I’m officially done with staff training! I’m completely exhausted, and I have little time for rest since our first groups arrive on Sunday at 5pm. I’ll probably write another post soon, but to tide you over, here are some pictures of the cool people I work and live with!
CSM Staff! Steve, Jennifer, Jake, Jemica, Jessica, Jason, Tara, and Holly.
Looking across Lake Ontario to Toronto.
On the streetcar!
My staff photo with Toronto in the background. Remind you of Titanic?!
Today was a great day in Toronto. The weather was beautiful, my CSM team was amazing yet again, and I got to experience several different aspects of urban ministry that touched my heart.
We first volunteered at St. Felix Centre, which is a house of Catholic nuns operating a food shelter that can serve anywhere from 75 to 175 homeless and hungry people per day. When we first arrived, we thought that we would have the great task of serving food to the people who came to eat. However, we were assigned the daunting and dirty job of reorganizing the pantry. That might sound pretty easy, but until you actually see the St. Felix pantry for yourself, you can never know how much work we did! It took all 5 CSM interns plus our two city directors almost two and a half hours to sort, clean, and reorganize the cans upon cans upon cans of food. The chore seemed almost impossible at first, but we felt a great sense of accomplishment afterwards. Looking back on the experience, I see how powerful a service we performed. It may be a very mundane and boring job that no one really wants to do, but it was a job that was necessary to help the centre function properly and efficiently on a day to day basis. And although we were praised after we finished for doing such a gross job, most likely no one will remember the fact that the seven of us spent a lot of time in a very small, crowded space. But, that’s okay. Because unseen service is never really unseen by God.
We also visited “Somaliland” out in Toronto’s east end near Islington. In this area, there are over 10,000 Somali (East African) refugees living in – what I would call – substandard apartment complexes. For most Somali people who come to Toronto as refugees, English is as foreign to them as astronomical physics. Therefore, our CSM groups (sponsored by the Toronto Baptist Intercultural Service) go into the homes of these people and tutor them in English-as-a-second-language. This may not seem like a very big deal – until you understand the fact that Somali people are Muslim by faith, and inviting Christians into your home can gain you a lot of backlash and scorn from your neighbors. But, these people want to learn and are willing to take that chance. The CSM interns didn’t get a chance to go into any homes, but we did meet with Jeff, who regularly coordinates this English tutoring program. His conversation with us was so inspiring and uplifting. He totally sees this ministry as relational – not evangelical. Our purpose is not to try to convert the Somali people into Christians by tutoring them using the Bible. Our purpose is to help them adjust to their new lives in Canada. Muslims (contrary to the popular stereotypes) are very peaceful, God-loving people who are extremely hospitable and very interested in knowing their neighbors and making friends. Our CSM groups will go into the Somalian homes to make new friends, have new conversations, and develop a new-found respect for people of different faiths. We are a witness to our Christian convictions by our friendship and generosity. Respect and dignity are given on both sides – both by Christians and to Christians. How refreshing.
Towards the end of the night, we experienced what CSM calls L.I.F.E Skils – “Living in Faith Everyday”. This is a program that every group will do at least once while they are in the city serving with us. The basic concept is that we as Christians should live out our faith at all times in very practical ways. Three components of L.I.F.E. Skills are prayer, service, and storytelling. We should be people who dance with God, people who give to others without reason, and people ready and willing to tell our own story when the chance arises. So, our team broke into two groups – Jake and I, and then Jennifer, Jemica, and Jessica. We had two hours to lead ourselves in this exercise. Jake and I went to a park that overlooks the skyline of Toronto and talked about our excitements, fears, concerns, struggles, etc. for the summer and for life in general. We then walked to a bridge that overlooked the Don River and prayed for each other, the rest of our team, the city of Toronto, and other things. We then looked for ways in which we could act out our faith in a gift of service to someone without asking for something in return. I have to admit, I was (and continue to be) a little skeptical of what seemed to be non-random random acts of kindness. It was almost as if CSM makes you be nice to people, but I understand the principle behind the exercise. Keep in mind that most groups that come to work with CSM are junior high/high school age youth groups.
