"Social Service Director"

I am becoming a little more likely these days to introduce myself as the “Retired Social Service Director for Ramsey County.” My thought is that such an introduction could start a conversation about disparities - disparities in education, health, income and other important factors in our society(ies). Those disparities play out to their greatest extent between Black and White people, and a little less with other people of color.

Charlene and I are having a family Bible study right now, working our way through Luke. We have been impressed with how hard Jesus pressed against discrimination. There is the story of Him standing up to the religious leaders’ criticism of Him for eating with sinners; the beatitudes’ blessing of those who are hungry, those who weep, those who are shunned by society; His introduction of himself in Nazareth as the predicted one who would bring good news to the poor; and of course, the description of the early church where no one went hungry because everyone chipped in.

This aspect of the Biblical account of history has been bugging me lately. I have pointed out elsewhere that God has always been a God of rescue. On Sunday afternoon, during the Covid isolation, we have been meeting for worship with two women of quite different religious backgrounds, neither of whom is very familiar with some of the old Bible stories. We have been reading about and discussing God’s rescue of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego; of Daniel; of the Jewish people from Egypt. The book is full of rescues - from Cain in Genesis to all of us in Revelation.

Combine that with our new association with The Roseville church, which sits next door to twelve large apartment complexes full of refugees and immigrants and you have a great new adventure waiting for us at the end of the virus.

I have just joined a civic group called the Rice and Larpenteur Alliance. It is similar to neighborhood development groups all over St. Paul and is aimed at improving the living conditions in the neighborhood. You can see the Roseville church building and the apartments next door from the Rice and Larpenteur intersection. The group is just forming, I was assigned to the Neighborhood Livability and Events committee. Sounds like a great fit for a new church member. Should be fun.

AAAP

As the Ramsey County (St. Paul) Social Service Director, I assigned several projects to a young man I had rescued from oblivion in a Planning Office position. One of the projects was to supplement efforts already underway to increase the number of Black foster children being adopted. He took it and ran with it. Art Tredwell is his name.

The problem we were trying to address was first that more Black children were being permanently separated from their parents by the courts and then were being adopted at a much slower rate than their White counterparts. It is widely known in Social Service Circles that it is hardest to find adoptive homes for boys, older children and Black children. Older Black boys are at the bottom of the barrel. 

Art partnered with a woman from the Minnesota Department of Human Services and together they established the African American Adoption Project. The project got the word out in both the Black and White communities, made the issue known and organized all kinds of events to push the adoption of Black kids. 

I have noted elsewhere my pride in the two organizations I managed, one in Minnesota and the other in Florida, both of whom broke all-time records in the adoption of children of all colors. This project was a part of that effort. I also have a “Thank You” plaque from the project expressing gratitude for my support for their efforts in promoting the adoption of “our children.” “Our children” in this instance is Black kids.

Who’s in Charge Here Anyhow?

Who’s in Charge Here Anyhow? Another view of the coronavirus: 

Charlene and I went to Egypt a few years ago and I was particularly impressed with how most of the pharaohs had declared themselves to be gods. Our God was tolerant of that until they became very brutal toward God’s people whom the Egyptians had enslaved. God responded with a series of plagues: boils, flies, frogs, gnats and the like – little things, but multitudes of them. And he wiped out the economy using locusts to destroy the crops. It seems from this story and other history that people can push God so far, but eventually He will step in and show them who’s boss. Only after God took the first born of every family (including the pets and the livestock along with Pharaoh’s own oldest child) did Egypt relent. And even then, the pharaoh changed his mind and went after the Israelites to bring them back into slavery. Humankind is stubborn in its sin.

At a different point in time, the people of the world became so evil that God wiped them all out with a flood, saving only eight of them. But it was on a Sunday morning, some would say an Easter Sunday morning, that God went into a grave in Palestine and woke up a dead man to inspire and to save the world. Throughout history God has been patient and loving toward those who love Him. But He has His limits.

Could it be that the leaders of the world have become a little too arrogant? I would think the constant competition to be the best nation, ignoring God’s will and inserting our own agendas, could get on His nerves. And we continue to destroy His creation and to think that modern science can solve anything that comes our way - like degradation of the environment, like endless wars over who is really in charge, like Black people getting the virus more often than anyone else, like the poor continuing to carry the burdens of the past. And like our wannabe leaders all claiming to have the answers to all our problems. Perhaps this is just His way of showing us that we don’t have all the answers and that He is still really in charge.

Charlene’s theory is God has sent us to our rooms to contemplate Him.