Hello friends! We hope your “festive period” (as Transport for London calls it) was delightful; ours was! You can just pretend this New Year’s post aligned perfectly with the beginning of 2012…

As we looked back on what we learned during 2011, we thought we’d share a slice of our thinking and show you what we’ve been reading. (As you may have guessed, we read a ton about East London, as well as a ton of books about following Jesus. And there’s a few things thrown in for fun…)

London Literature!

Salaam Brick Lane: A Year in the New East End is told through the eyes of Tarquin Hall, a posh West Ender who had no idea this side of London even existed. After moving back to London from abroad, he winds up living on Brick Lane in the 1990s, when it was the center of many of the East End’s urban problems. His year gives a good overview of this history and stories of both the more recent Bengali and former Jewish immigrant community life that has flourished on Brick Lane.

Despite the cheery-looking cover, Call the Midwife is actually pretty gritty. Jennifer Worth was being trained as a midwife by a group of nuns in the 1950s, and she delivers babies in the often shocking conditions of East London tenement homes. It’s hard for me to believe that only a few decades ago this is what life in our neighborhood was like (apparently the street we live on was frequented by “ladies of the night”) but you can still see the heart and spirit of the old East Enders she describes.

Londonstani is about a young man trying to fit in with the second generation Desi rudeboy gang in his hood—and it’s written almost entirely in the voice of his street slang. While Jas and his friends are very much at odds with their immigrant parents, they’re still proud of being Asian. They just want to do it on their own terms (i.e., while chasing after money, sex, cred, bling, and cars.) Sigh. Some things don’t change, whether they’re in the outer burbs borough of Hounslow like these boys, or the inner city borough we live in.

In White Teeth: A Novel, Zadie Smith explores how the choices parents make circle back to shape their children’s lives between family tragedy and the comedy of daily life. It’s a really well-written window into many of the tensions we’re learning to negotiate here ourselves, including Britain’s imperial past vs. its multicultural future and the expectations of first-generation parents vs. the longings of second-generation kids to fit in here in London.

About Islam

“Islamist” refers to a specific understanding of Islam that is highly political, and sees Islam as not just a personal spiritual belief, but an entire system of life, individually and communally. Within the Islamist community, there’s a radical anti-western subculture, and this is the story of one man’s experience falling deeper and deeper into it.  The Islamist: Why I Became an Islamic Fundamentalist, What I Saw Inside, and Why I Left tells how Ed Husain was recruited, how these groups convince people they’re right, and gives perspective into how this subculture sees the world from someone who’s lived it, and left it.

The title of Between Naivety and Hostility: Uncovering the Best Christian Responses to Islam in Britain implies that most of society’s responses to Islam have not been helpful. Instead of being swayed by outrageous media coverage and political polemics, what are ways that Christians can respond to Islam that encourage healthy dialogue and learning from one another? (This book hasn’t been published in the US yet, but you can read it on Kindle or download a Kindle app for your computer.)

Jesus Things

You may not agree with everything Brian McLaren says, but that’s not the point—he’s wrestling with really important questions about the future of the way we follow Jesus together. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers (and indeed, when we saw him speak at Greenbelt, he often humbly responded to questions with more questions), but he also doesn’t shy away from starting difficult conversations the church needs to have about how to shift religious patterns that are more harmful than helpful. A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faithis partly a deconstruction of some stuck places in Christian dogma that have worn into an unhealthy rut, and partly a fresh perspective on how the church can move into the next millennia and be true to Jesus.  (Liz sometimes says that McLaren is able to take all of the frustration with organized institutionalized Churchianity that’s swarming around in her brain and articulate it in a way other people can actually follow.)

Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline) is always inspiring because he takes the long view—he looks at the entire history of Christian practice, and reminds you that over thousands of years, the saints testify that intimacy with God is possible. Then he draws on their experience and his own, shows you how people who have gone before you have gotten to know God, and gently says, “It’s lovely that you’re reading this book, but you should really go and try it yourself.” Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer focuses on the practice of lectio divina, or holy reading. And Foster’s not afraid to call out our modern-wired-short-attention-spans: he challenges us to unplug from all Internet gadgetry for one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year….

The author of The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith spent twelve years as an urban church planter in our borough of Tower Hamlets. He wrote this book primarily to introduce the central elements of current Anabaptist faith and theology to a UK audience. He pulls from existing North American traditions (Mennonites, Brethren, Hutterites) as well as UK Churches who see through Anabaptist-oriented lenses, in order to share an alternative approach to faith and practice with Christians. We attended a Mennonite church in Chicago, and the core of our theology is grounded in Anabaptism. If you’d like to know more about Anabaptism or have more succinct ways of explaining it, this is a useful broad overview.

