serving dinner in south decatur on new year’s eve didn’t happen as i pondered resolutions or radical exertions that we were fighting the system. i didn’t want to be hasseled by the owners of the parking lot and i really didn’t want to answer too many questions about why i was serving chili off of an oldsmobile.

despite not maintaining a very new years-y, forward thinking posture during our service, there was a new resolve after we packed up everything and left. “the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones”, is one definition of resolution and that is what had greater meaning on the first day of a fresh year.

this mission is simple. serve and love those who receive that service. complexity is added by a world that wants poverty to seem normal, deserved. and the christian voices made public, nourish the confusion by creating moral distractions. jesus was a homeless man from a forgettable town who died as the result of a death penalty that the state, obsessed with war and money, just couldn’t get enough of. if ever there were a scenario that seemed relevant, it is this one. christ’s life, documented and preached about by millions, is lived out every day in this very city by people we can no longer face.

we are told that “they are simply not trying hard enough and to allow them what they need to thrive would be too costly and complex.” but with great certitude, i feel it’s the opposite: “how they arrived at this fearful juncture may indeed be complex but serving them is simple.” it is far past time, for each of us to stop making this work into a cumbersome obligation and start looking forward to the simple service we have before us. i’m resolved to simplicity as this year breaks. here’s hoping i’ll be in good company.