Welcoming With Open Arms and Not Armed

Welcoming With Open Arms and Not Armed

“I might be murdered as I offer hospitality at Manna House.” For those of us who regularly volunteer or are guests at Manna House this probably seems like an outrageous statement. But the danger of offering hospitality to strangers was certainly brought home by the murder of nine people at Emanuel AME Church last week. They welcomed a stranger into their Bible study, and after an hour he opened fire.

Since then some have called for armed guards at places of worship. Noted Christian ethicist David Gushee, drawing on the Christian just war tradition concluded in a recent essay, “it is terribly sad but not inappropriate for houses of worship to pay for the level of [armed] security required to keep their children and senior citizens from being murdered” (“Unholy guns in holy places” Religion News, June 24, 2015).

            At Manna House we draw on the tradition of the Catholic Worker and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Manna House is not going to have armed guards. As a Catholic Worker house of hospitality we remain committed to peacemaking in accord with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Christian hospitality and armed guards are incompatible. The threat of violence an armed guard represents negates respectful and loving welcome.

Neither I nor other volunteers at Manna House are naïve about the possibility of violence. Manna House is not immune from the violence of the streets. Just this morning a guest told me about his being robbed at gunpoint last night. We still grieve over a guest who was murdered one block from Manna House a year ago. In our ten years there have been some fights and other forms of physical altercations at Manna House. I have had a guest or two threaten to kill me (and the same is true for a few other volunteers). Others have threatened to burn the house down. I know of a Catholic Worker in another city who was murdered by a guest to whom he offered hospitality. I know the risks. I know what Daniel Berrigan said in honest humor, “If you’re going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ you’d better look good on wood.”

            I also know that the desire for security encourages us to live in fear rather than in faith. Such fear can lead us away from God and each other. Fear builds walls and engages in an unending arms race. A desire for security rooted in fear regards others as threats rather than as brothers and sisters made in the image of God. Christian hospitality practices a faith in which we welcome others “as Christ” (Matthew 25:31-46), or perhaps as angels (Hebrews 13:1-3), with our arms open, not armed ready to open fire. I think Tertullian (160-225AD) was right in his commentary on John 18:10-11, "In disarming Peter, Christ disarmed all Christians.”

            What I know most of all is that almost without exception the strangers who come to Manna House for hospitality are vulnerable, hurting, and incredibly loving. They have been victimized by violence, sometimes in their families, sometimes by police, sometimes in prison, sometimes by a spouse or lover. Yet they still love. They still give their best to us when they are with us. This morning they inquired about another guest who is hospitalized. They shared their grief about a family member who died and a friend who is deathly ill. They delighted in conversation and coffee in the backyard. They waited patiently for their names to be called for showers or for socks and hygiene. They welcomed us as strangers into their lives. They showed us again the truth they live by, “Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God” (Psalm 20:7). How can we do less?

Living on a Shoestring

Living on a Shoestring

The shoestring on the front gate at Manna House was gone this morning. When we unlock and open the gate, we use a shoestring to attach it to the fence to keep it from swinging out and blocking the sidewalk. We like simple solutions to problems and this is a pretty simple and effective solution.  Except when the shoestring disappears. And that happens about every other month.

The guests waiting for me to open the gate had noticed.  They shook their heads as they wondered what might be the reason for this grand theft shoestring.

“Some people just take for takings sake,” one cynical guest offered.

“You gotta be real low to have to take a shoestring,” a more compassionate guest observed.

“Maybe he didn’t even know what he was doing,” offered another guest as he circled his index finger around his ear, “You know, some people aren’t all together out here.”

I said, “Maybe he needed a shoestring for his shoe, or to fashion a belt for his pants.”  I also thought, maybe the person had a grievance against Manna House and taking the shoestring was a small act of resistance.

The speculations of the guests were as valid as mine.  Any one of those reasons might fit this month’s theft or account for previous thefts. None of us really knew why the shoestring was gone. I did know I needed to replace the shoestring, and so I did. 

I went inside, found an old worn out shoe discarded in the trash, and took its shoestring.  I was pretty happy the shoestring was black; it would be less noticeable on the gate, and so less likely to disappear anytime soon.  I went back outside, attached the shoestring to the gate, and we were back in business.

Manna House is in a neighborhood where people live on a shoestring. Their resources are thin, as thin as a shoestring (which is the likely origin of the phrase). 

Such poverty wears people down.  A guest collapsed this morning from the heat, from being homeless, and from being very sick. An ambulance was called. We hope he will have a few days in the hospital.  He’s become very thin living on a shoestring.

We are worried about our guests who live outside as the temperatures spike into the upper nineties with thick humidity. Even the guests who do have housing might be at risk. Shoestring living does not include air conditioning.

Shoestring living really cannot even assume having a shoestring. 