Scot McKnight is angry, and as he rightly should be. “Who says that translations are not political?” he asks. Grab your Bible and look up Romans 16:7. Go on. I’ll wait. Does it say “Junias” or “Junia”? That little letter “s” makes a world of difference, because it’s the difference between Junia being a male or female apostle (and an outstanding one at that.) It’s the difference between having a biblically recognized woman in church leadership, or having women’s voices and calling deliberately silenced. That’s right—McKnight is angry because in the 1920s the Greek composite text translators use was deliberately changed from a woman’s name to a man’s name, because some people had issues with a woman being an apostle. Junia Is Not Alone is a short essay that lays out the scholarship behind this verse and why it’s really important for the church to get this right. (This $2.99 essay is only available digitally, but if you don’t have a Kindle, it is absolutely worth downloading a free Kindle app to read this on your electronic thing of choice.)

We’ve got bookmarks marking our progress in several other great books by N. T. Wright, but in the meantime we’d like to highly recommend his commentary series The New Testament for Everyone. N. T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, a scholar and theologian who really knows his stuff, but he’s written these books for a popular audience. They’re personable, engaging, extremely accessible, with his own fresh translations of Scripture, and he blends key context and kingdom theology in a way that cuts to the heart of Scripture. The link is to the entire series (yup, we have them all) but you can also search for the individual books (i.e., Matthew for Everyone, Mark for Everyone) as they’d make a great small group study.

We actually re-read this book this year, so I’m gonna quote our good friend Tim on Submerge: Living Deep in a Shallow World: “How an Ivy-Leaguer quit the rat-race to become a good Samaritan, accidentally started a missionary order—and what to do about it… When someone decides to take Jesus at his word and love the poor, what does it look like? John Hayes [our teammate in London] journeys from being a Rich Young Ruler as a successful businessman in Japan to becoming a neighbor in the inner city of Santa Ana. The Order, InnerCHANGE, that has grown from John’s work, is an expression of what it means to love the poor as next door neighbors, not as short term volunteers. It’s great to read from the experience of someone who’s done it for more than 20 years, rather than from people who think about what it could look like.”

Fabulous Fiction

After we saw the movie trailer, we decided it was finally time to read The Hunger Games Trilogy, and we both blitzed through all three books in record time. These are fast-moving thrillers set in a future dystopia, where children are forced to kill each other on live reality television. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds—indeed, the scary thing is when you start to see just how possible this is. There’s enough discussion fodder in here for weeks: thought-provoking stuff on the role of the media, construction of propaganda, how people are shaped by their environments, how much choice you have in your own decisions. Her world is full of issues of power: who controls it, how they maintain it, the systematic institutionalization of poverty and oppression, how this determines who lives, who eats, who dies. You’ve got til March 23 til the first movie comes out…

I doubt you’ve read a book quite like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time before. The blurb says: “Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.” As Christopher sets about solving the mystery of the neighbor’s dead dog, the author does a remarkable job of letting see the world through his gifts and limitations, the closest I’ve ever felt to experiencing what a person with such a brain thinks and feels. It’s a really well told story (and, bonus, it’s set in London.)

If you’ve never read Neil Gaiman before, well, you should. It’s a bit like falling down the rabbit hole, where everything is just slightly twisted. Neverwhere tells the story of a man who falls through the cracks of London Above into London Below—the dark, gritty, surreal urban world in the tunnels and abandoned tube stations under London’s streets. Turns out the Earl really does live at Earl’s Court station, and there are actual Black Friars guarding the way at Blackfriars (and oh, you do not want to mess with either…)

I picked up Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life at a friend’s house, and didn’t stop reading til about 2 am. It is, indeed, about writing, and about life, and dealing with both. But it’s also about things that are true, and things that are worth working for, and things that are worth saying yes to. (Plus it is funny, because Anne Lamott does not think taking herself too seriously is worth it.)

Just a note: all the links above are Amazon Affiliate links, so if you purchase anything using these links you’re helping to support our work! [FAQ here]. If you wind up reading any of these, let us know what you thought!

