Choices, Inc.

Choices, Inc. is an umbrella organization founded by Jeff Street-ers (and others) to work with the homeless population to aid in finding housing.

Established 1991, with mission of developing programs & services to help low-income people have improved choices for enhancement of life. Offers housing programs for homeless women and families with support services for mental illness, domestic violence or chemical dependency; with the Marijane Toney House offering transitional housing for 2 homeless single mothers & their children; and Norma's House providing transitional shelter for 5 single homeless women.

Cindy, the Hoe-r

The Cindys
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

The story goes that our pastor, Cindy, was preparing to leave for Sabbatical. This was her first ever sabbatical and we wanted to send her off in style. So, for her last Sunday with us, we had a special service in which we hoped to commission her to go, rest, learn and grow.

As part of that commission, we had a church member rise and give a little homily about the different roles we have in church.

“Some,” the speaker said with great beauty and flourish, “are here to plant the seed. Some are here to water the seed. Still others tend the weeds and others are there to nurture the plants. Above it all, though, God is the one who causes the plant to grow.

“And so,” she said, “with God the Gardener, and Cindy, the Hoe-r…”

And as we listened to the speaker's sweet southern accent declare that our pastor Cindy was a “hoe-r” (sound it out) and as it sunk in, what that sounded like, titters began to spread around the room while the speaker continued, unaware of how it sounded. Cindy’s husband, Robert turned and asked in a whisper, “Did she just call my wife a ‘whore’?”

And great merriment was had by all. It was one of those moments where, because it was a relatively serious service and we weren’t wanting to break the tone, we were all trying not to laugh and so we all had that squelched laugh pinch to our faces and shoulders were bouncing in silent laughter.

It gets better.

Later, Cindy had told her mother on the phone about the incident and had a great laugh about it. The next day, Cindy’s mom tried calling her back but no one was home so she left a message on Cindy’s answering machine:

“This is your mom trying to reach my daughter, the whore…”

Except that Cindy’s mom had accidentally called the wrong daughter and left a message on Cindy’s sister’s answering machine – who, no doubt, was left wondering, “What have I done to deserve that!?”

Men in Tights Theme Song

We are the men in tights
We never get in fights
We're for peace and love
We never shove
In kindness, we delight

WE ARE THE Men in tights
We never get in fights
We don't eat meat
We don't compete
We are the Men in Tights.

I'm Dan!
I'm Rob!
I'm Jon!
I'm Rog!

We're hippies and we know it.
We like to sing
We are Left Wing
We're not afraid to show it!

[crescendo to end, big Rockette style kicks]

We're for peace and love
We never shove
We are the Men in Tights
We don't eat meat
We don't compete
We are the Men in Tights

[big ending]

We are the Men in Tights!

The Fair Witch Project

The Fair Witch Project
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

The year that Louisville fought and won the passage of the Fairness Campaign was also the year that the Blair Witch Project hit the theaters.

And, being who we are, we joined the two themes into a Jeff Street Retreat skit. However, whereas the Blair Witch had a scary and unhappy ending, our Fair Witch was able to unite everyone together in the end - including Louisville's own Frankie Simon(but, alas, not Albert M.) in a big finale, singing, So Happy Together!

Hooray!

Men In Tights

Men In Tights
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

The Legend of the Men in Tights

There once was a mighty troupe of male dancers who pranced across these parts. They were known to some by the somewhat awkward name of the Jeff Street Left-Leaning Men's Ballet Club, but by most they were known and loved as the Men in Tights.

The Men in Tights would appear at times, usually just when they were most needed, to return a smile to our faces or a lilt to our step with one or the other of their little dance numbers. They were mysterious men, but they had good fashion sense, no one would deny them that.

Well, one day, after a particularly grueling performance, they decided that they just weren't satisfied with the outcome. They made a plan to return to the stage after the performance to hearse and rehearse again. Darn them and their perfectionist ways!

As it turned out, the Men in Tights died in a horrible late night ballet accident that night. They had to be buried in one large coffin, a lovely spandex and lace box that brought tears to our eyes. At least they went out in the way they would have wanted: dancing.

There are those who rumor that they still hear the Boys gallavantin' across this stage or that, but they're just that, rumors. The Men in Tights have rode off into that last great sunset, and they're never more to roam these parts again.

We'll miss them sorely.

Rest in Peace, Boys. Rest in Peace.

Nerd of the Dance

Nerd of the Dance
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

Sometimes, a picture just says it all...

Cap'n Mellow

Cap'n Mellow
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

Cap'n Mellow (age unknown, identity unknown) is our masked caped crusader for Truth, Justice and a Groovy Jazz Riff. The Good Captain (Seen here in his epic battle against the Men in Suits) is a peace-lovin', hipster doofus with flaming fingers chillin' on his Guitar of Smmmoootthhh Lovin'.

Can you dig it?

Henlee Barnette

Henlee Barnette (1911-2004) was a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor in the days before the lights went out, an activist and former preacher at Jeff Street (back in the days we were the Union Gospel Mission). He was a friend of Clarence Jordan, marcher with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, friend to many and teacher to still more. During his days at Union Gospel Mission, he was known as the Bishop of the Haymarket.

