Jeff Street Primer

2011-07-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

Choices, Inc.

2007-01-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

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

2006-05-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

Nerd of the Dance
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

Sometimes, a picture just says it all...

Cap'n Mellow

2006-05-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-03T13:57:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Arundhati Roy

2006-04-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

Arundhati Roy is an Indian author and activist whose writings have been inspirational to many of us at Jeff Street. She has been a vocal opponent to Bush’s Iraq invasion and an advocate for the poor around the world.

Her novel, The God of Small Things, won the prestigious Booker Award.

For more on Roy, click here.

An excerpt of her beautiful writing in God of Small Things:

May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dust green trees. Red bananas ripen.Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.

Glen Stassen

2006-04-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Glen Harold Stassen is a noted Christian theologian and ethicist. He is a contributor to Sojourners Magazine (and others) and currently the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. He is known for his work on theological ethics, politics, and social justice and is a favorite of many Jeff Streeters.

Stassen is the author of the tremendous book, Just Peacemaking.

For more information about Stassen, check here.

Walter Wink

2006-04-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Walter Wink is professor emeritus at Auburn University and a favorite theologian for many of us at Jeff Street. His words often appear in Cindy’s sermons and in some of our conversations.

Wink has written much about pacifism and Jesus’ Third Way – not of returning violence with violence, nor of cowering in fear but standing up and resisting evil with good. He also coined the phrase “myth of redemptive violence,” and has written about Christianity and homosexuality.

His website: http://www.walterwink.com/

An excerpt from an essay:

One of the most misunderstood passages in all of the Bible is Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek. The passage runs this way: "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. And if anyone takes you to court and sues you for your outer garment, give your undergarment as well. If one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two."

This passage has generally been understood by people as teaching non-resistance. Do not resist one who is evil has been taken to mean simply let them run all over you. Give up all concern for your own justice. If they hit you on one cheek, turn the other and let them batter you there too, which has been bad advice for battered women. As far as the soldier forcing you to take his pack an extra mile, well are you doing that voluntarily? It has become a platitude meaning extend yourself.

Jesus could not have meant those kinds of things. He resisted evil with every fiber of His being. There is not a single instance in which Jesus does not resist evil when He encounters it…

What Jesus is articulating here is a way of living in the world without violence, a way of overcoming domination in all of its forms by using a way that will not create new forms of violence.

Clarksdale

2006-04-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

Clarksdale
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

In 1933, the Public Works Administration’s Emergency Housing Corporation began construction of public housing projects in Louisville. That construction began with the Clarksdale project on the east side of downtown.

From the late-1930s through the 1940s, it (and its successor agencies) built six low-rise public housing projects: College Court (all white), LaSalle Place (all African-American), Clarksdale, Beecher Terrace, Parkway Place, and Sheppard Square, with Clarksdale and Beecher Terrace being built as slum clearance projects.

Jeff Street has long been associated with Clarksdale Housing and many of our friends and members have been residents.

Over the first few years of 2000, the city decided to gentrify the now-desirable downtown Louisville neighborhood and, although we worked with Clarksdale residents through CLOUT to try to ensure justice in the process, Clarksdale is now a memory, being replaced by Liberty Green.

El Regadio, Nicaragua

2006-04-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

Boys at El Regadio School
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

El Regadio is a village in Nicaragua that was at the center of some of the Contra-era destruction and is currently being harmed by CAFTA-era destruction.

Several Jeff Streeters have made Witness for Peace (and other) trips to Nicaragua (and specifically to El Regadio), where we are always touched by her natural beauty, her gracious people, her great poverty and our common, sometimes sad history.

Some of our Reclaiming Christmas profits have helped build a community center in El Regadio.

Dan Trabue had this to report on his Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua:

Nicaragua is a beautiful but poor country with a tragic history, with many of its darker chapters having been written by the US. Nica reminds me, in may ways, of our own Eastern Kentucky, only to an extreme - taller mountains, more drastic poverty, more villainous antagonists, more striking beauty.

My visit made me wish to one day visit Nicaragua again, perhaps to hike across her pleasant countryside. I just hope to do so in a day when justice has been meted out and wrongs righted.

Ximbaxuc, Guatemala

2006-04-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ximbaxuc, Guatemala
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.

For a few years, Jeff Street's Reclaiming Christmas Project sent money to Guatemala to help develop a potable water system for the small village of Ximbaxuc.

Ximbaxuc was one of the villages decimated during the 1980s when the US was supporting Guatemala's oppressive regime. Here's a report from a visitor to Ximbaxuc:

"At dusk, we walked the gloriously beautiful land with Juan, the only survivor of 5 brothers who were killed during a massacre that destroyed the lives and burnt the homes of many in this village, forcing those who had survived to flee. Now Juan and his parents and other survivors have returned after 10 years in exile to begin again." For more information, see here.

In the years since its destruction, villagers have begun to try to rebuild their lives in Ximbaxuc, keeping hope alive.

Steve P. Holcombe

2006-04-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Steve P. Holcombe, the converted gambler : his life and work, is the title of a book about the riverboat gambler/drunkard/murderer who got saved and started the Union Gospel Mission, the mission from which Jeff Street sprang. Written by Rev. Alexander Gross in 1888(!), it is a fascinating bit of writing.

The book is out of publication, but copies of the old book can be found by doing searches for rare books. Interestingly, it is available online here.

Travelers on the Journey

2006-04-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Travelers on the Journey: Pastors Talk about their Lives and Commitments, is a 2006 book written by Mark Constantine that features "six socially engaged pastors across the American South. Serving Protestant, Catholic, and nondenominational congregations from rural Arkansas to urban Atlanta..." including our very own CINDY WEBER!

An interesting book even if it didn't feature Cindy, it is improved by her presence.

More info on the book can be found here.

Salty Saints, n.

2006-03-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

The Society of Salty Saints and Partners in Grace: Friends of the Salty Saints are two books by Micheal Elliott, pastor at Jeff Street in the 1970s and 1980s.

From his acknowledgements page of Society of Salty Saints, Micheal writes:

Many believe that Christian community in the inner city is impossible. The "salty saints" of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel, however, are just such a community, one that gives us glimpses of faith.

The books are the stories of some of the homeless and urban folk that Micheal met at Jeff Street and elsewhere in his journey. Micheal is currently the president and CEO of Union Mission, Inc. in Savannah, GA.

More information about these and other of Elliott's books can be found here.