Finding Ministry in the Streets

What holds me separate?

My first night sleeping on the streets of Long Beach I felt the separateness deeply. I walked up and down Pine Ave, looking into restaurants and bars where people with money sat at tables sparkling with glasses and plates full of food, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Somehow, the fact that I chose to allow the window to come between us for that week didn’t reduce my loneliness. I had hung out at a park outside the library that afternoon, hoping to make a friend, but no conversation got much beyond “Hello,” and certainly didn’t get to an invitation to camp out on the streets with someone, as I had hoped. So I walked alone between the worlds of the street, where I came to be, and the tourist, which is how I came to be there. That night I made my bed out of a sheet of cardboard hidden in a bush beside a bank and lay there alone thinking of all those I loved until I fell asleep.

I was there for the Unitarian Universalist Association’s annual General Assembly, getting to know the streets in preparation to lead a Street Retreat for conference participants, and fulfilling a vow I made four years earlier to sleep on the street if I ever returned to the Assembly. In the four years since making that vow  to myself, I had encountered the Faithful Fools, and made a practice of Street Retreats in San Francisco.

This practice of spending time in reflection on the streets for a day or a week revealed to me, again and again, aspects of the reality of poverty in the midst of wealth and wealth in the midst of poverty. I was learning to engage what I encountered on the street, in the soup lines, in others, and myself as a mirror. As I was learning to see myself in that mirror, I found the distance between my recognizing a need and acting to meet it shortening. Of course I would do what I could to make this practice available to my fellow UUs gathering from around the country. Even if it meant sleeping alone on the streets of a strange city?

I woke early in the morning, returned my cardboard to the dumpster where I had found it, and waited outside a church to get breakfast. The guy next to me in line struck up a conversation. “Where are you from?” he asked. His name was Perry. We ate together, came back a couple hours later to get a bag of groceries, and hung out at the library park. He invited me to join him that night in the shelter he stayed in, and paid my fare for the 45 minute streetcar ride into Watts – there were no homeless shelters in Long Beach at that time. He introduced me to his friends, and showed me the ropes at the shelter. Perry and I swept the floor together while the other men hung out smoking and talking in the yard. That night, the guy in the bunk next to mine told me he was stuck on the street for three more days, waiting to collect on a $50,000 legal settlement, and had three dollars to get him through till then. I said I thought it would be tough to have to wait like that. He said “It may rain pennies tomorrow.” I slept better that night.

What keeps me separate?

I was worried about telling Perry what I was doing on the streets of Long Beach, so I waited until right before I had to go to the convention center to register. He said he appreciated what I was trying to do, but I still felt caught in between worlds again – especially when a police car drove up while I was sitting on the steps talking to other friends there for the convention and asked me to leave. The officer quickly decided it was okay for me to be there, after I showed him my conventioneer’s badge.

I spent each night out on the streets, eating free meals served in local churches or parks, and spent my days in the convention center, sharing my experiences of life on the streets of Long Beach in the Assembly’s workshops, booths, and halls. My schedule at the convention became dictated by soup kitchen hours, and my time on the streets was defined by an urgency to get back to for a workshop or presentation. I never ran into Perry again that week.

What still connects me?

I felt grounded by the support of the community of Unitarian Universalists I met with each day, and began to feel like I was in the streets not just for myself, but as an extension of our collective desire to participate in needed societal change. I felt like an embodiment of the connection between what happened in the  world outside the convention center and the conversations and decision-making that went on inside.

At the end of the week, we held the one-day Street Retreat. A small group of Fools and other convention-goers took off their badges crossed the boundaries of the convention center maps to discover the humanity they hold in common with the residents of Long Beach’s streets. Our walking spelled out the words of the Fools’ mantra: “What holds us separate? What keeps us separated? As we walk the streets, what still connects us?” Together, we made the walls of the convention center, and of our own hearts, more permeable. I returned home changed by the week’s experiences.