Bill Leonard made these comments about Brother Barnette:

At Stetson they called you a Communist because of your concern for social justice; and then you came to Louisville, and all hell broke loose. You marched with Dr. King, worked for integration in this city, linked black and white Baptists in new ways, helped bring King to the chapel of the seminary, and critics said the school lost a quarter of a million dollars in donations in 1961, (you said it was money well spent); You challenged the Vietnam War, got harassed by the FBI for 16 years, called for amnesty for draft dissidents, helped bring Philip Berrigan, antiwar activist, to Louisville.

What a guy!

For more on Henlee Barnette, click here.

Here's an accounting from Frank Stagg on Henlee's days at the Union Gospel Mission in the 1940s:

In a radius of three blocks from Union Gospel Mission were ninety whisky stores, many ''honky tonks," night clubs, houses of prostitution, cheap theaters, and gambling dens. There were vagrants, crime, delinquency, poverty, broken homes, alcoholism, prostitution, fist fights within families and otherwise, and other problems. Danger of being robbed, mugged, or shot lurked everywhere. It was not unlike Skid Row. Henlee investigated to ascertain who owned the indecent joints, but he found that politics sided with the owners, some being prominent citizens. Henlee's later political activism was due in part to precisely such involvement of power people and power structures in victimizing and exploiting people.

Not deterred, Henlee moved into this community, living in the mission building, where his first child was born. He kept the mission open from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., averaging only five hours of sleep per night. He climbed stairs in three-storied tenement houses and entered doors wherever there was openness to his presence and ministry. Rejected and even threatened, Henlee persisted, with some dramatic salvages of human beings who otherwise could have been destroyed.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry (1934 - still with us), is a Kentucky farmer, an author, a poet, an agrarian, a lover of the land and a favorite living saint of many Jeff Streeters. Living just a few counties over in Henry County, still farming and still writing, St. Wendell has a pen of gold.

Mr. Berry's fiction is pretty exclusively about the people in and around the fictional Port William, KY over the course of the last hundred years or so. His portrayal of rural life in the families of the Catlett's, Jayber Crow, the Rowanberry's, the Proudfoots and others is painfully beautiful.

Mr. Berry's essays are insightful and hard to disagree with (usually) and ought to be Required Readings for all of us. Not to be missed: What are People For? and A Continuous Harmony and, well, pretty much everything he's written, according to some.

And Mr. Berry's poetry include the fantastic Mad Farmer series and are quite a treasure, as well. It is amazing to find someone so adept at writing in so many formats.

For more information on Wendell Berry, click here.

Some quotes:

Every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing...Love someone who doesn't deserve it...Plant sequoias...Practice resurrection.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Communists and capitalists alike, "liberal" and "conservative" capitalists alike, have needed to replace religion with some form of determinism, so that they can say to their victims, "I am doing this because I can't do otherwise. It is not my fault. It is inevitable." The wonder is how often organized religion has gone along with this lie.

A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.

There are not enough rich and powerful people to consume the whole world; for that, the rich and powerful need the help of countless ordinary people.

An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.

And on, and on, and on...

Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner (1926-present - pronounced BEEK-ner) is a Presbyterian theologian oft-quoted and oft-read at Jeff Street.

For more info on Buechner, click here.

Quotes:

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

Vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.

It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, pacifist and revolutionist. She remains an inspiration to us at Jeff Street and a kindred spirit.

For more information on Dorothy Day, click here.

Dorothy Day quotes:

Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily.

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

Clarence Jordan

Clarence Jordan (1912-1969) was an extraordinary theologian, pacifist, founder of Koinonia Farms, author of the Cotton Patch version of the Gospels and hero to us all. In addition to his remarkable legacy, Jordan has Jeff Street connections.

Jordan was a Southern Baptist Seminary graduate and the Superintendent of Missions for the Long Run Baptist Association in Louisville in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Jordan was responsible for getting Henlee Barnette as pastor at Jeff Street's predecessor, the Union Gospel Mission and Jordan made some visits to the Mission during those days.

For more info on St. Clarence, click here.

There's a story about Jordan, when he was getting a red-carpet tour of another minister's church. With pride the minister pointed to the rich, imported pews and luxurious decoration. As they stepped outside, darkness was falling, and a spotlight shone on a huge cross atop the steeple. "That cross alone cost us ten thousand dollars," the minister said with a satisfied smile. "You got cheated," said Jordan. "Times were when Christians could get them for free."

Oscar Romero

broken
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

Óscar Romero (August 15, 1917 – March 24, 1980), commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He later became prelate archbishop of San Salvador.

As an archbishop, he witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country's civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. In 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in El Salvador.

Jeff Street often recalls the powerful testimony of Romero and his authentic Christian teachings.

For more info on Romero, click here.

On March 23, Romero delivered his final sermon before being assassinated. There were soldiers in the crowd as he said:

Brothers, you are from the same people; you kill your fellow peasant... No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God...

There was thunderous applause; he was inviting the army to mutiny. Then his voice burst,

In the name of God then, in the name of this suffering people I ask you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: stop the repression.