by Neta Jackson
I took off the chain and unlocked the two bolts. The lean black woman walked in clutching two mugs, a box of herbal tea bags, and a plastic Honey Bear. “Knowin’ you, you got the hot water goin’ already. But you need somebody to listen to what’s goin’ on inside that mop-head o’ yours, or you gonna be up all night stewin’ ’bout stuff. Now go sit on the sun porch. Light a candle or somethin’.” Precious marched out of sight down my long hallway and five minutes later was back carrying two mugs of steaming tea into the sun porch where I sat curled up on the window seat, hugging a throw pillow. Candles flickered on the sill in their little glass jars.
She handed me a mug. “Okay, spill it. Your noggin, I mean. Not the tea.”
I sighed and took a sip of the hot sweet tea. Peppermint. Mmm. “Well, you heard that whole thing about Philip. They discharged him from the hospital, but he’s in no shape to go back to work.” I heaved a big sigh and sipped my tea thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Precious. It was easier relating to him when he was stuck in the hospital, trying to recover from that beating. But now—”
I suddenly turned to her. “Okay, you want to know the truth? I resent having to worry about Philip right now. I mean, look at us! You and me and Tanya, here we are, out of the shelter and living in real apartments! And Josh and Edesa and little Gracie have a real apartment now too—not that two-room shoebox they were crunched into. God did it! The House of Hope is a reality! We should celebrate! But instead”—I threw the pillow across the room—“I’ve been going back and forth to the hospital all week, with no time to plan anything!”
“Hey, hey. Slow down, girl. Life happens. But we can still do something. How about next weekend? How you wanna celebrate? A house blessing?”
“A house blessing? That’s a great idea!” A lot better than just having a potluck. “Except . . .” I stared into my mug, my mind tumbling. It’d been a big deal getting Manna House and the City of Chicago to work out our three-way partnership for second-stage housing for homeless single moms, once my offer on the building had been accepted. Manna House would provide social services to the single moms who lived here, the city would provide rent subsidies from the Low Income Housing Trust Fund, and our first two moms had moved in. So, yeah, we should celebrate, but . . .
“Except what?” Precious prodded.
I eyed my friend sideways. “After the house blessing, then what? To be honest, we don’t—okay, I don’t—really know what I’m doing!”
Precious snorted and rolled her eyes. “Now she tells us.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Yeah, well, ‘Leap before you look.’ That’s been my motto my whole life. But I’m trying to change, really I am. I don’t want another whole week to go by before we figure out some of the nitty gritties, like, well, you know—”
“You mean, like, who do we call, Josh or you, when somebody drops a box of tampons in the toilet? Or who’s supposed to wash all those cute little square windows in the foyer door? What if Tanya and I get in a big fight and she punches me in the nose? What if I don’t wanna sort out recycle stuff from my trash and I just throw all of it in the dumpster? Can we have men stay overnight? What if—”
I gaped at her. “Men? Men? Overnight?!”
“Okay, I’m kidding. Actually, I’m not. You’ve got”—she counted on her fingers—“four apartments, not counting the ones you and the Baby Baxters are livin’ in. By the time you put two moms in each one, that’ll be eight single women when you’ve got a full house. An’ you think men sleepin’ over ain’t gonna be an issue?”
I gulped. “Yikes. I never thought of that.” Then I giggled. “The Baby Baxters? That’s what you call Josh and Edesa?”
Precious simpered at me. “Look. I’m messin’ with ya. I’m just agreein’ that there’s a lot of things to talk about. So the first thing ya gotta do is call a house meeting and decide how often we gonna meet—like we did at the shelter—to talk over problems and expectations and stuff like that.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about! That’s the kind of stuff I need to be thinking about, not . . . not worrying about whether my ‘ex’ is going to get beat up again by some loan shark and his henchmen. I mean, he’s the one who kept going to the casino when he was drowning in debt. What can I do about that?”
