We are writing you to urge you to reconsider the closing of Trumbull Elementary School in Andersonville. There are several factors that lead us to believe that CPS is making the wrong decision in proposing the school for closure.

1. We have a new Principal and newly elected Local School Council. Our Principal started last school year, and the new LSC has been in office since July 1, 2012. In that short time test scores have increased dramatically. Initial data supports another large increase in our ISAT scores this year, and we fully expect the upward trend to continue.
2. We have a large Special Education (SPED) program. In fact, the 146 special education students make up 37% of our student population. These children’s progress depends on consistent and familiar behaviors. Splitting these children between three schools, and interrupting their routine pattern will be detrimental to their progress. In fact, studies have shown that when SPED students are relocated to new schools, on average they lose anywhere from 12-18 months of progress. I would also argue that because the SPED test scores at Trumbull are higher than our receiving schools, those students are not given the opportunity to attend a higher performing school.

2. Utilization data is inaccurate for Trumbull. It has been widely reported and substantiated by CPS that the formula used to determine a school’s utilization did not include “guardrails” for schools that had a high percentage of Special Education students. When our SPED program is accounted for, we are always over 80%, which means that according to Barbara Byrd-Bennett, we are “optimally utilized” and should be removed from the list.

We are the typical Andersonville family. For the first time last week, we began talking about moving. It’s a heartbreaking decision. We just moved back to Chicago a couple years ago, and love living in the city. We love our neighborhood and have invested in our schools and our community. Andersonville has become a part of our family. We thought we would raise our children here. If Trumbull closes we face the uncertainty of our son getting into Peirce, and therefore we don’t know that we can stay. We are one of numerous other families in this community who are also being forced to rethink their future in Chicago because of this proposal. Our lives are being turned upside-down.

Please consider these factors. Please support our neighborhood. Please don’t close our school, Trumbull Elementary.

Sincerely,

Ali and Paul Burke

There was a story on public radio this week that struck me when I heard it as something I needed to remember. So, I actually stopped and listened to the remainder of the broadcast in the car even though I had reached my physical destination.

Perhaps it was because I had spent some time earlier this week over at Nelson’s Funeral Home that I was particularly drawn-in. I was already imagining, in that now-empty space, just how many souls, living and departed had passed through that place. How many emotions had been shared. How many memories, painful and joyful, had been close to the surface for people in that space. Like our own sanctuary, it felt to me like a “thin” place. A place where the tangible and intangible, physical and spiritual, meet.

The story I wanted to remember went something like this. A funeral director was asked to recall a funeral that had particularly moved him. And amidst all the memories of loving goodbyes at the end of lives well-lived, it was a story of conflict and hard-found peace he remembered most. Two women, family members, rendered asunder by a long-standing conflict. The details are not so important. Suffice it to say there was genuine hurt. Bad memories between them. Real hurt, not imagined.

One was dying. The other thought to make peace by going to the hospital, but was turned away by other family, protective of their dying beloved. So she came later to the funeral, distraught, but the reaction was the same: The funeral director dutifully turned her away.

But something in him broke. He could read in this woman’s face that she needed peace. Perhaps peace the world cannot give. To be in the presence of the thin place and say what she needed to say. He did not judge the family unjust to turn her away. But he couldn’t send her off like this. Not like this.

So through him, a glimpse of peace the world cannot give came. Grace. He told her that after everyone left at the end of visitation hours, at 9 PM, sometimes he didn’t get around to locking up for a while. Sometimes it took a whole hour for him to come and turn out the lights and lock the doors. Anyone could probably walk in of the street during that time. And he would never know it.

In that hour, from his office, he supposed he heard tears. Hushed tones, some angry, some sad, some resigned. And then the door closed again, and silence.

I got into this business to help people grieve, he said. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is let someone say goodbye.

I might put it this way: She needed to be re-membered. Reminded of peace. As humans, we remember. Remember love and support. Remember confusion and betrayal. Usually some of both are operating at any given moment. This woman, remembering all that had gone so badly, needed, desperately, one last memory. Something to remember that would allow her to forgive. Perhaps even to forgive herself.

