You Learned to Do "Nothing"?

Local's playing Chess and Chinese Chess at Carnegie Hall

Some of you don't know this about me, but I love playing chess.  My dad taught me when I was younger and I fell in love with it.  I was even a part of the chess team for 4 years during high school.

Chess has been a bit of a lost hobby of mine.  I miss it, but as I have done VUP, this passion for chess started to come out again.  I remember going to Carnegie Hall, getting a $1 membership and borrowing a chess board.  I would set up the chess board and sit an wait at one of these tables for a challenger.  After about 5 minutes, someone came and started playing.  After we play a game (which I often lost at), we set up again and play another round.  Before we knew it, 2 hours have passed by.  I don't necessarily know this person's name, but what I do know is that we shared a bond and connection over a common interest.  I created space out of my "busy" schedule to simply be available to play a game of chess with someone.  Did it lead anywhere?  Maybe not, but in a world where we are forced to be "productive" with every part of our time, it's times like these that are often missed and are often needed the most.

This idea of doing "nothing" in the DTES is known as Stooping.  Stooping is more from the word stoop which could either mean bow down (stoop to someone else's level) or the front porch of a house.  We are using it for the later.  The stoop is where people hang out to just be available to meet and talk with people who come by.  So basically, it's less to do with doing "nothing" and more to do with being present in the places where you are.  This is something that we did in excess during VUP this year.

My Stooping ground was at Carnegie Hall with all the chess guys.  I would walk in at around 12:00 and there I would see about 4 of the same guys playing chess together each day.  What I did was grab an open seat and simply just watch multiple games of chess (which some of these guys were incredible at), make the occasional comment, and laugh at the banter that was going on back and fourth.  After a week, I became a familiar face and they started asking me questions and having some interesting conversations from those questions.

I'll say now, even if they didn't ask me a question, I would still do it.  The reason being is because I just enjoy playing/watching chess and I also believe Jesus calls us to simply be present in people's lives.  Being present doesn't mean you need to have everything planned or organised, sometimes being present just means that you need to be around for a longer period of time.

As we think about what we are doing on campus with regards to stooping.  I feel that the community house has now been confirmed in our students hearts.  This idea of stooping on campus not only means to be "like furniture" up there but some are responding to a deeper call to live up on SFU campus.  This very act and decision flies in the face of the commuter mentality and I can only imagine what this faithfulness is going to translate to be this upcoming year.