We held hands. Eighty or so people. Black and white. Male and female. Straight and LBGTQ. Housed and homeless. We held hands in the circle of prayer that begins each morning at Manna House.

“God be with the family and friends of the two African American men killed in the last 48 hours by the police.”

Heads were bowed. Several gave their “Amen.”

“Can I get a witness?” I asked, “How many of you have been stopped or harassed by the police? Raise your hand.”

Every guest raised their hands. So did several volunteers.

“God keep our guests safe on the streets.” And then our usual blessing for coffee and the sugar proceeded and the blessing for the creamer took on additional poignant meaning, “God bless the creamer. May it take all life’s bitterness away.”
After the prayer a few guests came up to me, one by one, all African American.

“You know it happens all the time.”

“I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been stopped.”

“They just ride you and ride you.”

“I try to stay low; out of sight.”

“Doesn’t matter what you do, they on you.”

I thought of a friend of mine, a black mother, the wife of a minister. She told the story of how yesterday she and her son (he’s not yet even a teenager) were riding their bikes in their neighborhood. The police stopped them. Questioned them. As she said, “I hate being stereotyped by cops in my own neighborhood.” And today she said, “Trying to find the words to explain to my son.”

Where’s the Gospel in this? Where’s the good news that can be shared? Where’s Jesus?

In “Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God,” Kelly Brown Douglass writes, “What we know for sure is that God was not a part of the crucifying mob. Thus on the night when Trayvon [and Alton Sterling and Philandro Castille and the hundred plus other African Americans killed by the cops this year] was slain, God was where life was crying out to be free from the crucifying death of stand-your-ground-culture.”

And this brings me back to Manna House.

Twenty five men, mostly African American, all without housing, showered at Manna House this morning. They all got fresh clean clothes. Many got shoes to replace the ones worn out from walking the streets, looking for work, looking for food, looking for a place to stay.

Another fifty-one or so got “socks and hygiene” a few items to be able to wash up elsewhere plus a fresh t-shirt.

All of these people and more enjoyed the backyard of Manna House where the shade provided some relief from the heat, coffee was served, haircuts were given, and conversation or sleep came easy.

This place is a sanctuary.

And this also means the police are not allowed to freely come onto the property. Our guests know this and are thankful. We have turned police away on a dozen or more occasions.

As a sanctuary, what we seek to do is rather simple: be a place for resurrection instead of crucifixion, be a place for life instead of death, be a place of welcome rather than rejection. And we’ll keep doing this as we also join with others to change the systems that make such place of sanctuary necessary.

The morning was heavy with heat, humidity, and the grief of this past week.

“It’s worse in the summer than in the winter,” a guest said. Memphis in early August is oppressive. The clothing of the men who came to shower was so soiled that most of it had to be thrown away. No amount of washing would take away the stains and stench from the sweat and grime of life on the streets.

“I’m not doing well,” a guest said with sadness. “These days are hard.”

A few of us talked in the backyard. We were trying to figure out where a guest might be who had been in the hospital.

“He’s not in jail,” I said, “I checked.”

“They must have moved him to a long term care home.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“Something about his heart. And he had a lot of shortness of breath.”

Then we moved on to a guest who had seizures and fell a few days ago cracking open his head.

“He just keeled over. He dropped off some steps he was sitting on. One minute he was talking and the next he was just lying there.”

“He’s at the Med. He’s not doing well. Kathleen and I went up to see him.”

The mood was somber. The news of these two guests weighed heavily.

Two volunteers shared in the grief of a young man lost to suicide. They had known him through years of relationship with his family and through church and school. His funeral had been on Monday.

I also learned earlier in the week that Motella, a woman who had been on the streets for many years and then was taken in by June Averyt, had died a few weeks back. Her death had come suddenly after a brief illness. Maybe Motella needed to join June in her heavenly home, since June had died at the end of April.

Another volunteer had her own grief to bear. Her son’s funeral was Tuesday. Still she was here on this Thursday morning, serving in her sorrow.

And in her serving, perhaps there was an opening, a way to bear the grief of this week, by receiving the gifts that come in the midst of this fragile community of hospitality.

Fullview Baptist Church showed up with their first Thursday of the month sack lunches. Every guest got a lunch.