Precious looked at me for a long moment, then slowly shook her head. “Ain’t got no idea. All I know is, those boys of yours likely to be mighty worried if they knew their dad was still in danger. So if I was you, I’d put Philip back on the radar. You let me work on settin’ up our first house meeting.”
The apartment was deliciously quiet the next morning with the boys still at the Lock-In. Supposedly the youth were planning something special for the Sunday service that morning, then the parents would take their sleep-deprived kids home to recover for the rest of the day.
I curled up on the window seat with a mug of coffee and my Bible, grateful to see some blue sky peeking through the clouds. This was my first fall in Chicago and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d loved fall in Virginia, the gently rolling hills outside Petersburg blanketed with brilliant yellows, reds, and oranges, like a multicolored afghan. Would the trees turn color here? Or did the weather jump from muggy summer to deep-freeze winter?
I opened my Bible to the chapter I’d been reading in the gospel of Luke, but I had a hard time concentrating. Precious’s comment last night about putting Philip “back on my radar” for the boys’ sake niggled at me. Is that what I’m supposed to do, God? I don’t know how to help him right now! Even if I did, how does that fit with starting up the House of Hope? I mean, this whole idea was impossible, but You kept opening up doors, gave us favor with the city, favor with the Manna House board—even provided the money from my mom’s life insurance so I could make the down payment on this building! But now that we’ve started, I want to do this right. Not be distracted by Philip’s problems.
A chorus of birds in the trees outside the bay windows of the little sunroom interrupted my thought-prayer. I opened one of the windows a couple of inches so I could hear the singing—one of the gifts of living in this apartment. Something I’d missed terribly the few months I’d lived in the penthouse—thirty-two stories up, way above the treetops—and the windows didn’t open either.
Maybe I should get a bird feeder and a bird book.
I closed the window. Talk about distractions. I was supposed to be spending time “reading the Word” and “listening to God”—a commitment I’d made when I’d decided to renew my faith in front of the church a few weeks ago. Trouble was, there were times I didn’t particularly want to know God’s thoughts about something. Not if what He wanted to say might conflict with what I wanted to hear.
Some Christian I was.
Sighing, I closed my Bible and pulled one of my mom’s old afghans around me. It wasn’t just Philip’s safety that was distracting me. It was what he’d said in the hospital the morning after he’d been attacked. I could still hear the words, hear the pain in his voice.
“Gabby, I’ve messed everything up so bad. I don’t know what to do! You . . . you were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I . . . I drove you away. Please . . . please, don’t leave me. You have every right to . . . to walk out of here, but . . . can you forgive me? I’m begging you! Please . . .”
I shuddered. Lee Boyer—my lawyer friend, who’d started to become “something more”—had shown up at the hospital right then. Told me what Philip was saying was a load of crap. Practically made me choose then and there. Either stand by Philip—in a crisis of his own making, Lee reminded me—or come away with him. Choose?! How could I choose! Lee had become a real friend, the kind of guy I should have married—down to earth, casual, fun, kind. Except he wasn’t interested in God or church or faith. And all that “religious stuff,” as he called it, had once again become very important to me.
Something deep down—God?—wouldn’t let me walk away from my husband right then, even though months earlier Philip had thrown me
out of the penthouse, left me homeless and penniless, and taken our sons back to Virginia to stay with their grandparents without telling me. Even though it hurt like hell to see Lee walk away that day in the hospital. But I’d told Philip I couldn’t answer his question right then either.
I needed time.
That was a week ago. A week ago today. And he hadn’t brought it up again.
Oh God, what am I supposed to do?
Arrgh. I needed more coffee. Knowing I was procrastinating, I threw off the afghan and took my empty coffee mug back to the kitchen for a refill. As I grabbed the coffee pot, I glanced up at the card I’d taped to the cupboard with the scripture Jodi Baxter had given me back when she first agreed to be my prayer partner. I’d been obsessing about whether my House of Hope idea would ever get off the ground. There it was, the verse from the book of Proverbs that had sustained and guided me through the whole House of Hope process.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”
In all my ways.