We enroll in street level learning when we invite chance to dictate the curriculum, step out of the identities of student and teacher, and study the textbooks of ourselves and each other. When I go into the streets, I no longer can pretend to control what will happen, or who I will meet. I do not get to choose who I will learn from, or who will learn from encountering me. If we embrace the experience available to us, we can be changed by our learning. By sharing our experiences, we expand our circle of learning.

What would you learn in a day, a week, or a regular practice of walking the streets in reflection?

Weaving the Purple Web

Originally written for the Faithful Fools' monthly e-newsletter.

Kay Jorgensen beginning a Street Retreat

“My name is Alex, and walking the streets is my spiritual practice.” “My name is Amber. I’ve helped in soup kitchens with my school, and I want to see what it’s like to eat in one.” “My name is Hideki. I want to see how life on the streets is different in your country.” “My name is Maria. I’m kinda nervous, but I trust my teacher when he says this will be a good experience.” “I’m Hannah. Our group came to San Francisco to volunteer. I’m looking forward to reflecting on what we’ve been doing.”

We start each Street Retreat by introducing ourselves, and how we came to be on Retreat that day. As each of us presents ourselves, we toss a purple ball of yarn across the circle to the next participant. A beautiful web is woven between participants’ hands, as we build tangible connections with each other.

People of all sorts, from all over the world have joined the web in our fifteen years of retreating into the streets. In just this past year, we have walked the streets with: eighth-graders from a girls’ school in Oakland, Unitarian Universalist teens coming of age in the Pacific Central District, a UCC youth group from Boston, high-schoolers from a continuation school in Hayward, college students from St. John’s/ St. Ben’s in Minnesota, Pacific U in Oregon, U.C. Merced, University of San Francisco, and Tokyo, Japan, as well as the myriad people who join us on the third Saturday monthly.

This past month, we also hosted a Street Retreat in Portland, in collaboration with the Heart of Wisdom Zen Community, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland, and the Sisters of the Road Cafe. Five of us retreated that day - some were experiencing streets in their city in a new way, others of us experienced the difference between a day on Portland’s streets and our own here in San Francisco. I greatly appreciate getting to witness, first hand, innovative programs like the Sisters of the Road, where food is served cafe-style to guests who pay as little as $1.50 or provide volunteer service for their meal, or Right To Dream Too, a houseless community who work together to provide a dry resting place for up to 90 people on a formerly empty lot downtown. Extending the web into other communities through the Hometown Street Retreat program allows us to share ideas and experience and continue learning from each other. We have hosted Retreats in Sacramento, Bakersfield, Long Beach, Richmond, CA, Portland, Detroit, Fort Worth, St. Louis, Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Managua.

A Street Retreat in Managua, Nicaragua

The purple web, and the connection it represents, is reassuring as we prepare to walk out into the unknown of a day on the streets. By now, it connects us to over 4,000 people who have made Street Retreats with the Faithful Fools; it also connects us to those who will Retreat in the future - possibly thousands of more people! As I reflect on our society’s major failings, such as homelessness, addiction, poverty, war, discrimination, violence, and climate change, I am buoyed by the recognition of these thousands of allies who have joined us in reflection on the streets.

This purple web is a great foundation for us to continue to build our community upon.

Salvation

Last week, while we were introducing ourselves at the beginning of Bible study, we were asked to talk about our experience with being saved. Before I got my turn, I heard a commotion downstairs in the lobby. I went down to see what was happening. One of our guests was upset because someone had closed the door and locked it while he was smoking a cigarette, denying him access to his things. I tried to talk to him about different reasons that might have happened, hoping to explain that it was not necessarily someone acting against him. He was pretty sure they were, or that at least they were testing him.

As we were discussing the whats and whys of the incident, someone approached the glass double-doors, knocked and, almost as if a part of the same act of my opening the door to her, reached their arm in and handed me a blueberry pie, saying "this is for you guys."