Joseph showed up with two bags of the most delicious egg rolls in the city of Memphis as he does most every Thursday. Guests and volunteers alike enjoyed this treat.

Students from the Southern College of Optometry came every day this week and served with steady enthusiasm.

Toward the end of the morning a guest came in who has been difficult at times. He can be a bit prickly. He handed me a box. “Here. This is for Manna House and for that baby you and Kathleen are caring for.”

Inside the box was a small stuffed bear and some magazines.
“The bear is for the baby. The magazines are for anyone who wants them. I want to help like you help me.”

As I left Manna House a little while later and locked the front gate I saw a man walking with two orthopedic boots on his feet. He had a cane and was also carrying a box.

I asked him where he was going.

“South Memphis.”

“That’s a long way to walk. Can you catch a bus?”

“Will you take me to a bus stop?”

“Sure. Get in my car.”

He directed me to a bus stop about a half mile away. Just as he was going to get out of the car he said, “You remember me?”

“You look familiar.”

He told me his name.

“I remember you now.”

“I’m not homeless anymore, well not really, since I’m staying with a friend. But I’m off the streets. You know that Manna House is a life saver.”

The heat and the humidity and the grief still hung in the air. But something else was present too. The gifts hospitality brings, from guests, from students and churches, from those regular volunteers who come so faithfully. The grief was not gone. But it was bearable.

Today was the Feast of St. Veronica. As a place of hospitality in the Catholic Worker tradition, this was duly noted as we gathered in the backyard for job assignments and prayer before greeting our guests and praying with them.

Poor St. Veronica got booted off of the list of Feast Days in the Catholic Church because her historicity was questioned. Some of you might still know the story. Jesus on his way to his execution, falls, and a woman comes forward and wipes the blood and sweat off of his face. A courageous act of hospitality along the way of crucifixion. Miraculously, on the cloth, there remained an image of Jesus.

The four canonical Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have no such story. Still, the story was told over and over again among Christians, and by the 6^th century, it was firmly established as the Sixth Station within the devotional “Stations of the Cross.” She may be off the “official list” of saints, but she remains in popular devotion. “Whose Veronica? Our Veronica.”

So before opened we talked a little bit about Veronica and her act of hospitality toward Jesus. The people who come to Manna House, come to us as Christ (Matthew 25:31-46) and they are on a way of crucifixion. As homeless and poor their lives don’t matter. Our guests who are Black are judged to matter even less. Veronica stepped into the way of the cross, and offered what she could, affirming Jesus’ dignity by her welcome.

As the morning proceeded, I kept thinking about St. Veronica. How important is it to do what she did? How important is it to offer a cloth to wipe away the sweat and blood of Jesus on his way to the cross, knowing full well it will not stop the execution? How important is it to do this hospitality which does not stop the crucifixion of the poor?

Meanwhile, laundry needed to be done. I did come across blood and sweat in the clothes discarded by those who showered. I did not come across an image of a guest left on one of their towels.  Instead, the ordinary nature of the day confirmed that we are a hospitality house like all the rest.

Some of you might catch the paraphrase of a line from George Bernanos’ novel, “Diary of a Country Priest.” His main character, a priest in an obscure country parish, writes in his diary, “Mine is a parish like all the rest.”

Nothing extraordinary happens in this neglected and marginalized parish. But as the novel proceeds, the priest moves to a deep love for the people. They convert him to a living faith in God. He comes to see in their lives the way in which “God’s grace is everywhere,” and particularly in the lives of the people in this village who are judged not to matter.

Perhaps this is what we learn in hospitality, and what Veronica learned when she offered a cloth to Jesus on the way to the cross, that answers my questions above. How important is it to do this hospitality which does not stop the crucifixion? Veronica’s offer of a cloth to the fallen Jesus rejected business as usual. She recognized and affirmed Jesus’ human dignity. She said with her hospitality, “Jesus, your life matters.”

But even more, in this act Veronica learned firsthand the pain and suffering of Jesus. It was seared onto the very cloth she offered. Likewise, at Manna House, we welcome those being crucified, and we offer small cloths of comfort. Showers. Coffee. Conversation. Sanctuary. We enact in our hospitality that their lives matter. At the same time, hospitality sears us with their suffering, and so we are converted and come to stand with them in the struggle for justice.