Including the next steps for the House of Hope? Hadn’t God been faithful so far? Couldn’t I still trust Him?
In all my ways.
Including my relationship with Philip? Hadn’t God picked me up, dried my tears, given me hope when it looked as if my entire life had fallen apart? Could I still trust God about Philip?
Acknowledge Him, and He will direct my paths . . .
Forgetting my coffee, I sank down into a chair at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. “Jesus, I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “Sorry that I take my eyes off You so easily. I want to trust You—I do trust You! Just . . . show me the way to go. Show me the next steps for the House of Hope. Show me if I should take Philip’s plea to forgive him seriously. Because, okay, I admit it, I’m scared. What would it mean to forgive him? I don’t know! And . . . I’m scared to find out. And show me—”
Loud knocking at my front door jerked my head up just as I was going to pray about whether I should encourage Philip to get out of the penthouse or not, and my eyes caught the hands on the wall clock.
Ten minutes to nine!
Worship at SouledOut started at nine thirty. And Precious said she wanted to go with me since Josh had recruited Sabrina and some of her friends for the Lock-In. But I hadn’t showered or gotten dressed or anything!
chapter 5
Precious and I were a few minutes late arriving at SouledOut Community Church, but I needn’t have worried. Chairs were still being set out, replacing the sleeping bags that had been rolled up and stacked around the edges of the large room that functioned as the sanctuary. I didn’t see many of the teenagers, but I heard music coming from the back rooms and a rhythmic thumping. Working on their “special presentation,” no doubt.
When the service was finally ready to start—only fifteen minutes late—Avis Douglass announced the call to worship from Psalm 73. The fifty-something African American woman was my favorite worship leader at SouledOut, though I wished I knew her better. I’d first met her at the shelter—she was the wife of Peter Douglass, the Manna House board chair—and at first I was intimidated by her serene presence. Then I found out she was also the no-nonsense principal at Bethune Elementary where Jodi Baxter taught third grade and she led Jodi’s Yada Yada Prayer Group, which I’d visited a few times. Avis had prayed a few passionate prayers on my behalf in the group, which had touched me deeply. Still, I had yet to have a personal conversation with her.
“ ‘. . . is what the wicked are like,’ ” Avis was reading, “ ‘always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure . . .’ ”
I quickly flipped pages in my Bible to find Psalm 73. Kind of a strange call to worship.
“‘When I tried to understand all this,’” she read, “‘it was oppressive to me’”—here Avis paused dramatically, lifting her chin—“‘until I entered the sanctuary of God.’”
“Oh yes!” someone shouted from the congregation. “That’s right” . . . “Thank You, Jesus!”
Avis continued, “ ‘Then I understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.’ ”
“That’s right, that’s right!” . . . “Lord, have mercy!” The comments and affirmations from the congregation almost drowned out Avis’s voice as she continued to read the doom and judgment that was going to happen to the wicked.
But then she paused, waiting for the room to quiet before she read the last few verses. “ ‘Whom have I in heaven but you, Lord? Earth has nothing I desire beside you! My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!’ ”
“Hallelujah!” . . . “Praise the Lord!” . . . “Oh, thank You, Jesus!”
Two members of the praise band with violin and keyboard played a short introduction and then the praise team began to sing a hymn lifted straight from that psalm: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my life . . .”
Wow, I thought, when we finally sat down. That psalm felt as if it had lifted thoughts and feelings out of my own experience the past few months—except the psalmist had written them centuries ago. Guess King David knew what it was like to be down-and-out, too, with nowhere to go but to God.
Pastor Joe Cobbs bounced up onto the low platform, grinning from ear to ear. He was a short, sturdy black man—and seemed even shorter when he stood next to his copastor, Hubert Clark, an older white man with whom he shared the pulpit since their churches merged a few years ago. Today I noticed that Pastor Clark seemed paler than usual and stayed seated even when the rest of the congregation stood, though he seemed fully engaged, smiling and nodding.