Like that, our conversation in the lobby shifted to how we would share this pie, who would get the plates and forks, and how we would enjoy it together. As Kay Jorgensen said, years ago, "one simple act of compassion can end a war or feed a stranger."

We were saved, and I still had time left to tell the story at bible study!

Welcoming Presence

Originally written for the Just Lutheran Blog.

Welcome’s mission statement reads:

“Welcome seeks to provide a faithful response to poverty and to improve the quality of life for individuals in our community by providing: hospitality; education; food; and referrals for housing, health care and drug and alcohol treatment.”

Living out this mission in the context of the meals Welcome provides on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday evenings requires presence. In his book “Living Presence,” Sufi teacher Kabir Helminski calls presence “the quality of being there.” This means an attention to the food we prepare and serve: Is it healthy? Is it tasty? Would those serving it be pleased to eat it? Will there be enough for all the guests? It means an attention to ourselves, to continue our process of learning together: What do I notice about the volunteers? The guests? Which of my assumptions turn out to be wrong? How might I have done that better? In an ever-changing landscape of services, the ability to provide referrals requires ongoing attention to what is available, as well as attention to those we are referring: What are the new resources? What resources are gone? How do the referrals turn out? Which providers might be easy for which people to work with?

Hospitality, out of everything we attempt to provide at Welcome, requires the most presence. Real hospitality is presence, and is the core value that underlies all that we do. Our guests can taste the care the cooks put into the food we serve. Guests and volunteers return to our meals again and again – some can be counted on to be there almost every night – because the connections formed are real, and those connections are the reason, beyond the food, that we all are there. When we show up, no matter how we are feeling that day, we open the door to relationship and the mutual transformation it invites.

At a recent meal, a guest asked for a new garbage bag to replace the one he was carrying his things in, which was full of holes. These kinds of things are among what we attempt to provide – we do not have a “garbage bag program” and aren’t prepared to hand out bags to everyone who comes to our meals, but if an individual has a need, we attempt to meet it. A few minutes later, a volunteer came looking for a mop, as someone had lost control and made a huge mess in the bathroom. The guest who had just gotten a garbage bag quickly spoke up: “if you give me the mop and bucket, I’ll clean it.” This was an easy offer to accept. Once the mess was cleaned, our helpful guest said “hey man, you helped me out, so I helped you.” Sometimes it is that simple.

As it turned out, this story was not over yet. Three days later, this same guest came to Welcome again, this time to ask a difficult question: “I know drinking is bad for me, but I don’t want to stop drinking – how can I stop drinking?” My experience is that the transformative power of relationship comes through how we help each other see ourselves differently. By this guest asking me for help handling their addiction, I was invited to see myself as someone who can help another person in their struggle with addiction – and being asked made me feel good. Similarly, I imagine that the act of volunteering to help out with the cleaning might have given our guest a different view of himself – maybe only slightly different, but something changed enough that he chose that week to ask for help with his addiction.

These simple, but sometimes profound, actions and reactions don’t require great skill, knowledge, or training to bring about. You don’t have to be someone special, or at least not someone more special than yourself, to participate in personal transformation. You do have to be present. Fortunately, that is something all of us can do – right?

Accompanying Franklin Street

Originally written for the Just Lutheran Blog.

“Your money would be much better spent supporting the Faithful Fools in their work than hiring a security guard.” I did not expect to hear that sentiment expressed by a police captain. It was a great affirmation, and a reminder that we have allies in unexpected places.

It was 2004, and Kay Jorgensen and I were meeting with representatives of the T.V. station, the Catholic Archdiocese, the Longshoreman’s Union, and the condominiums which share a block of Franklin Street with the Unitarian Universalist Church. One of the condo residents had called a series of meetings to address what they saw as a growing problem of homeless panhandlers on their street. What they saw as a problem, Kay and I had come to know as Bruce, Jay, Johnny, and T.