It is striking, then, that Jesus tells the disciples that he is both going away and coming to them, that in the meantime the Holy Spirit, the Advocate of God, will be with them, primarily to remind them of the things that he has said to them. To remind them that they must dwell together in the words they have been given, that this will keep them in love for God and one another. To remind them that peace is theirs already, even though things are about to get very frightening and chaotic. To remind them that his absence from their assembly in body is not forever.

Jesus promises the Holy Spirit so they will have a memory of him that is full of promise. A promise of love and peace and faith.

But they, of course, are given to forget this, and so are we.

Later, after Jesus death and resurrection and ascension, Paul has a vision. A vision to go and bring the gospel to some men in Macedonia. Who knows how well Paul is remembering this vision. Maybe it is as he describes it. Maybe, the Spirit changes courses and plans midstream. Maybe, Paul remembers the mission of the vision correctly, but assumes  he knows who he’s headed to give that gospel to. In any case, as he remembers it, it’s to some men in Macedonia.

When he gets there, it’s women by the river that Paul finds. One, Lydia, isn’t probably even Jewish, being from Thyatira. So here he is, no poor Jewish guys around other than him, preaching to a gentile woman who is of independent means. She deals in purple cloth after all, expensive stuff.

A gentile businesswoman. This is not who Paul remembered the gospel being for. But both his presence in that place and her receptiveness to the gospel are explicitly the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul gets re-membered by his vision, alright. His gets taken apart and put back together. And the result is a pioneering believer, a gentile businesswoman of means, who prevails on them all to accept her support and patronage. Her faith literally makes their continuing ministry in that place possible. Her family likely forms the basis of a new and totally unexpected community of faith in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit of God is promised to we who live between the “going away” and “coming to us” of Jesus as the bearer of memory, and the rememberer, the re-maker, of our gatherings. This Holy Spirit, she comes to us in the powerful memory of Jesus’ words and acts: Keep my word. Eat and drink in remembrance of me. Don’t forget. Don’t forget who you are and to whom you belong. You were made for love, fearful, troubled hearts and all.

And in this gift of remembrance, we are remembered. Christ’s body is re-assembled, here in this place, in the flesh and blood of our gathering. We are that re-membered body. Do not be afraid. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Remember that you believe. Remember that Christ has promised peace that the world cannot give. The Holy Spirit will remind us, as she did through that funeral director and mourner, that the greatest of graces given us is to remember. And be remembered. In peace.

Michael Fick is the pastor of Ebenezer Lutheran Church. This post first appeared in Parsonal Issues. Read more of his sermons

²⁰I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
²⁵Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Dazed and Confused

Lord God you call us to a unity

That we often find impossible

Different people

Different experiences

We learn early on to not trust different people

And only trust our own experience

And yet you come to us

As a different person in the person of Christ

And invite us to experience the world

And one another

And you

Differently

Help us to be unified in that calling today.

Amen

“Dazed and confused” could be a way of describing our reaction to this reading from John today.

In fact, I thought about replacing the reading with U2’s song, One because I think the lyrics of that song get at what Jesus is talking about here with more clarity than this reading.

In this reading we’re eavesdropping in on Jesus a bit as he’s praying, and this is the final prayer that he’ll pray before he and his disciples head into Jerusalem and he’s crucified.

And it comes here at the end of the Easter season because it’s Jesus’ response to a question that actually sits with most of us in some form or fashion at one time or another.  It’s the question of “what’s next.”

What’s next, after I won’t see you again?

What’s next for this world, as we’re told over and over again that things are getting worse not better?

For the many families moving to different parts of the country and away from Chicago in our community, the thought of “what’s next” is sitting heavy in a very immediate way today.

What’s next?

I remember some distinct moments of wondering “what’s next” in my life.  Sure there are the usual moments of “what’s next” that most of us have: after graduation, or getting a new job, or getting into a new relationship.

On this Mother’s Day, that “what’s next” of first becoming a parent comes to mind as you hold a little one and wonder not only who they’ll turn out to be but also how you’re going to go to the bathroom in peace anymore.

But I’m not remembering those “what’s next” moments right now.  I’m remembering a different moment, one involving my older brother.

My older brother and I are very different people…and always have been.  And we’ve never really gotten along very well except when we were younger and not too choosey when it came to our playmates.

And I remember a neighbor hiring us to rake her lawn one day in early October, when I was about 10 and he was 12.