“Praise God, church!” Pastor Cobbs said. “Our service will be a little different today, as you’ve probably already guessed by the special decorations around the room.” People laughed as he swung an arm to indicate the piles of sleeping bags and duffels piled against the walls. “Praise God, this room was full of young men and women last night—our own teenagers and youth we invited from the neighborhoods here in Rogers Park—having a Lock-In. And if your kids were here, you know they weren’t hanging out on some street corner last night, gangbangin’ or doin’ drugs, praise God.”
Laughter swept the room and some people clapped. Which felt odd to me, since my boys wouldn’t be out “gangbanging” or “doing drugs,” whether they were at the Lock-In or not. Probably talking about the non-church kids they’d invited.
“Well, you know they made a lot of noise, ate a lot of pizza, played some crazy games, and listened to music that would bust our ears.” Pastor Cobbs stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it. “Mine anyway.” Which got another laugh. “But they also got into the Word—and I believe they have something to share with us this morning. Brothers and sisters, the SouledOut Steppers!”
Heads turned and necks craned as the double doors at the far end of the room opened and two lines of teenagers walked in, both boys and girls, and even a couple of the youth leaders—Josh Baxter and another guy whose name I didn’t know—all wearing black T-shirts. As the congregation murmured and threw out smiles to their kids, the teenagers lined themselves up at the front of the room two deep, some on the six-inch-high wooden platform, the rest on either side. I tried to catch the eye of my sons—P.J. was in the group on the left, Paul on the right—but both of them avoided looking at me.
“Where’s Sabrina?” Precious whispered, scanning the group. “That girl better not be tryin’ no steppin’, not in her condition!”
“There,” I whispered, pointing to where Edesa Baxter stood off to the side holding little Gracie, Sabrina by her side. The pretty girl looked as if she’d been crying. Poor thing. The reality of being a teenage mom-to-be was hitting home.
A good-looking young man I hadn’t seen before—he looked college age, not high school—took the mike. “Thank you, Pastor Cobbs.
Good morning, church. My name is Omari Randall. I’m a junior at Northwestern University, majoring in African American studies. Some of you may have heard about our gospel choir at NU, and we’ve expanded our repertoire a bit.”
“All right now!” The mood in the room was definitely going up.
“I was invited by your pastor to come to the Lock-In, and I gotta say—you folks here at SouledOut have some great youth leaders and a great group of kids. Let’s give it up for these folks!” Omari Randall led all of us in giving the youth and leaders a standing ovation—which was funny in a way, since they hadn’t done anything yet.
But as soon as we all sat down, a CD began to play through the sound system, more of a beat than actual music, and suddenly the kids on the “stage” began to clap in rhythm . . . slapping their chests, their arms, their thighs . . . then clapping their hands under one leg, then another. After a noisy prelude, Omari started to rap into the mike as the kids clapped, stomped, turned, and slapped in rhythm.
Gettin’ down an’ gettin’ dirty (clap, slap, stomp)
Not knowin’ what we missin’ (slap, slap, stomp, stomp)
Smokin’ hash an’ talkin’ trash (clap, slap, stomp)
But it was God we was dissin’ (stomp, stomp, clap-clap-clap) . . .
The grin on my face was replicated on nearly every face in the room. A few people stood up, calling out encouragement as the “Steppers” performed. The teens on the wooden platform in the center were obviously the most experienced, doing more complex rhythms while the two groups on either side kept it simple. I caught enough of Omari’s rap to appreciate his straightforward gospel message. And then with a final stomp! in unison, they were done.
Now the room did give them a standing ovation. I grinned until my face hurt. Never in my life had I imagined P.J. and Paul— two white boys from Virginia—would be doing a Chicago-style “stepping” performance. In church, no less. Giving honor to Jesus.
