or find a flaw, feel free to comment:
lying creates results that naivete is not able to see. when a person lies, not only do they have to somehow make the lie look like reality (which isn't reality at all, and thus requires that the liar lives somewhere other than reality, even if for a moment), but, depending on your belief system, they have done something wrong. to move on in reality, the lie has to be reconciled, or else the liar lives in a warped reality.

truth creates one result. it is clean, there is nothing unaccounted for, everything reconciles, and the story is simple because it is the truth and the truth is simpler than a lie; truth exists in reality, a lie does not. it is easier to talk about reality than it is to talk about something contrived. truth creates one result that has several names but i will call it beautiful. naivete can be defined as artless simplicity. a naive person can talk about how they feed a hungry person, but a truthful person can tell you why it is beautiful. truth allows a person to give freely and receive freely. truth knows that it takes courage to do something with real consequences. truth knows that it has something to fear, that there is a real enemy.

the path to knowing and applying truth is wisdom, and the beginning of wisdom....is what we are all searching for.

patrick did free lunch this weekend because i got to see my best friend get married on the beach in florida. i had a few feelings as i was listening to patrick tell me the stories from the weekend...by the way, patrick has the award for the most hilarious free lunch weekend, and you will have to ask him about it because he tells it best...i felt pleased that free lunch was happening in my absence because this is a step in the vision of creating a model that others can repeat. i felt loss that things are not the same as they used to be. i am following this vision that was given to me, and trying to stay true to my role in the story, and i know my role will change with time. i will miss out on certain things because i am required to fulfill another responsibility. i felt proud of patrick because he added something that i could not add. patrick is really good at striking up conversation and making people feel comfortable. patrick is clear about his purpose too, he likes the idea of feeding hungry people, and free lunch serves as a conduit for his purpose which is much bigger and of more consequence than merely feeding people...

i have opened up a number of different subjects in this post and i am trying to figure out how to tie them neatly together and come to some conclusions so all this reading amounts to something. but i am afraid i don't have many conclusions, and i don't even know the question that allows me to find the next step. maybe i opened up more than i can handle to write about...i have a tendency to do that sometimes...

if someone tells a lie in order to get a lunch, they might come to expect that they have to lie to get anything from me or anyone else. a lie does nothing to build a relationship, it only destroys. i want to build a relationship with the people i meet, and wisdom would tell me that i should not allow a person to lie to me in order to get a meal, even if i intend on giving them one. how do i do this? how do i recognize a lie? how do i reconcile a lie in a relationship? how do i move on? how do i offer truth? how do i guard against lies? how do i build a relationship with someone who has possibly never experienced a truthful relationship? what is my responsibility?

i have more questions than answers, but i know a few things. it is beautiful to see a vision come in to reality, it is beautiful to see desires fulfilled, wisom gives sight to see things that are beautiful and i have only seen the tip of the iceburg.

if you know some way to finish this post, please comment. and if you find yourself at the end of this post feeling as if you didn't get to the end (which is how i feel right now), read the comments. i am friends with some good writers.

help!