So! Last week I was visiting some of the neighbor girls on our estate (you can see our flat from their balcony.) And we were chatting about birthdays and holidays and decorating, and one of the girls mentioned she’d just learnt how to make really easy, beautiful paper snowflakes. And I said, “You should show me on the bus tomorrow!” So she promised to do just that.

[Have I mentioned that I'm volunteering on this bus? It's run by XLP, a Christian youth work charity, and it comes round our estate every Thursday after school. It is very, very purple, double decker, complete with laptops, karaoke machine, air hockey table, X-boxes, and a Kinect.... We hang out with teenaged girls and make art and bake rainbow cupcakes and talk about life in our neighborhood. It's a good time.]

Anyway! The next day on the bus, I was really excited to discover that these snowflakes were indeed a) easy and b) gorgeous! I love learning new skills from 12-year-old girls! So we made a bunch to decorate the bus, and then I promptly came home and made some more to decorate our flat.

If you’d like to give it a go, there’s a tutorial with photos behind the cut!

How to make Simple, Gorgeous 3-D Snowflakes!

You will need:

• 3 sheets of printer paper
• scissors
• glue stick
• tape

Fold the paper in half horizontally to 8.5 x 5.5″, unfold, and cut in half along the crease. (You can do most all of the following folding and cutting to three sheets of paper at once to save time.)

Turn your half-sheets into squares: fold the top edge over to match the side to make a right angle triangle, then trim off the extra paper along the bottom edge. (Don’t do all six sheets at once! Just three.)

Fold the triangle in half again.

With the folded edge on the bottom, make three cuts parallel to the longest edge of the triangle, stopping about a half inch from the top.

Unfold; if you’ve been doing three sheets of paper at once you should have this:

 
Take one of your squares; peel one of the centermost triangles up and apply some glue to the backside. Curl it around your finger and glue it to the other center triangle.

Flip the square over. Peel up the corner of next innermost cut-out layer, put some glue on the backside of it, and glue that corner to its opposite.

Flip the square over again. Glue the corners of the third layer together.

Flip the square over again. Glue the last two corners together.

Now you’ve made one petal! Traditional snowflakes have six; so make a few more…

When you have three petals, join them together at the center. (It looks best if you line them up so all the largest sides are facing the same direction, like the photo above.) Tape two petals together, then add a third.

 
See how all the biggest cut-out layers wrap to the right? Now tape the other three petals together so you have two halves.

 
Now you can tape the two halves together—try to overlap the centers as much as you can. (Try to get all the petals going around the snowflake facing the same direction; in the picture above one of the two halves should be flipped top to bottom.)

 
That’s the basics! The next bit is for structural integrity: joining the petals together so it will hang nicely. Grab just under where the glued corners of the petal edges meet, where the two petals are touching naturally.

Hold the two edges of the paper together, and twist it to the side so you can wrap tape around the underside where it won’t show from the front.

 
Go round the snowflake to tape the six petal edges together from the front like this, then flip it over and do the same from the back. And ta-da!

 
And there you have it! You can experiment; the snowflake in the photo at the very top of this post actually has nine petals, or you could make half-size ones to put on your tree. The girls on the bus decorated some with gold glitter. Let me know how yours turn out!

P.S.—If you do 9 petals, there’s a quick and dirty way to join the petals instead of taping all the edges round front and back. See the “x” the outermost layer of each petal makes where you glued the corners together? You can just put some glue on the outside of those “x”s where the two of them from each petal meet. It just tends to pull out of alignment more when you do that with six petals.

As you may have noticed (or maybe not?), we were absent on the blog last week.  We’ve been busy working on some projects, and taking a lot of photos of a couple big events last week.

You may have seen on the news last Wednesday that London and several other cities around the UK faced large strikes in the public sector, the biggest in 30 years.  As the UK is facing spending cuts and austerity measures to save money, public sector workers – teachers, hospital staff, construction workers, firefighters, and more – spoke out against big cuts to their pension plans by skipping work, closing schools, and taking it to the streets.

Rallying on the steps of the Royal London Hospital.

Striking public sector workers.

Despite over a million people protesting across the country, services still ran fairly smoothly: public transportation had few problems, emergency services stayed in operation, and the airports reported no problems.  The biggest disruption was that well over half of the schools closed for the day, because they had no teachers.

Tower Hamlets saw its fair share of strike activity, with numerous pickets (though some quite small) outside schools and public buildings, and a large rally and march at the Royal London Hospital.

Marching down Whitechapel Street, to another rally at Liverpool.