And so we head over there with rakes in hand and sure enough we had to start commenting on how the other one was not doing it correctly, and then we’d start throwing leaves at each other…not playing, the kind of leaf throwing where you hide a rock in it or smash each other in the face.  And then it went to wrestling and shoving leaves down the back of shirts…it devolved quickly, as most chores did when we were paired together.

And I remember my father coming out of the house and over to the neighbors, and grabbing me by the collar and grabbing my brother by the collar and lifting us up and shaking us and saying, “I’m not going to be around here forever, and all you’ll have left is one another!  And then what?!”

Yes…what would be next, then?  Would we ever get along?

The “what’s next” situations of this world can truly be confusing and a bit scary.  And in the “what’s next” moment of his life, we find Jesus praying for unity.

Unity that is beyond just himself and this moment and time…because he would not be around forever.

A prayer of unity that grabs us, the church, by the collar and holds us and says, “One day I’ll be gone and what you’ll have left to you is one another, and then what?!”

Yes.  Then what?

John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople in the late 4^th Century, encouraged the church to keep unity, paraphrasing this text from John today.  He noted that if the church could keep peace then the world would “know the teacher by his disciples.”

The church has not been very good at keeping peace, however.  Fights within the church have left it broken and scattered, dazed by losing sight of the task to love one another unconditionally.  Fights from outside of the church have left us confused about our own identity.  Are we a social club?  Are we the remnants of our parent’s faith, the last gasps of modernity?  Are we a social service agency?  Are we the banner bearers for doctrinal purity? Are we the Christian Right or the Christian Left?  Are we…anything?

And this is why I think that the church is in desperate need of some godparents.

You know, I always grew up thinking that godparents were the people you went to live with if something tragic happened to your parents.  I’m not sure where that idea came from, although I know it’s widespread, but it can be a scary thought for someone like me who has no idea who their godparents are except that they live somewhere in Texas and I met them when I was a month old.

I remember thinking that, if something happened to my parents, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting along with my brother anymore because he’d be shipped off to Iowa to live with my uncle, the younger brother would be off to Pennsylvania to live with close family friends, and I’d be shipped off to parts unknown Texas to live with some people I’d never met before…

But that’s not what godparents do.  And what do they do?

Godparents remind the baptized of their identity.  They remind them that they are connected with a larger community through the unity that we all have in God through Christ.

Godparents are entrusted with the responsibility of helping the baptized figure out the “what’s next” moments of the faith-journey by emulating the teacher, by emulating Christ.

And this message couldn’t come on a better Sunday than the one where we hear about Jesus ascending into heaven, as we did in today’s Acts reading, because it is a reminder that we as a church are constantly facing the “what’s next” moments of our history and Jesus is no longer bodily with us and so we must let the world see the teacher through our actions.

We must embody Jesus’ prayer for unity…because we are the body of Christ.

And we have some “what’s next” questions as a church.

What’s next for us when we, as a church, are confronted with the fact that Syria and Israel are talking war?  How do we respond faithfully to the unity that we are to embody in Christ?

What’s next for us when we, as a church, are confronted with those who are food insecure in our neighborhood?  Or when we realize that there is a lack of affordable pre-school options or affordable after-school options in this area?

What’s next for us when we’re told by many voices that Christianity should stand against other religions while embracing the gods of greed and the gods of political power, and for some of us that just doesn’t sit well with the message of Jesus?

What’s next for the unity that we share, when it seems like there are so many “what’s next” situations in this world that are trying to break us apart?

In these moments, we must godparent one another.  Remind one another of who we are, lest we become confused about that.  In these moments we are gathered here to light a candle, we mark our brows and one another’s with water, we pray prayers of peace and unity together.

These are all things that godparents should do for their godchildren.

And in these moments, in the daze of a life that is full of uncertainty, we call upon our own God parent, our mothering God who wraps us safely in arms of love, our fathering God who hugs us close and reminds us of who we are.

You know…I never finished that story.

So my dad grabbed us both by our collars, and he’s shaking us…I remember it well…and he’s going, “I’m going to be gone one day!  You won’t have me; you’ll only have each other!  And then what?!”

And then he hugged both of us close to his chest, which made me think, makes me think, that even if he was gone I’d still know him and know his desire for my brother and I to live peaceably together, unified.

I wouldn’t be confused about that…even if I was still confused on how it was going to happen.

