Sanctuary

Sanctuary.  A guest who was with us when Manna House began, stopped by today.  He’s been off the streets now for three plus years.  “I’m doing what I need to do.  Going to AA Meetings, going to church, staying sober, watching what I eat, taking care of my health—I quit smoking last year.  I see my old friends from the streets, I say ‘hi’ but then I say ‘goodbye.’  I’m only human.  I have my old weaknesses.  I can’t be around them.”
We talked about the day, when he was still on the streets, and he was at Manna House waiting for his shower, and he stopped a police cruiser from driving into the backyard of Manna House.  He had seen us stop the police before from coming onto the property, and on this day he had stepped up and told the police they could go no further.  I saw from a window in the house what was happening and went out to back him up.  A police officer asked me if I was in charge, and I said “No.  He’s in charge,” and then I pointed at the guest.  The police turned away and left.  Sanctuary.
We had haircuts at Manna House today.  Two volunteers, one black man, one white woman, carefully listened and responded to requests for styles of cut, and offered shaves as well.  During reflection these two volunteers shared about how doing haircuts is similar to the practice of washing feet that Jesus shared with his disciples, and that some Christian traditions continue to this day (including Manna House on the third Thursday of each month at the Foot Clinic).  The first observed, “I can’t really explain the experience, the holiness of what happens, but doing this work brings out the Holy Spirit.  Our faces are a place of intimacy and vulnerability.  We don’t let just anybody touch our faces.  So here our guests gift us with their trust; they offer us their faces.”  The second told about a guest who suffers greatly from mental illness, he doesn’t let anyone get very close to him.  He came up at the end of the day and asked for a haircut and a shave. “I was careful to be especially gentle.  He sat quietly and let me cut his hair and shave his beard.”  Sanctuary.
 “This place is changing me,” another volunteer offered.  “I didn’t come expecting to learn so much, to be offered so much by the guests.  Their humanity is changing me.  I’m learning to offer respect, love, myself, and not see giving as just giving money.  Jesus didn’t offer money to people in need; he offered himself, he offered a healing touch, food to be shared.”  Sanctuary.
I recalled a line from the Rule of St. Benedict: a monastery is to be a “School in the Lord’s Service.”  Manna House is that kind of school.  We learn here how to serve God in serving Jesus incarnate in the person from the streets, the person wrestling with mental illness and addiction, the person deeply grieving the loss of his son, or mother, or wife, or other loved one, the person without work or with work that is never enough for a place to live.  This place teaches us to love one another, to offer welcome and receive welcome, to share life.  Sanctuary.
  Sanctuary, the word comes from the Latin “sanctus” which means “holy.”  A sanctuary is a holy place, which is to say a place set aside from the ordinary, a place to encounter God, but sanctuary is also a place of refuge and protection.  Perhaps, in the end, the Psalmist expresses both as he writes, “I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.  Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.  Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17:6-8).