They spent most nights sleeping on the steps of the church or some section of sidewalk in the vicinity, and Bruce, Jay, and Johnny spent their days begging for change. None of us knew their whole stories: how they ended up on the streets, who their families were, what they were like as children, what experiences or decisions might have led them to this point in their lives, or what their dreams were.

The neighborhood group did end up hiring a security guard for about a year, and Kay and I - along with other Fools - continued to get to know these four men, and help them out here and there - sometimes with a couple of dollars, or a hospital visit, a trip to the welfare office or drug treatment center, or a phone call to their mom.

As time went on, each of them made great changes in their life circumstances. Johnny reconnected with his mom, moved to Texas and, with the help of physical therapy, got out of his wheelchair and started walking again. T found his way to the top of a housing waiting list, and moved indoors. Bruce broke free of his addiction to heroin, was approved for Social Security Disability (including a 9-year retroactive payment), got a brand new apartment, a motorcycle, got married, and adopted a dog from the SPCA before succumbing to a chronic illness and dying in 2009.

Finally, Jay received word this month that he, too, has been approved for Social Security. Over the past eight years, we have gone to countless doctors’ appointments and meetings at the county welfare office, written letters of support, passed on phone messages, helped stay in touch with family, been there to hear good and bad news, gratefully received volunteer energy, and done our best to be faithful friends.

These men’s stories  - or any of ours - aren’t over yet. There will be more meetings, appointments, good and bad news, and friendship, and the effects they’ve had on our lives and others’ will continue, even beyond death. The on-going relationship is why we are here, and it is in moments like these we are invited to remember to celebrate what we have done together.

In each of our interactions with a world that is not quite how we wish it were, we have a choice to distance ourselves from the discomfort, by doing something like hiring a security guard, or to move toward the discomfort and through trying to understand, open the door to healing. In this new year, the story of our friends on Franklin St strengthens my resolve to enter into relationship, rather than to call on my own inner security guard* to help keep me separate.

*No offense to the many caring security personnel I have encountered who use genuine relationship as a tool to do their job.

Harm Reduction

Originally written for the Just Lutheran Blog.

The Faithful Fools’ monthly Street Retreat in October coincided with a big bike and skateboard competition held in the Civic Center Plaza, just outside the Tenderloin. I marveled some at the huge jumps and fancy tricks the competitors were making on the several-ton dirt mounds trucked in for the event, but more at how the spectacle drew flocks of young men on their own bikes and skateboards to the City’s center. The big open walk in front of the library was covered with boys and men rolling, jumping, flipping, and sliding their boards back and forth across the usually empty space, pausing briefly for any patrons who chose that entrance over the building’s other, quieter options. Seeing public space being used by people felt good to me, as did the dynamic energy of the skaters in contrast to the quiet stillness inside the place of research and knowledge – a community thrives on both kinds of energy.

After a few minutes my moment of appreciation was shattered by an altercation on the sidewalk just a few feet away: A woman waiting for the bus was shouting “watch your language, there are children here!” as a group of young men and a young woman carrying a blanket were calling each other names as they walked parallel down the street. Big events, which bring noise and crowds downtown and occupy grass and other usually quiet space, tend be stressful for those who spend most or all of the day out on the streets.  The young men, who I couldn’t hear, were holding a cell-phone up to record the woman as she screamed at them. The words she was using were foul! I had met her twice before, so I called her name and approached her. I said “this isn’t helping” and stepped in between her and the group of men. I told her I thought no one deserved to be called the names she was using. “Yeah, but they’re so mean” she responded, “they were making fun of my legs!” - which were bare under her short skirt, and covered with sores.