A Crisis in Our Country

A Crisis in Our Country

“There’s a crisis in our country” a guest at Manna House said as he shook his head, his voice filled with pain. We were talking about the murder of nine African Americans last night at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. A white man, known for his racist hatred, has been identified as the shooter. All of the victims were shot during a Wednesday evening Bible study at the church.

This church is known as “Mother Emanuel” for its important role in the African American church. One of the church’s founders was Denmark Vesey who sought a slave uprising in 1821. In the 1960’s, during the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King and other leaders frequented the church. The church has a long history of involvement in work for racial justice. 

“There’s too much hate and I refuse to hate,” said another guest with quiet conviction. “This has to stop. The police are killing us and now this.”

“Why do white people hate us?” a guest asked, “What have we done to be so hated?”

“Too many hateful white people,” said another, “too many.”

I listened as a white man to these African American guests at Manna House. All I could do was express my horror and sorrow at these reprehensible murders.  “There’s a sickness in white America,” I said, “something wrong deep in the white soul. Will South Carolina get rid of its racist state flag now? Will white people stop telling racist jokes? Will white people address the way racism infects our politics, our economics, our culture?”

“Good questions,” a guest responded, “But I’m doubtful.”

We had prayed when Manna House opened this morning.  We prayed for the people who were killed, for their friends and family and fellow congregants, and for justice. We stood together, holding hands, white and black, people from the streets and people who are housed, a variety of faiths. We prayed to have the grace to welcome each other to this place, and throughout the morning we shared that grace of hospitality.

A just society looks something like what we experience at Manna House each day. We share goods. We share our lives in stories, laughter, and sorrow. We recognize and respect each other in our differences. We are a small house of hospitality, barely even a mustard seed for God’s Kingdom.

We share a theology at Manna House. Our God is life-giving, loving, and liberating. Our God stands with peacemakers and justice seekers. Our God is thoroughly known in Jesus who identified with the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned, and who taught his disciples to love their enemies. This is a God whose blackness rejects white supremacy and what the Reverend Earl Fisher has called “its soul mate white theology.” This is a God who seeks to create and sustain the “Beloved Community.” In the Beloved Community difference is never the basis for domination. Instead, we delight in diversity as it reflects the beauty of God.

One gift Manna House offers is to be a place where white people can listen and learn from those who are African American. At this time of crisis in our country, this is what we who are white must do. We must go and listen, listen to our African American brothers and sisters. Listen to their pain and suffering. Listen to them tell of the violence and the injustice that this white supremacy system is doing to them.  And as we listen we must ask of ourselves, “What can we who are complicit in this white supremacy system do to dismantle that system and end the horrors of white supremacy?”  In the language of Christian faith, we must both repent and do penance. We must face some hard truths. This killer is one of us. He comes from us. He learned his racist hatred from us. We must stop the killing.

Caitlyn and Christ

Caitlyn and Christ

Caitlyn Jenner is on the cover of Vogue.  Meanwhile, transgender guests Lucy, Jeralyn, and Patty (not their real names) were all at Manna House this week, some homeless, all poor, enjoying the hospitality.

These guests at Manna House likely reflect the harshest truths about being transgendered in our society, and they face those truths without the shields of fame or wealth.  Those harsh truths include homelessness as they are rejected by family, along with physical threats and beatings, and verbal harassment.   There are many studies that show the emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse transgendered people endure in our society.

I have learned a great deal from the transgender guests at Manna House.  They have taught me about their dignity, their perseverance, their sense of humor, and their struggle to survive in a society that is largely hostile toward them.  I wish those who are repulsed by them or respond to them with derisive laughter (and worse) could meet them and learn from them too.

I confess to some unease around the first transgender guests who came to Manna House some ten years ago.  Like everyone else at Manna House, I was committed to providing hospitality to whoever showed up.  Basic to that hospitality is treating everyone with respect; recognizing their human dignity as made in the image of God.  So when Coco came for a shower and a change of clothes, we welcomed her.  But I was not sure what to make of her, and never really entered into much conversation with her.

It was another transgendered guest who transformed me.  I was on the front porch of Manna House one morning and “Suzy” approached me.  “Will you pray for me?” she asked.  As a Roman Catholic raised in the Midwest I had gained enough Southern Evangelical experience to say, “Sure. What would you like me to pray for?”

“Pray that I don’t give up.  Pray that I don’t kill myself.  Pray that I find a church where I will be loved.  Pray that people will love me.”  As all of those requests spilled out of Suzy, she began to cry.

Then she took my hands into hers and said through her tears, “Just pray.”  She bowed her head and I turned my eyes heavenward.  I had never made such a heartfelt prayer in my life.  I asked God to bless Suzy in each of the ways she had requested.  Suzy thanked me and went into the house.  I stood on the porch shaking.

Basic to Christian hospitality is the passage from Matthew 25:31-46 in which Christ identifies with “the least of these” as he says, “whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me.”  Christ, I know, spoke to me that morning in Suzy.  Christ identifies with the transgendered as they are ostracized and rejected, and that might even include one on the cover of Vogue.