Wednesday evening, Liz and I attended TELCO’s 15th Anniversary Assembly at a nearby theatre.  TELCO, The East London Communities Organization, is a very significant community organizing group that connects together many churches, mosques, charities, businesses, and politicians.  I spent my evening photographing the event, while Liz was live tweeting it all.

A big turnout for the assembly. The crowd was divided into sections according to their bourough, so local support was evident.

At the assembly, TELCO celebrated their history, growth, and success over the past fifteen years, and highlighted everything they have been working on over this past year, and will be focusing on next year.

TELCO has been working hard on a Living Wage campaign, in an effort to get London to set a higher minimum wage to reflect its high cost of living.  A huge success has been that the Olympic planners have agreed to this, so everyone who works at the Olympics will be paid a fare wage.  This is especially exciting for the East End, because TELCO has been working hard to help the Olympics to hire local residents, offering job fairs and training to prepare locals for the work.

Confetti, party poppers, and baloons as TELCO celebrates its 15th anniversary.

Lord Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London Organizing Comittee for the Olympic Games, talking about the Living Wage Olympics agreement.

It’s rare that I post more “touristy” art photos, but we were in the area. So, say hello to Big Ben.

In a departure from ministry-related news, we now bring you a slice of Liz-and-Peter-Life-in-London: Lunch!

Now that I don’t work in an office nine-to-five, we’re experimenting more with food and healthier eating. And I’ve recently found a new favorite thing:

Fresh-baked Pita Chips!

They win because they are ridiculously easy to make and ridiculously tasty hot out of the oven, i.e., even I can’t screw these up, i.e., you should try it.

1. Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C/Gas Mark 6.
2. Slice your pita into strips/triangles/ABC letters/whatever shapes you want.
3. Lay out on a cookie sheet and brush each piece with olive oil.
4. Salt and pepper generously. (The pepper is key). Add herbs if you want to experiment!
5. Put in the oven for 5-7 minutes. Remove when crispy (watch so they’re not burnt.)
6. Devour with hummus!

Yes, the picture is from my lunch today. (Caramelized onion hummus!)

It’s the simple things in life, innit?

Recipe began here.

This week was our church’s annual week of prayer and fasting, and most of the prayer meetings were at the church office building. It’s about a half hour walk from our house, and I was so inspired by the fall colors that I brought a camera one day for the walk home. The churchyard at Saint Anne’s, Limehouse, was especially gorgeous, full old graves and bright leaves.

Every year with InnerCHANGE, we have to sit down and go through our budget—looking at how much we’ve spent, how much we expect to spend, and how much we’ve raised to cover whatever gets spent.

As neither Liz or I are particularly fond of numbers or money, this isn’t exactly our favorite task.  But nonetheless, it must get done.

It many ways, however, budgeting actually serves as a spiritual discipline (emphasis on discipline).  Of course, there’s the good practice of wisely handling the money that has been entrusted to us. On a basic level, working on our budget is an exercise in choosing to live simply—how much do we really need to live on, anyway?  (Granted, in London, that ends up being more than we would prefer.) But it can go even deeper than that.

For us, it’s a practice in patience, grace, and humility.  As neither of us enjoy dealing with this task, it’s easy for both Liz and me to get cranky and frustrated with the process, which we then often take out on each other.  Usually unintentionally, of course, but talking about money quickly reminds us that we aren’t perfect (in case we had ever forgotten…)

At the same time, working on the budget can also be a great source of joy, because as we do it we get to look at the list of amazing people who are supporting the ministry that we do.  As we go through each name on our list of supporters, we have the chance to celebrate and appreciate just how many cool people we have journeying with us.  And believe me, we have a very cool team of supporters. Thank you, friends. You know who you are.

And, of course, it’s a huge exercise in faith.  We joined InnerCHANGE trusting that God would carry us, we came to London before we had fully met our budget in response to the ways that God had provided for us, and we continue in the faith that God will keep taking care of our needs.  Faith is a pretty scary thing when you realize you’re short a decent chunk of change for the coming year… but it wouldn’t really be faith if everything was already safe and secure, would it?

On that note, we’re still in need of ongoing monthly supporters who want to be part of the work we’re doing here in Tower Hamlets.  If you’re interested, you can do it easily here online.  Or send us a message if you want to talk further!

Thanks again to everyone who is supporting us financially and in prayer—none of this would be happening with you!

As photographers, it’s easy to get set in a habitual way of taking photos.  So it’s always really cool to work on a project where we get to see the vision of others.  It’s especially cool if the project is done by kids.

