Notes from public school - day 104

last place first

The arc of my life has brought me to a ‘last place first’ understanding of the world around me, an understanding that people who live in the last places - the people who (as Liberation Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez reminds us) are the smallest and most forgotten people in our world - show us the best of who we are and the finest of what we can become.

My own life and work in the Clarksdale housing projects in Louisville, on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Tennessee, in a remote part of West Africa, and in a Title I elementary school in the Greenville County School District has helped me understand places and people in this way, too. 

I'm thinking of Nick, an inner-city kid, who stood banging on my barred window at the Jeff Street Baptist Center at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning to remind me that I promised to take him to an afternoon movie. He taught me that promise keeping is sacred, especially for those who have known mostly broken promises. 

I'm thinking of Junior, a giant of a 65-year-old man with the innocent heart and mind of a child, who traveled the broken neighborhoods, public nursing homes, and county hospitals with me to visit the poor, the lonely, and the sick ones in our small community. He taught me that being is sacred, especially for those who have been mostly forgotten. 

I'm thinking of Momadu, a poor farmer and cook, who washed the mud off my shoes after helping me plant a garden. He taught me that grace is sacred. 

And I'm thinking of a classroom full of multi-colored 4th graders, 40 nine and ten year olds who talk, walk, giggle, and wiggle when I tell them to hush, sit, listen, and be still. They teach me that staying is sacred, especially for those who have known mostly leaving.

These places are the stones that are building me. These people are the ones who are helping me become more human. 

I think the ‘last place first’ philosophy offers the  blocks that can build our world into a more human place for everyone.