Well, Jake and I couldn’t really find anyone in need of help. So, we decided to talk to a guy who was probably homeless sitting on a bench by himself near St. James Anglican Cathedral on the corner of Church Street and King Street. His name was Fred. Fred was genuinely nice, eager to talk to us, and shared a lot of wisdom about Toronto. We chatted for about 25 minutes and before we left we invited him to Sanctuary (a really cool church/community downtown), and I gave him the only thing I had in my pocket…a token for the subway. Looking in retrospect, Jake and I didn’t really accomplish the mission of the L.I.F.E. Skills challenge. We didn’t actively help someone for no reason, which was supposed to lead to our “storytelling” of why we were helping them in the first place. Instead, we had a conversation with a really cool guy in a churchyard. But, I think we served Fred more than we could have imagined at the time. We assumed he was homeless because he definitely looked the part. There’s no way of knowing, but we could have been the only people to acknowledge him or have an actual conversation with him. I may have been the only person to give him something that day. Or, maybe we were the 50th to talk to him, and maybe he didn’t need my subway token. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we saw Christ sitting on that bench, and we showed him love. We asked his name, we shook his hand, we laughed with him, and we gave him all that we had. Fred may never see us again, and he may never remember us. And that’s okay.
I’m really astounded at the amount of people reading and commenting on my blog. I did not think that many people would take the time to seek out my postings and actually read them, but I’ve obviously been proven wrong. It makes me feel good that people care about my work and ministry in Toronto and are genuinely interested. I’m very, very appreciative to each person who has me on their hearts and minds as I work with CSM this summer. I know that it was – and still is – such a big step to take to work as a missionary in another country, and I’m so thankful that I have so many people, both family and friends, who are behind me and support me.
But, it also makes me sad. Sad for those I’ve been called to serve. Sad for those who don’t know the love and support that surrounds my life constantly. Sad for those who don’t have a family devoted to them. Sad for those who aren’t fortunate enough to have a job. Sad for those who don’t have friends, or have friends that aren’t true and real.
It strikes me in a very hard way that those I minister to on the streets have lives completely opposite of mine. I have everything I need, they have next to nothing. How am I supposed to relate to them, to minister to them, to help them, to get down on their level, and to understand them? One of my favorite spiritual writers – Henri Nouwen – has said that in Christ we are all one and that the achievements and failures of humanity can be found in every person. When someone laughs, I can laugh. When someone cries, I can cry. But, can I really understand the pain and hurt that someone living homeless experiences on a daily and hourly basis? Can I ever truly understand what it is like to not have a family, to not have stability, to not have love? I don’t really know how to answer my own question.
I often wonder why a loving and gracious God would allow people to experience life unloved. Why would God allow people to be so capitalistic, so individualistic, and so materialistic as to put another fellow person into poverty so empty that they lose everything – money, housing, health, family, friends, etc? Why does God allow God’s creation to go astray like this? I also do not know how to answer this question. And, I think that I may never be able to answer this question. But, I’m slowly accepting that fact and appreciating the beauty that is the mystery of God. I don’t and can’t have all the answers. But, I can and must be a part of the question. Why has God called me to this particular ministry? What can I do to alleviate the suffering and despair of my brother and sister living on Gerrard Street, George Street, College Street, or any other place in Toronto or beyond? What can I do to show the love and hope that God so freely offers through Christ? These are questions that I’m slowly starting to figure out. These are the questions that matter.
So after a rambling post, all I’m trying to say is – thank you. To each person who reads this blog and remembers me and supports me. And even if the only contact you have with homelessness or inner-city problems is through me through this site, you’ve helped alleviate the problem. Your prayers and support are so vital to my ministry, and without those I could never serve those who need me most.
