Concentrate on the commonality of faiths, which is love

There is a new cafe in town that few of us probably will ever frequent. Not that the coffee tastes like oil or that the biscotti looks unmistakably like donuts. The nachos actually taste pretty good and after a game of pool, you can listen to music, watch a video or just hang out with your friends.

But you know it's just not for "us." You see, and we often forget this, we are adults - the definition being any male or female more concerned with pattern baldness or crow's feet than with acne - and this particular cafe is for them, for the teenagers, the younger generation, not us.

As a youth hangout, it follows on the heels of a long line of noble youth-directed efforts that groups and individuals have put forth in Sandpoint. For a couple of years, LEAP set up and ran The Hub, open to youth of all ages, but ran afoul of high costs and the draining disease of volunteerism. After that, a couple set up a center called The Rock to help give teens a place to gather on off hours. Again, the project just became too much.

This latest incarnation, Live Wire Cafe, is the heart-child of Pastor Jeff Bradley of Calvary Chapel. Last April, after years of prayer and dreams, and inspired by the youth summit at the Panida, he and his congregation, rather than carpet the church, put together the resources to open the doors.

With a pool table, wide-screen TV/VCR/satellite system, latte machine, book and video store, reading room and a "killer" sound system, it is filled with the toys and feel of youth. Staffed by adult volunteers, the place stays open as late as possible during the week and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Serving 25 to 40 young people per day, by anyone's standards, it's a success.

Of course this latest effort is a Christian one. It's not a government program or a nonsectarian, unaligned, wholly neutral nonprofit. There is a Christian book store and the pastor and his congregation clearly see this work as part of their ministry. And for this particular Buddhist, a practitioner of a religious tradition 12,000 miles and in many other ways light years distant from liturgical Christianity, I say, thank God!

I am thankful that there still are people willing to place their hearts on the line in service of spirit and the greater community of human souls.

We in America get horribly caught up in puritanical worry about religious belief and conviction, so much so that it's no longer a politically correct topic for conversation. Amidst our childish angst about who practices what faith, we have, like tots in a sandbox, squabbled over doctrinal nuances until the common message is lost. From the right and left, people sling rites and rituals at one another, this version vs. that version, all of it just obstacles piling up in the doorway to love.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell often said that in this age of technological barbarism, where human feeling is so mediated by cell phones, e-mail and plastic personalities, people are not simply searching for a meaning of life but for an experience of it.

The Christian community of Sandpoint, despite the sea of biblical word play it often appears adrift within, has been a catalyst for much of this meaningful experience. When the Christian Connection was vital and flourishing it helped energize the formation of the Homeless Task Force, the Human Rights Task Force and the Blue Haven Shelter. Before that it helped distribute Federal Emergency Management Administration money to needy families and foreshadowed the food bank and the Area Action Agency's work. And the work continues: On Christmas, the Homeless Task Force will serve a meal to the poor at the city's Community Hall.

As a Buddhist, I am clearly standing outside the Christian community. I say with no reservations, "Christians, do more! Get out there with your spirit, your love and your inspiration and lift up this town." And ... do it without one word of discussion about doctrine!

May the First Christians work hand in hand with the Catholics; may First Lutheran and Redeemer Lutheran take bread together; may the Presbyterians and the Calvary Chapel build a youth center and shout hallelujah!"

And then, who knows? This Buddhist might even convert! Merry Christmas.

Copyright 2000 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.