For the past month, Peter and I have been assisting with just this sort of photography exhibit. Energize4Girlz, a charity I volunteer with, lent cameras to girls in our neighbourhood for one week to document their “life in pictures.” Then, over the October half-term holiday, the girls chose their best photos to be framed, organised collages of their other photos around common themes, and helped us hang the exhibit in a local cafe.

Last week we had a gallery opening for their families and the community to come and see.  It was wonderful seeing how proud the girls were to show people around, talk about the photo they took, and get excited whenever someone decided to buy a print.

If you happen to be passing through London during November, you should visit Departure Cafe and take a look around!

Here are a few of the girls’ photos that got enlarged and framed. We asked them each to pick a title and write a few words about their photo:

Bam! Shades, by T., age 13: “This photo hits you in the face!”

Magical World Ahead, by J., age 10: “I see this every day, but when you take a
picture it’s completely transformed!”

Colours of Peace, by sisters T., age 10, and S., age 8: “We saw the first rainbow and took a picture
from our back garden.”

Fireworks on our estate, celebrating Bonfire Night.

This past weekend has been full of celebrations!

Saturday was Guy Fawkes Night, also called Bonfire Night.  This British holiday traditionally celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and King James I in 1605.  I’m not sure how many people actually know the history of it; mostly it’s a day to set off fireworks and light bonfires.

We didn’t make it to any of the official fireworks displays, but we could see them going up all over the city. Still, there were enough fireworks on our estate that we didn’t really need to travel to see a show.

A Guy Fawkes Mask

For those who pay attention to the news, it’s also worth noting how Guy Fawkes, especially the use of the “Guy Fawkes Mask” (popularized by the movie V for Vendetta), has become a global symbol for popular protests against the government and establishment. It has become prevalent at Occupy Wall Street and other Occupy movements.

On Sunday, our community celebrated Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to God, and God’s intervention by providing a sheep to sacrifice instead.  It also comes at the end of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all able Muslims are expected to make at some point during their life.

Muslims performing the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Eid al-Adha is an interesting holiday.  On one hand, many of our Muslim neighbors consider it the “lesser” of the two Eid festivals, partly because it does not have the month-long build up of fasting and prayer that Eid ul-Fitr has with Ramadan.  A lot of people seemed to be pretty low key about the day.

But at the same time, most families still spend the day before cooking and preparing, children get new outfits and dress up in all their finery, and the three days are spent visiting friends and family, hosting visitors, and eating.  Some local schools, predominantly Bangladeshi, didn’t have classes so their students could celebrate.

Liz and I were invited to four families’ homes for Eid, which was a wonderful time to celebrate an event that is in both of our holy books, as well as just having great conversation with our neighbors.  And, of course, we were fed our fill of delicious food at each home.

It was a good weekend.

Yesterday, we viewed a nearby flat for sale.

As many of you know, we’ve been looking around for a big enough flat to house both us and another couple and their son.  This is already a challenge due to far too little housing, poor quality flats that are greatly over-priced, and having a small radius in which we’re searching.

But it seems there is another barrier—the real estate agents themselves.

When we began our search months ago, we heard that estate agents were quite…unhelpful in the process.  They were closely compared to the stereotypical used car salesman that you might find in the States.

But when I found an affordable 3-bedroom flat in Shadwell Gardens, one of our top preferred locations, I couldn’t help but be excited!  Never mind that we soon found out that it was offered by the same company that was absolutely worthless the last time our future roommates tried to buy a place.  Maybe, just maybe, their past situation was a freak occurrence?

My first phone call to agent:

“Hi, is that 3 bedroom in Shadwell Gardens still available?”  “Why yes, it is, let’s set up a viewing!”

My second conversation with them, when they called me four hours later:

“Hi, Mr. Anderson?  Sorry, we actually sold that unit a month ago.  But we have another one across the street!”

My third conversation with them, a mere 30 minutes before we were supposed to view the flat across the street:

“Hi, Mr. Anderson?  We’re actually pretty short-staffed in the office today, so I can’t come show you the unit.  But if you knock on the door, the family will be glad to show you around!  They know you’re coming.”

Our viewing was at 11am.  They kindly called exactly at 11:02.

“Hi, Mr. Anderson, I just wanted to see how the viewing went!”

Seriously?  We haven’t even gone in yet…

And that’s the last follow up we heard from them.

We’re not going to be buying this flat, by the way.