Grace and Peace to You All.
I spent this past weekend as a homeless person living on the streets of downtown Toronto. The experience was part of my training with CSM, and the five interns partnered with the summer interns and workers from Evergreen Ministries, which is part of the larger Yonge Street Mission. Evergreen does this experience annually and encourage all of their staff to participate – this summer was CSM’s first go-around.
Friday afternoon our city director took us to Double Take, a community thrift shop, to buy a homeless outfit for each of the CSM interns. I ended up buying an old, dingy baseball cap, a oversized white tshirt, black exercise pants, and some really old black tennis shoes. Once we got back to our housing site and changed, the five of us played in the dirt in the parking lot and a nearby park to make ourselves look more believably homeless. We then drove downtown to Evergreen Ministries.
After an orientation and what to do/what not to do, we (the CSM interns and Evergreen staff) were split into groups. Every six hours during the day, all of us would meet back at Evergreen (we weren’t allowed to go inside again) to switch groups. The smallest daytime group was 2, the largest was 3. Jennifer and I were paired with Steve, the only male intern at Evergreen. We started at 6pm, and were to meet the rest of the larger group at midnight to look for places to sleep. Since all we were allowed to carry was 50 cents for an emergency phone call, we needed to figure out how to make money so that we could eat for the night.
Jennifer, Steve, and I decided to panhandle. If you don’t know, panhandle basically means to sit on a corner or a street and beg for money (“Can you spare any change?”). Most of the time, you use a hat or a cup for passers-by to donate money into. We first decided to try our luck on Church and Wellesley, which is Toronto’s gay village. I hoped that my natural good looks and southern charm could score some major cash (haha). Well…it didn’t. In fact, the only thing I got after about 45 minutes was a pass for a subway ride. Steve didn’t make any money either, but Jennifer got $5 from a transvestite! We then decided to move on to Bay Street (the financial heart of Toronto) and try our luck there. Absolutely no luck for me or Steve, but Jennifer ended up getting $100 from a man smoking outside of Red Lobster who identified his own children in Jennifer. After her streak of luck, we met up with Shannon and Victoria from Evergreen and made our way over to Chinatown on Spadina Avenue to eat dinner!
We met with our larger group at midnight, and broke into two groups of about 8 to look for a place to sleep for the night. Initially my group decided to walk through “Boystown” to experience what some of the darker aspects of the city are. “Boystown” is a part of downtown Toronto that is hidden from site because it is where young guys (about 13-21ish) who live on the street prostitute themselves to older men to make a living. Most of them will tell you that they aren’t gay, but that this is the only way for them to make money outside of drugs. We didn’t really see much going on, so we decided to duck into a hotel lobby to take a rest. My roommate Jake found an empty lounge upstairs, so our group crashed there until about 2am when we were asked to leave. We ended up walking across town to sleep on the campus of the University of Toronto for about 4 hours.
Saturday was a day full of walking. One thing most people don’t realize about being homeless is how long the day seems when you have absolutely nothing to do. Fortunately, we learned the tricks of the trade from a few street kids, and ended up eating all of our meals for free on Saturday. For breakfast we ate at a soup kitchen at St. Stephens-in-the-field Church, for lunch we ate at a community barbeque for the homeless sponsored by a local church, and for dinner we went to a drop-in shelter at St. Peter’s Anglican Church. Saturday night we enjoyed a free, outdoors fiddle concert at Dundas Square until we found a small park to all sleep at near the Women’s College Hospital. Apparently during the night, another homeless man joined our group and slept next to me and I never realized it! I guess he felt safer sleeping in a group of strangers rather than sleeping by himself on the streets.
Our experience ended this morning (Sunday) at 9am with breakfast at Evergreen. Our city directors were waiting to greet us and hear all of our stories.