Today was an ordinary day of hospitality at Manna House. But all around us are extraordinary events in Memphis and in the U.S. The crucifixion of African Americans is being resisted by a growing social movement, “Black Lives Matter.”

Manna House, because of what we have learned from our guests, is committed to that struggle. In the house, over the doorway heading from the living room into the dining room, there is a sign that went up last year, “Black Lives Matter.” We have and will continue to join in Black Lives Matter vigils and protests here in Memphis.

We will also stick with hospitality, both because it is needed in this “filthy rotten system” (Dorothy Day), and because the people we meet teach us their dignity, even as they call us to resist the current reality that black lives and poor lives do not matter.

St. Veronica, pray for us.

We held hands. Eighty or so people. Black and white. Male and female. Straight and LBGTQ. Housed and homeless. We held hands in the circle of prayer that begins each morning at Manna House.

“God be with the family and friends of the two African American men killed in the last 48 hours by the police.”

Heads were bowed. Several gave their “Amen.”

“Can I get a witness?” I asked, “How many of you have been stopped or harassed by the police? Raise your hand.”

Every guest raised their hands. So did several volunteers.

“God keep our guests safe on the streets.” And then our usual blessing for coffee and the sugar proceeded and the blessing for the creamer took on additional poignant meaning, “God bless the creamer. May it take all life’s bitterness away.”
After the prayer a few guests came up to me, one by one, all African American.

“You know it happens all the time.”

“I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been stopped.”

“They just ride you and ride you.”

“I try to stay low; out of sight.”

“Doesn’t matter what you do, they on you.”

I thought of a friend of mine, a black mother, the wife of a minister. She told the story of how yesterday she and her son (he’s not yet even a teenager) were riding their bikes in their neighborhood. The police stopped them. Questioned them. As she said, “I hate being stereotyped by cops in my own neighborhood.” And today she said, “Trying to find the words to explain to my son.”

Where’s the Gospel in this? Where’s the good news that can be shared? Where’s Jesus?

In “Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God,” Kelly Brown Douglas writes, “What we know for sure is that God was not a part of the crucifying mob. Thus on the night when Trayvon [and Alton Sterling and Philandro Castille and the hundred plus other African Americans killed by the cops this year] was slain, God was where life was crying out to be free from the crucifying death of stand-your-ground-culture.”

And this brings me back to Manna House.

Twenty five men, mostly African American, all without housing, showered at Manna House this morning. They all got fresh clean clothes. Many got shoes to replace the ones worn out from walking the streets, looking for work, looking for food, looking for a place to stay.

Another fifty-one or so got “socks and hygiene” a few items to be able to wash up elsewhere plus a fresh t-shirt.

All of these people and more enjoyed the backyard of Manna House where the shade provided some relief from the heat, coffee was served, haircuts were given, and conversation or sleep came easy.

This place is a sanctuary.

And this also means the police are not allowed to freely come onto the property. Our guests know this and are thankful. We have turned police away on a dozen or more occasions.

As a sanctuary, what we seek to do is rather simple: be a place for resurrection instead of crucifixion, be a place for life instead of death, be a place of welcome rather than rejection. And we’ll keep doing this as we also join with others to change the systems that make such place of sanctuary necessary.

The rain had just ended. I even saw a double rainbow as I drove toward Manna House. God’s covenant writ large in the sky, the one Noah told about.

                        ^“God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:12-13). God’s promise of life, of care, of good for human beings.

As I approached Jefferson and Claybrook, there he was, tall, gaunt, a white sheet wrapped around him, a spectral figure standing under the little overhang of the building across from Manna House.  I couldn’t see his face as the sheet went up over his head. Then for a moment I lost sight of him. Where did he go? I wondered, was this the ghost of Jefferson and Claybrook?

As I got ready to cross the street, he reappeared from behind an electrical pole. Sweet relief: a Manna House guest.

“What you doing wearing that sheet? You scared me half to death! You look like a ghost!”

“Keeps the bugs off me at night” he said matter of factly.

We walked across the street in silence. I opened the gate. Other guests began to appear as if out of thin air. Everyone had been taking cover from the rain, but now they could get up on the porch and be ready if the rain resumed.

The spectral guest turned to me, “When’s it all going to end, Pete?”

“What do you mean?”

“When’s it all going to end? The poverty. The homelessness. I’m about out of hope.”

“I don’t know.”