And sometimes I think that if I can just be reminded of that story more, I’d know better what to do to make it happen.

Perhaps that’s why I go to church and try to be a good godparent.  While it doesn’t make life less confusing, being reminded of the story and the desire of God’s that we live in peace and unity grounds me in such a way that I begin to think that it can happen with God’s help.

Because, as Bono sings, we’ve only,

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

Together.  Unified.  As One.  Through Christ.  Don’t be confused about that.

Tim Brown is pastor of Luther Memorial Church. Read his sermons here

“We’ll miss some of the vintage decorations, but that glass brick…. never!” UU says.

Read more at Uptown Update

Fritchey, acting as the zoning attorney for Domus Group, was pressed by Moreno regarding how the developer planned to react if a zoning variance was denied. Phillip Ciaccio, an owner in Domus replied “it’s your own torpedo, buddy,” according to a post in Our Urban Times.

The comment was met with gasps from participants, according to OUT. “This is uncalled for,” Moreno apparently said.

“Quite frankly, I am insulted,” (Moreno) said looking at Fritchey, “You don’t come out to a community group and say or imply that. You say what you’re going to do and try to win over the group for a positive, productive development in this neighborhood.”

Read more in Our Urban Times

One by U2 should be played in churches this Sunday.

Because this text just plops us in the middle of a Jesus monologue with no context, no setting, and we need some sort of connection with something familiar to get us through it, I think.

And didn’t we already finish out the book of John with chapter 21 a few weeks ago?

Jesus’ call for unity is undermined by a sentence structure and cadence that is anything but unified in this John reading.  And the Greek is no better…I checked.

But the confusion that comes with hearing this text shouldn’t be wasted.  It mimics the confusion that our parishioners have in trying to rectify their faith tradition with that of the Hindu they work with.

Or with that conservative evangelical who also claims the label “Christian”…but whose beliefs are as foreign to the parishioner as the Hindu.

Maybe even more so.

How is Christ calling for unity in a world that is anything but unified?

And do I really have to put up with the misogynist, the bigot, my meddling aunt, and my overbearing mother?

No.

And yes.

Well, describe “put up with.”

And…it’s confusing

We’re taught and encouraged to join groups that think and act like us.  Unity is found through common beliefs or common dislikes…that’s what they say.

And, actually, studies indicate that our dislikes might unify us more than our likes…

So it can be confusing to hear Jesus call for and claim unity when it seems that the Masons are unified internally, as is the Elk Lodge, but that they don’t meet together and share their rituals and efforts and membership cards.

Confusing and without an answer.

A pastor doesn’t usually provide answers.  If they claim to know an answer outright, I suspect they are confused themselves…or lying.

But a pastor can provide a lens for a parishioner to do some things well, like hold the tension of confusion faithfully.

Because that is the essence of prayer, yes?  Bringing confusions and longings and the mixed bag of this world to God?

And in this text we hear that Jesus prays for us, and knows us, and loves us.

And with us, our confusion.

As Bono says,

One life, but we’re not the same

We get to carry each other

Carry each other

One…

Read more at Chicago Public League Sports Blog

The switch happened not just to me, but to 67 other juniors in my school who were told we did not have enough credits. However, in my case and many others, we had between 11 and 14.5 credits, which is enough to be a junior and qualify to take the test. Some students did not have enough credits to be juniors in the first place, but that still does not explain why they were promoted to junior year in the fall and then demoted to sophomore status right before the Prairie State test.

Under so much pressure to raise its Prairie State test scores, the administration tried to take advantage of the promotion policy and demote a third of the junior class, just to keep us from taking the test and bringing down the school’s scores. I was having challenges at school but the last thing I would have expected is that my school system would demote me instead of supporting me.

This is not what school systems are supposed to do to students. They are supposed to provide extra support to students like me who don’t do well on tests or who might fall behind. But instead, they tried to make us disappear.

I care about my education. I want to go to college and to study music engineering. But when the future of a school rests on its test scores, students like me get demoted or pushed out. That’s why I joined the more than 100 juniors who boycotted the second day of the PSAE. We boycotted school, and the test, to send a message to Mayor Rahm Emanuel: School closings and student push-out, driven by high-stakes testing, must end.

Many adults disagreed with us, including CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Byrd-Bennett even tried to threaten and intimidate us, sending out a parent letter that insinuated that students who didn’t take the test on Wednesday would not be promoted to senior year.