I knew that this was going to be a tough weekend, and I knew that I’d learn a lot about street life. My heart completely broke for street people because of how lonely, humiliating, and dehumanizing being homeless really is. While I was panhandling, hardly anyone would look at me, give me money, or at least say “I’m sorry.” On a few occassions, people walking their dogs actually tightened their leashes so that even their dogs couldn’t acknowledge me. At one point, a group of people stopped to have a ten minute conversation right in front of me without once looking down at me. It’s really embarrassing and shameful-feeling to have to beg. I couldn’t bring myself to actually look people in the eye and ask for money. When you’re homeless, you lose all dignity and self-respect. It’s such a tragedy.
I’m really glad I got to experience homelessness, if even for only 39 hours. The experience has really opened my eyes to the extent at which people are forced to live because of family, financial, personal, social, or medical problems. I’ve learned that each person on the street – no matter their circumstance – deserves respect and appreciation simply because they are another person. Although I probably won’t give out money to every street person I meet, I will definitely acknowledge their existence with a “hello” or “God bless you.” They deserve at least that much.
So, I’ve made it to Toronto – safe and sound! Although my flight from Raleigh to Philadelphia was a little bumpy and almost made me sick, my flight from Philly to Toronto was relatively smooth and turbulence-free. It was a wonderful 66 degrees when I arrived, which is a much-loved break from the upper-eighties to mid-nineties weather that was starting in North Carolina when I left. I’ve posted a few pictures on my new Flickr account, which you can see by clicking on the link above “A Thousand Words”. I’ll post many, many more throughout the summer.
My blogging is taking a short reprieve as I prepare to leave the US for Toronto. I don’t officially leave until Tuesday, but I’ve got a lot of stuff to do in the meantime (like a crazy amount of work for my online Art Appreciation class). But, my writing will resume once I’ve made it to Canada and start my journey with CSM. It’s going to be a crazy summer, believe me. My first post from Toronto will probably be about my experience living on the street for two days…
In case you want to stalk me (or are genuinely curious) my flight leaves RDU on June 3 at 9:50am. It’s not a direct flight however, so I have a two hour layover in Philadelphia. I should get to Toronto around 2:30 that afternoon.
Keep me in your prayers! You’re in mine.
It seems like the closer I get to leaving for Toronto, the more and more I read. Today I read Henri Nouwen’s book With Open Hands, a short writing about prayer that “gently encourages an open, trusting stance toward God and offers insight into the components of prayer: silence, acceptance, hope, compassion, and prophetic criticism.” One passage struck me as completely true:
Compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you. This partnership cuts through all walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compassion you can say, “In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh; their blood is my blood; their pain is my pain; their smile is my smile. Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself. There is nothing in me that does not belong to them, too. There is nothing in them that does not belong to me, too. In my heart, I know their yearning for love and down to my entrails, I can feel their cruelty. In another’s eyes, I see my plea for forgiveness and in a hardened frown, I see my refusal. When someone murders, I know that I too could have murdered, and when someone gives birth, I know that I am capable of birth as well. In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and hate, life and death.” (92-93)
God of all, so it is.
I just finished reading yet another book that you need to read. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is a short and astounding piece that relates an allegorical trip through both hell and heaven and the promise that salvation is one for all people. If you’ve ever thought about/favored/been interested in the subject and theology of universalism, you should buy or borrow this book. Lewis never makes a claim or assertion that his writing is theology, but it clearly presents a hope that all of humanity may one day know God.
Well, sort of. I’ve never been a huge fan of the book of Revelation for several reasons. One, I’m not a huge proponent of “end times” prophecy. Apocalypses and dooms-day literature don’t exactly satisfy my literary sweet-tooth. Secondly, the book of Revelation – when interpreted literally – gives rise to bad theology and biblical scholarship. Issues like the rapture and a visible, manifestation of a giant Jesus in the sky become problematic. People begin to “predict” the end of the world, and see modern, contemporary catastrophes (such as Hurricane Katrina and 9/11) as “signs of the time”. Some Christians see global climate change (i.e. global warming) and environmental stewardship as non-issues since God will magically escape us from such a dirty place. People interpret Revelation in ways that foretell people being cast (literally) in the pits of hell for things such as being of another religion, being homosexual, being a Democrat, being a soldier at war, making allies with other nations (specifically Muslim), etc. In light of all of these ridiculous things, it should be easy to understand why I am hesitant to apply Revelation to ministry.