“You all do what you can and you all are lifesavers. But it doesn’t look good from out here.”

“I know.”

The grief he carries, the grief our guests carry, needs to be acknowledged. But beyond acknowledging it, I won’t make false promises about “It’s going to get better.” I’m not hearing poverty and homelessness as major concerns among politicians, voters, or church goers.

At the end of the morning, Sandy came out from cleaning the shower room. She had the shroud of the spectral man. He had come in and showered and left with clean clothes. The shroud had splotches of dirt and was soaking wet. It was discarded; too dirty to launder.

All morning I had thought about my inadequate response to the spectral man’s question: “When’s it all going to end?”

All morning it was like the air had a hangover, a stale reminder of yesterday’s excessive steamy heat.

Where do I go with the suffering of our guests? Where do I go with the injustices and insults that they bear? When’s it all going to end?

I still cannot answer that question, except to say, “I don’t know.” What I do know is that there is a power that endures, and that power I believe will eventually end poverty and homelessness. It is the power of love, God’s love, God’s rainbow covenant of love, and our love for God and each other and the creation. That’s the power that got me up and got me to Manna House and keeps me going back.

Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement to which Manna House seeks to be faithful, said, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

For Dorothy Day, that love took on very concrete meaning. It is that love that we try to share in the hospitality at Manna House. Dorothy Day wrote, “What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words—we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

The rumor was she was dead. Even a location was given: found lying face down at the end of Beale Street. One guest told me and then several others corroborated the story. She’s dead. A Manna House guest, one we have had serious difficulties with over the years.

So the phone call to the morgue with its fancy “Medical Examiner” name had to be made. If she was dead, it was likely no one would claim the body. If she was dead, we would want to do the funeral.

I called, not sure if they would tell me if she was there. A volunteer suggested I introduce myself on the phone as “Doctor Gathje.” I said I think they might even be more open to sharing information if I go with “Reverend Gathje, pastor at Manna House.” After all I do have an internet ordination for just such occasions. “Reverend” might open a door or get me information withheld to mere mortals.

The person who answered was very polite and helpful. I don’t know if “Reverend” made a bit of difference to her. I do know that I heard the faint clicking of a computer keyboard immediately after I introduced myself and offered the name of the possibly dead guest.

“No one with that name is here.”

“Thank you. That’s good news. Thank you. Have a blessed day.”

Not dead. But where might she be? No one had seen her in her usual haunts the past few weeks. Maybe she’s in jail. I checked the Shelby County Kiosk where you can look up those imprisoned. There she was. Her mug shot with her defiant anger was posted along with a list of charges.

“She didn’t go down easily,” I said. Four counts of aggravated assault.

Kathleen tentatively tried to find a redemptive purpose in all of this. “Maybe this time they’ll keep her long enough to get her stabilized with some meds.” Then she realistically added, “But really I don’t have much hope for that or after.”

I thought of Gary Smith’s book, “Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor.” There he tells a story of a fight that breaks out between two people on the streets. One man pulled a knife on the other. Smith writes, “The potential victim then shouted at the knife wielder, in a voice that echoed off the tall buildings and over the 2 A.M. traffic noises, ‘You can’t kill me motherfucker. I’m already dead.’” Smith continues, “Many consider themselves dead because no one ever told them about the beauty of their lives.”

Earlier I had come across Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day.” Her poem ends with, “Tell me what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

How can persons so abused, so hurt, so damaged, move from being “already dead” to knowing their beauty and that their life is precious?

Not every story has a happy ending. So I am going to sit with this one for a while. The guest is not dead; but she’s in jail and facing serious prison time. Prison is rarely redemptive.

I know that somewhere beneath her struggle with mental illness and the horrors she has experienced on the streets there is a precious beautiful child of God. Or as a guest told me, “She’s a knucklehead, but she needs love too.” God, may love find her.

Two different letters from two different Manna House guests doing time in prison arrived together in my mail today. And that seemed appropriate.

Both just went before the Parole Board. Both were denied parole. Both remain unfailingly hopeful that when they get out things will be different in their lives. Both are grateful for the support they get from Manna House. Both asked to be remembered at prayer when we open at Manna House each day. Both seemed more concerned about how Manna House is doing than about themselves.

“Could I send those books you sent back to you? I’m through with them and so I thought you could put them on the shelf at Manna House.”