The young men walked on down the street as she and I started talking, and then we walked together around the corner. We talked as we walked about how people often lash out and insult others out of their own pain, fear, and insecurity – I remembered doing so as a teenager. I waited outside of Burger King as she went in to get some food, and then we went to find a place to sit. She wanted to go somewhere quiet, away from all the people, and led me to a parking lot behind a hotel, where she laid out her blanket like for a picnic behind one of the parked cars. We had a pleasant conversation, and she offered me some of her food. She told me a bit of the story of her coming to San Francisco, and how she ended up staying because “you can get any drug you want here.” I asked her about the focus of her life, which she said was getting high.

Welcome and the Faithful Fools are both organizations that tend to follow what’s called the “Harm Reduction Model.” This model recognizes that, while there are some individuals who respond to themselves or their behavior being judged by trying to change, and others who might never change their behavior, there are others who will accept help from those who accept them for who they are and what they do, and it is worthwhile reducing the harm in their lives. This is the principle behind needle exchanges, the “Housing First” model of addressing homelessness that San Francisco and other cities have turned to in the past few years, and Welcome’s policy of providing food and hospitality to anyone, as long as they are not presently a threat to themselves or others. Harm Reduction is grounded in the foolish idea that everyone is worthy of being helped, and that no one knows better than a person themselves what help they need. What a relief it is not to have to be an expert!

Not forgetting the altercation in front of the library, I asked my friend about her legs: How were they? Did they need medical treatment? Had she sought treatment yet? In addition to the scabs I had noticed, she pointed out an open sore and a pus-filled abscess. Yes, she realized she needed to see a doctor. I asked if she would go right then, if I would go with her? She said she would but, as I have become used to with those living with addictions, she needed to get high first. (A hospital is a scary enough place already, and you never know when you will get let out – a person experiencing withdrawal symptoms is not likely to keep waiting to be seen.) She said she’d be done fixing in ten minutes, if I’d be willing to come back for her then. I was, and I did, but she had not been successful in administering the drug. Her veins had deteriorated under the effect of her drug use, making IV injection very difficult. I continued to walk away and return about every 10 minutes for over an hour and a half, until staff from the hotel stumbled upon her and drove her off the parking lot. She apologized for keeping me so long, and suggested that maybe this wasn’t going to be the best time for a trip to the hospital, after all. Having just about used up my patience for that day, I agreed, and headed off on my way.

I walked away feeling only slightly defeated as, while we did not successfully attend to her clear medical need, something else important was done with that time: we were building trust in each other, and each of us had the opportunity to show the other that we cared about each others' needs and respected their time. This relationship building could be a first step in a journey toward her receiving the health care she clearly needs, but it is certainly part of the process of building the kind of network of caring for each other that we all depend on, and which makes living in community as neighbors worthwhile. The proposed trip to the hospital turned out to be a fool’s errand, but as a Fool, I could see its value in my own life, and the life of our community.

The beautiful thing to me about this kind of work is that it doesn’t cost any money – I didn’t need to have a blanket to give, or food to offer, or spare change in my pocket – what it required was the willingness to give a few minutes out of my day, to allow someone else to invite me into relationship, and to open my heart. This kind of work is available to all of us to do, if we are willing to give ourselves the time to go on a few fool’s errands. We can start in our own communities, or if you want to have a supportive container in which to follow where the pathway of relationship might lead, you can join the Faithful Fools on one of our monthly Street Retreats in the Tenderloin. (more information online at www.faithfulfools.org/programs/street-retreats )

Wolf at the Table

The other day, as I was having lunch with a couple of friends, my conversation got infected by the conversation at the next table. A young man was describing his views on government spending to his female companion. I say “infected” because so much of his viewpoint was so contrary to mine, that I began to react emotionally and was distracted from catching up with my friends by listening to his arguments and coming up with my own counter-arguments. I found it difficult to give my companions the attention they deserved, and had  a noticeably less-enjoyable lunch than I might have otherwise. 

