"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.