“Please lift me up in the morning prayer at Manna House.”

“So how is Manna House and how is everything there going?”

“I got the money for my shoes. I will go home with something on my feet. Thank you for everything you did for me. I couldn’t have did this time without Manna House and God.”

“Tell everyone at the Manna House that I said hello.”

I am thankful for these letters from the incarcerated Christ. You might recall that Jesus identified with those imprisoned when he said, “I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:31-40). Christ is crucified daily in our jails and prisons. How we treat prisoners is how we treat Christ. Imagine if all the people who claim the name “Christian” really put into practice Jesus’ identification with those behind bars! It might stop the sick jokes about rape in prison, or it could end the death penalty, or put out of business all of the privatized prisons making money off of human enslavement. It might at least improve the food, the health care, and the educational opportunities for prisoners.

I am thankful that Manna House hospitality can sometimes extend to our guests who end up behind bars. On occasion we visit. But mostly we try to offer what limited support we can with money, and sending books, and letters. We also support other jail ministries like “Grace Place.” And we work for changes in the criminal justice system that would treat the incarcerated Christ with basic human dignity.

Jail or prison is a fairly common experience for those who are housing deprived. A recent national study on “Jail incarceration, homelessness, and mental health” revealed that those deprived of housing make up 15.3% of the U.S. jail population. Homelessness is 7.5 to 11.3 times more common among jail inmates than in the general population. The study found that homelessness and incarceration appear to increase the risk of each other, and those factors are also influenced by mental illness, substance abuse, and “disadvantageous socio-demographic characteristics.” Seen through faith eyes this study reveals that jails and the streets intersect to form the cross of Christ.

Basic to following Jesus is to live the resurrection. Jesus lived the resurrection; that is why he was crucified. Living the resurrection means to live in resistance to the powers of sin and death, the powers that crucify, that imprison, that make people hungry, thirsty, strangers, without shelter. Christ calls from the streets and from prisons and jails, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God, of course, listened to Jesus and overturned his death sentence, raising him from the dead. Do we?

There is often an intimacy to hospitality that is uncomfortable for both the giver and the receiver. On Monday, Kathleen had shared in this intimacy. Tuesday it was my turn. A guest had been bitten just under his armpit by a spider. Spider bites afflict people on the streets as they try to find rest in abandoned buildings or under bridges. This man had gone to the hospital and the infected area was lanced and cleaned, but his wound was still open and needed attention. So he asked for help.

He stood patiently this morning as I did what Kathleen had done on Monday. I applied some antibiotic lotion to the wound, placed a gauze bandage over the wound, and then wrapped an ace bandage around him to keep the gauze bandage in place.

Doing this kind of first-aid was not something I had expected when we opened Manna House eleven years ago. But in those years we have bandaged a variety of wounds, some small, some large. Some we could not handle and we took the wounded person to the hospital.

Offering hospitality keeps me close to wounded humanity. The wounds are not always physical. There are just as often emotional and spiritual. Tending to those wounds often means just listening or standing with the person in prayer. In offering hospitality, in treating those wounded, I have also become more aware of my own woundedness and limitations. Hospitality requires recognition of some level of shared vulnerability, and to get to shared vulnerability we need to get close to each other, as close as binding up a wound under an armpit. Hospitality offers in the midst of shared vulnerability and intimacy a deep respect for the human dignity of the person receiving hospitality.

As I have thought this week about how we as wounded treat the wounded, I have returned to two people who in their own ways responded to wounded humanity and who have inspired me over the years. Both died this past Saturday and their deaths have been weighing heavily on my heart. At Mass on Sunday one of the songs included this line from Scripture, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). But as I sang, I felt defeated and stung by the deaths of June Averyt and Daniel Berrigan. I realized I needed to do some remembering in anticipation of resurrection to come, and to move in the interim toward some healing in my woundedness caused by their deaths.

Both June and Daniel were heroes of mine in responding to the wounded. I knew June better than Daniel, having worked with her through Manna House. She came by Manna House at least once a week, looking for a guest with whom she was working or seeking out others who she might be able to help get into housing. June was our “go to” person for getting people housed. She knew plenty about the woundedness of people on the streets, and she was forthright about her own woundedness. “I am not easy to work with,” she would say, “I can be prickly.” She was not being falsely modest, just honest. Dan was well known for his response to those wounded by war. He was a peace activist. But he also practiced hospitality, working for a number of years with AIDS patients in New York. Dan also did not suffer fools gladly. He was quite adept at puncturing pompousness, often with humor.