This was a scare tactic that seemed designed to mislead parents. It did not give any information about the state-required make-up test in May or the established CPS practice of promoting juniors who sit for just one of the two days of the test. And what CPS didn’t realize was that these threats had actually already happened to me. CPS was threatening to withhold our promotion to senior year, but I had already been demoted in March as a direct result of Mayor Emanuel’s pressure on schools to raise test scores or face closure.

When these scare tactics did not prevent us from boycotting, CEO Byrd-Bennett scolded us, saying that “the only place that students should be during the school day is in the classroom with their teachers getting the education they need to be successful in life.” I agree with this statement, but does Mayor Emanuel? CPS pressure on schools to raise test scores actually leads to students getting pushed out of school. Many of the juniors who were demoted at my school started talking about dropping out because it was such a discouraging experience.

If CEO Byrd-Bennett and her boss, Mayor Emanuel, actually want every student to receive a good education every day, they should limit high-stakes tests, not use them to justify school closings in mainly African-American communities. The announcement that they are ending just one of a number of CPS tests given to kindergarteners is like the promise to give air-conditioning to students whose schools get closed. It’s a token effort given to us in the hopes that we will go away.

We want our boycott to be a wake-up call to Mayor Emanuel and CPS. We demand and end to testing-driven school closings, under-resourced schools, and student push-out. And we’re not going away.

Timothy Anderson is a student leader with Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS) and Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE).

This post originally appeared in Catalyst-Chicago and is republished with permission. Read the original

There are two conversations on The Bulldog. You are reading one.

The other conversation takes place here. Read what was said.

In reading this Acts text, no doubt some preachers will highlight the varied regions or areas that are mentioned in the first verses.

I remember seeing this scene played out in a video series.  Little CGI flames appeared above disciple heads as one of the crowd started reciting where everyone was from.  It was as if God said, “You’re fired” to all the disciples, and then sent one inspired person on a tortuous monologue/geography lesson.

Worst speech ever.  Talk about boring.

And let’s not pretend we actually think someone did that monologue.  Do we?  Do we really think it lends itself to speech?

Much like all the other things about this text, and life, we make deep symbols shallow when we make them too literal.

Real fire?  Real wind?  Read carefully.  *Like* wind.  *as of* fire.

Much like Jesus’ baptism when the Spirit descended *like* a dove.

Why bother with all of the semantics? Who cares?

I read the comments thread of an article the other day.  The article was on how God can and should be addressed as “mother” as well as “father.”

Of course everyone had a problem with this…at least everyone in the comments section.

Literalist Christians were pissed because God obviously refers to God’s self as “Father” in the Scriptures.  Which, if you think about it, is a weird claim to make.  Not only because it isn’t true…there are plenty of feminine images of God in Scripture…but also because that’s just a weird way to write or speak.  An editor would jump on that right away.

And atheist responders were upset because it was an article about God.

One atheist responder made this curious little remark, though.  They wrote, “Thank God I’m an atheist.”

I love it.  It’s awesome.

And whether they were being sarcastic or it was just a slip of the idiom, I think it’s a statement with some depth to it…even if it’s intent was kind of shallow.

Because when we read these Biblical passages that have these wonderful images, fire-water-wind-breath, we do them a deep disservice when we make them too literal.  We silence them, contain them.  They don’t speak well, then.  And they especially don’t speak well to those who may have trouble buying that fire danced on top of people’s heads.

We only see that at the circus nowadays.

So have fire at Pentecost, speak a number of languages in the reading, fly windsock kites, do all of that.  But don’t buy into it too literally or you’ll make of it cheap parlor tricks.

Instead look at the little old lady and the newborn dressed in red, and see them as containing the flame of the Spirit. They’re fired. Instead look at the breath that comes from the choir as they sing Veni, Sancte, Spiritus and find the wind of God rushing over the church.

And maybe, just maybe, dump the idea that people heard their Parthian dialect or Cappadocian dialect, let alone German and Spanish and English, and imagine that God might speak a variety of languages far beyond those that have words.

Maybe even the language of atheism.

Now that would be disconcerting and strange and may even make some people claim, “You’re drunk!”

Now that would be deep.

Like the breath of God that hovered over the deep before the world began.