But, I’ve slowly started to understand how and why the book of Revelation fits in the New Testament with the Gospel of Jesus, and that the underlying message of Revelation (although probably written by a lunatic in a solitary cave on a remote island) is actually one that I find to warm my heart and soul.
In particular, Revelation 7:15-17 expresses (what I think to be) the core of the prophecy and of the message of Christ.
For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
I think that Revelation is trying to express a time of fulfillment in which their is no need, no hunger, no poverty, no greed, no malice, no envy, no hatred, no discrimination, no animosity, no despair, no depression, no loneliness, no crying. This fulfillment may or may not be a physical “second-coming” of Christ, but I do believe that it will occur. There is a time in which all will join in fellowship at a common table. A time when peace, justice, mercy, love, generosity, and laughter rule. A time when friendships blossom between the conservative and the liberal, the black and the white, the Christian and the Muslim, the gay and the straight, the lame and the able-bodied, the Israeli and the Palestinian, the aristocrat and the redneck, the Democrat and the Republican, the Baptists, the abuser and the abused, the rich and the poor, the hungry and the well-fed. God’s ultimate love will triumph over hatred (satan, if you will) that God’s creation has within itself.
Ultimately, the book of Revelation is not a book of apocalypse (as the original title may suggest), but a book of hope. The prophecy of John is not being fulfilled by terrorist attacks, terrible storms and earthquakes, division among U.S. politics. The prophecy of John of Patmos is being fulfilled in the Church reconciling people to themselves. It is being fulfilled by the work of spiritual people trying to make a positive impact in a creation gone astray.
Seen in this light, Revelation is no longer a book that I avoid. It is beautiful, mysterious, and ultimately true.
I just finished reading Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx by Heidi Neumark. If you are going into ministry of any kind, interested in social justice, or just want a good, soul-catching read then you have to buy this book. Here, I’ll give you the link to Amazon’s book page. My friend Stuart lent me his copy, and it was so good that I’m going to order my own copy just to put it on my bookshelf!
Rev. Heidi Neumark is a Lutheran minister who writes her spiritual memoir concerning the 20 years she spent as pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the South Bronx. She relates intimate stories of her relationships to her parishoners and their often turbulent lives involving drug abuse, sexual/physical abuse, and inner-city violence. Throughout her work, Neumark tells how Transfiguration – once a by-the-wayside church – became a beacon of hope and a force for active social change within the South Bronx community of Prospect Avenue.
I did a little research about Rev. Neumark, and it turns out that she is continuing her amazing ministerial work at a different church now in Manhattan – Trinity Lutheran Church. As a “Reconciling in Christ” church, Trinity openly welcomes with outstretched arms people from the LGBTQ community as full participants in parish life. Neumark is currently the executive director of Trinity Place Shelter which provides safe housing and food for 10 homeless teens who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning who are at a high risk of suicide, HIV/AIDS infection, and hate crimes. The shelter operates as a non-sectarian service and invokes no proselytizing of any kind, although it is sponsored by Trinity Lutheran Church. Taken from the shelter’s website: “Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan laments that mainstream religious bodies have been slow and reluctant to recognize and treat persons who identify as LGBTQ with full acceptance and respect. We are aware that LGBTQ persons are often treated with outright condemnation by those who cite religious reasons for their actions. Knowing that churches have contributed to this pain and oppression, we hope to contribute to liberation and healing through Trinity Place Shelter.”
Isn’t that the true hope and dream of the Gospel?