The young man’s core point seemed to be that he did not want to pay taxes to take care of the needs of others, who in his view deserved to suffer the consequences of whatever bad decisions or lack of motivation caused their suffering. Now, my experience has been that stories of suffering are varied and often complex, and rarely attributable solely to the sufferer’s own actions, but the debate I was imagining was not about karma. When our neighbors’ conversation turned to healthcare, I could feel my stomach twisting into knots.

Just the night before, I had been discussing with friends a news article about the escalators for our local subway system , BART, breaking down due to damage caused by human waste. It seemed clear to me that this was a natural consequence of our collective failure to provide access to public restrooms – our refusal to allow people to “go” in our businesses, or to fund and share space with working public toilets, does not change the function of human bodies. One of the realities of living together in community is we cannot escape the consequences of failing to look out for one another’s needs. As I left the restaurant, I begged the pardon of my neighbors at the next table as I interrupted their conversation.

“I couldn’t help but notice how your conversation about healthcare infected the conversation at my table,” I said, “and it got me thinking about how if I were sick with tuberculosis or some other infectious disease and coughing at my table, you would be at risk of getting infected with something possibly very dangerous. If, by your refusing to contribute to my healthcare, I am unable to afford to seek treatment, you in fact are making a decision that puts your own health in jeopardy.  Our lives are too connected to not look our for one another.”

 

The simple truth that we care for ourselves by caring for each other does not address the complexities that enter in once we actually start doing it. Actually helping each other is a life-long learning process, one full of missteps and foibles, as well as successes and gratification. One of the tools I’ve used for reflecting on the difficulties of living in community is the story of the the Wolf of Gubbio.  In the original version of this myth, a ravenous wolf marauds the town of Gubbio, eating its sheep and sometimes its shepherds. St Francis, who speaks wolf, brokers a deal where the villagers feed the wolf, who then lives tamely among them - happily ever after. Nicaraguan poet, Ruben Dario, wrote a version based on his own understanding of human nature and wolf nature called “Los Motivos del Lobo” (“The Motives of the Wolf”), which the Faithful Fools perform as an interactive play in churches, conventions, community groups, and streets around the world.  

This version looks at what happens when the saint leaves the community and the people begin acting once again like people – fighting each other, and eventually beating the wolf – and the wolf goes back to acting like a wolf – poaching the herds and frightening the villagers. In our play, having heard the wolf’s story, St Francis leaves the villagers and wolf to decide where to go from there.  Without the saint mediating, the villagers (audience) and the wolf begin to see each other, and themselves, in a new light. Violence, greed, and hunger are both wolf and human characteristics, as are fear and the tendency to distrust those who are different. Meeting the other face to face allows villager and wolf to see past their prejudices and really get to know one another – this moment of seeing honestly our commonalities alongside our differences is the beginning of working together to meet our common needs, and to help each other. 

We performed “Los Motivos del Lobo”  last month for an audience at Our Saviour’s Lutheran church in Minneapolis, as well as at a conference in Rochester, MN for Catholic educators. The “villagers” offered food and shelter to the wolf, and to protect him from violence from other humans. They asked the wolf to protect them from other wolves, and offered to pray with him. They all sang together. Each time we perform the play, the ending is different. Each “village” finds a new set of solutions in relationship with the wolf. This is the value of the play – it has no answers, it raises questions we can reflect on again and again.

The process of caring for one another can hold this same sort of value – to start with meeting the immediate needs of another, and then to extend the value of the experience by reflecting on what it is we offer, how it fits into another’s needs, and how it meets our own needs. The Faithful Fools strive to provide opportunities for people to come together across the boundaries of our ideas about who the other is, so we can learn together.  At our purple building in the Tenderloin, you can join us for one of our arts programs, or sit in meditation or at bible study. If you care to join us in making a meal, sitting for conversation, or feeding your body as well as your need for human connection, come find us at Welcome at Old First Presbyterian Church on Tuesday afternoons or the 2^nd and 4^th Saturday of every month. See you there!