I knew Daniel Berrigan much less well than June. I interviewed him as part of my research for my PhD dissertation. Then at various times our paths crossed, at Jonah House in Baltimore (a community his brother Philip and Liz McAlister started), and at Kalamazoo College where his nephew Jerry Berrigan was a student of mine, and a few times on picket lines or activist gatherings.

Both June and Daniel were grounded in their responses to woundedness by their deep faith. Their faith was not sentimental and not ostentatious. They were thoughtful questioners and seekers, but within churches with traditions of reflection and liturgy that provide space for dwelling with Mystery. The way things are is not the way things have to be was a conviction that guided both of them because they both had the conviction that there is a God greater than mere human convention and human arrangements. At the heart of this God is love and justice, and both are necessary for our lives to be fully human.

Both June and Daniel knew that wounds are caused by cuts made by powerful systems of injustice that do violence. So both were quite skeptical of the powers that be. Both resisted those powers in their own way. June resisted by working through the nooks and crannies of the system, much like a weed forcing life through the cracks in a sidewalk. She was skilled at getting grants and working the system for the people she served, those who were on the streets. Dan was notorious for his acts of civil disobedience, especially as a member of the Catonsville Nine and the Plowshares Eight. Neither was under the illusion that their efforts would by themselves overturn either homelessness or war, but as Dan said, “Just because you can’t do everything, doesn’t mean you have to do nothing.”

Both June and Daniel knew that resisting a wounding system and responding with love to the wounded required a sense of humility and humor. Daniel often wrote of the importance of “modesty” by which he meant living within our humanity, accepting our limits as part of the goodness of human life.  We are all so wounded by arrogance and pride, the overreaching of humans into weapons of mass destruction, over-consumption, and claims of national and racial superiority. Daniel’s poetry and many books display his humor laced with realism that puncture such arrogance, such as his famous line, “If you’re going to be a disciple of Jesus, you better look good on wood.” June had little patience for grandstanding or drama. For her it was important to simply get the work done, to get people into housing and keep them there through the nitty-gritty of community support.

I doubt that June and Daniel ever crossed paths. Except in my life they did. I have a hunch that if their paths cross in heaven they will be good friends. For both of their lives I am grateful. In faith I hope to meet with both of them again. In the practice of love and hope they will continue in my life now. May they both enjoy the blessed presence of God. Thursday I expect one of us at Manna House will be treating that spider bite again.

 

“A guy came by and said, ‘What you looking at?’ Man, I wasn’t looking at nothing. But he was pick and pick and pick at me and I wasn’t having it.”

This guest had starting sharing his lament as soon as I crossed the street to Manna House. He told me that he had avoided two fights as he waited for me to show up to start the coffee.

As I unlocked the gate he continued.

“Then another guy came by, and I was just standing here waiting, and he wanted to get into it with me. “Why you staring at me?’ I wasn’t staring at no one. I just looking at the street.”

As we came into the front yard he said, “I guess I’m not safe until I get inside this gate.”

I thought about a guest from a number of years back. He would arrive each day in tattered and dirty clothes. Even if he had showered the day before and gotten clean clothes, by the next day he was a mess. Kathleen finally asked him, “What happens to you when you leave here?”

His response was to point across the street through the front door, “You see those dogs over there? They get me.”

There were no dogs to be seen.

Kathleen asked, “Do the dogs ever come in here?”

“O no,” the guest said, “they wouldn’t dare come in here.”

Sanctuary. A place of refuge. A stronghold. A place of safety.

A guest came today to share her grief. Her cousin, a former Manna House guest, had died. They had been raised together like sisters by the cousin’s mother. Lengthy hospitalizations and time in a nursing home were now over for her “sister.” I did not know the guest who died very well, but Kathleen did. She knew this death was coming, but still this was hard news.

And in the midst of this, I thought of a faithful volunteer who just lost her mother. We had prayed for her and her family when we opened. We had also prayed for guests in prison and in the hospital as we held hands, guests and volunteers together. In our prayers we want to extend God’s sanctuary beyond the gate of Manna House.

A guest came to tell us of another former guest who was just diagnosed with liver cancer. The prognosis is not good. His friend said, “He wants people to pray for him but he doesn’t want his name spread all around.” When I assured her of our prayers, she added, “He’s all worried about the funeral. He doesn’t have anything and he knows his family can’t afford it.”

“Tell him not to worry about that,” I said, “Manna House can help.”

A former guest who is now housed and working came just to talk and to be heard. She had a few things to tell us about her life. She wanted to share some good news about how well her job is going. It was good to hear some joys.

Later I was out in the backyard and saw a guest praying silently in the chapel area. He was alone, sitting on one of the benches there. He was bowed over making his supplications. “God hears the cry of the poor,” I thought.

Sanctuary. A place of refuge. A stronghold. A place of safety.

After I came inside from talking with the guest at the gate, my day had started with Psalm 46 as I listened to the coffee pots begin to percolate creating a kind of Manna House style Gregorian chant:

“God is with us;

God is our stronghold.

God is for us a refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in times of distress.”

We shall not fear though the earth should rock,

though the waters rage and foam,

though the mountains quake at its surging.”

Yesterday was “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Jesus the Good Shepherd said in John’s Gospel, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). I could have used Jesus and his good shepherding this morning, both for myself and for a guest.

I was at Manna House and I had just finished plugging in the coffee. As I headed from the kitchen into the living room I could hear someone yelling. I went outside. Standing on the patio in the front yard was a woman shouting at the few guests who had gathered early. It was just before 7am. Manna House would not open for another hour.

She turned to me, “They don’t want to listen. They don’t want to be saved. They want to go to hell. The Lord has put it upon me to save them and save them I will.”

“Could you save them a little less loudly?” I asked.

Apparently she could not. Her screed continued with vile and vivid descriptions of the sins of the guests gathered, along with a few obscene gestures. The stream of words was chaotic, with little islands of sense in the midst of the nonsense. “These people need to hear it. They are evil. They are from Satan. I cannot be silenced. The Lord has put upon me to preach and preach I must.” This was more street screeching than it was street preaching.

I remembered to stay calm and not raise my voice, “I’m asking you to leave today.”

“Call the police on me if you want. I’m not leaving.” This statement was spiced with some rather creative swearing and invective. And now she was in my face up on the front porch, waving a rolled up magazine at me.

“I’m not calling the police. I am asking you to leave for the morning.”

I stepped inside the house and called Kathleen. I needed her calming voice and support. The woman outside must have thought I had called the police. She went down the steps of the porch, paused to throw our front yard garbage can (thankfully empty), gathered her belongings, and then went down the street to who knows where. Her inner anguish continued to spill out as she went.

Where’s the Good Shepherd when you need him? She was a lost sheep, and I certainly was not much of a shepherd. Manna House had little to offer her and this morning, since I asked her to leave, she was denied even that little. Our hospitality is not that of the Good Shepherd. Ask us for something and sometimes you will receive. Knock at our door and sometimes it will be opened unto you (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 8am-11:30am).

Thankfully I have seen some good shepherding when people like this woman get the help they need, get housing, get health care, and get well. But not this woman, not this morning.

In fact, you can go to any large city in the U.S. and find on the streets someone like this woman. Lost in a fog of mental illness, without housing, without medical care, subject to the violence of wolves who will rape and abuse, she is not alone.

She is among the poorest of the poor. Last night she slept on cardboard underneath the awning of the building across from Manna House. And though she is poor, she is not the problem. The problem is that as bad shepherds we would rather spend our tax dollars on more military, more prisons, more football stadiums and basketball arenas than help her.

The problem is that we elect bad shepherds like the ones running the Tennessee legislature. They deny funding for health care while passing bills to make the Bible the state book of Tennessee and to discriminate against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people.

The problem is also in our hearts. They are not the hearts of good shepherds. Instead, they are closed and hardened like Pharaoh’s, satisfied with keeping people enslaved and exploited. We are like the anti-Good Shepherd. We have learned to accept the presence of the suffering on our streets all over this country.

When I went back inside, I prayed Psalm 23. Come Good Shepherd come! We need some green pastures, still waters and restored souls. We need some goodness and mercy. Maybe tomorrow the Good Shepherd will show up and this woman and I will have a better morning.