This last week, the city of Everett passed a law that increased the penalties for “aggressive” panhandling. Around the same time, some signs began popping up, saying to please not "encourage panhandling or enable addiction" by giving people money, but rather give to local organizations instead (with a list of said organizations). As someone who has worked with folks living outside for many years, this made me angry. I know that further criminalizing folks in poverty or dealing with addiction just won’t work. And that stigmatizing them with signs will only further the divide between those in poverty and those not. I could feel an angry blog post being formed in my mind as I reflected on both of these things. 

But when I sat down to write, anger was not what came out. Hope was. Yes, I was still angry and sad about those things, but hope pushed through.
 
So rather than an angry blog post, what I want to do is offer an invitation. And invitation to dream, to collaborate, and the imagine how our community might engage the reality that in our neighborhoods there are people experiencing poverty, addiction, and mental illness.

I invite you to dream of a Everett community where ALL people can live, be safe, and thrive. Where those experiencing poverty can find stability. Where those dealing with mental (un)health can find health. And where those dealing with the illness of addiction can find healing. And where all can find community and connection. Because this is what all of us want. 

I invite you to imagine about how we can work toward that goal. What if people who lived outside and people who lived inside worked together to end poverty? What if we began to see addiction as an illness, rather than a criminal behavior?  What if our collective imagination could think of ways to engaging these things what we haven’t even thought of?

And I invite you to collaborate about how we can begin to do this work. This month, our little church-in-formation is starting a new organization called Our Common Ground. Our mission is be a community of hospitality and collaboration that is open to all, as we journey together with our neighbors experiencing poverty, addiction, and mental illness. We want to do whatever we can to live out the vision above. But we can’t do it alone. We will need help. 

Because this work of helping all in our community thrive is too important to be left to the professionals. Or those with money and power. Or those who have enough time. There is a place for all of us. We need everyone's voice.

Every once in a while, there is a book that you begin to read and end up stopping a few chapters in, not because you are losing interest, but because you realize that the book is going to be important, and you just don’t have the capacity that week to really slow down and read. Souls in the Hands of a Tender God, by Craig Rennebohm, was the most recent book for me that fits into that category.  I first picked it up last year, having heard from so many people that it was a must read, especially for anyone working among folks who are marginalized by poverty, mental illness, or addiction. But I was in a huge life transition, and just didn’t have the time to really READ a book. But I finally did, and was left wondering why I waited so long.

This book was like an old friend, who is far wiser than you, but willing to stop and help you along. I felt both affirmed and challenged as I read. Affirmed in my belief that community and relationship must be central to working alongside neighbors marginalized by poverty, addiction, and mental illness. But challenged by the fact that believing that, and living that out, are two different things. I discovered a deep sadness within me as a read, realizing how often I had put all of the other elements of being a pastor ahead of the simple call to come alongside people. But it was a sadness that was full of hope, as I saw the challenging but beautiful simplicity of what Rennebohm was calling us to:  companionship with other human beings on this journey of life.

Though this book was full of many things that are worthy of reflection, I want to focus on two things in particular, that have had an impact on me even in the short time since I finished the book. One is the beautiful idea of companionship that Rennebohm lays out. And the other is the idea of “circles of care” that we can be a part of creating in our communities.

Companionship is central to what Rennebohm is talking about throughout this book. The simple yet profound act of walking with someone through the challenges of life. As Rennebohm says, “The aim is not to fix things; it is simply to be together, to be present for one another. Companionship is an unfolding and growing relationship, a way of sharing the world together (72).” This is so important to remember. I am one of those pastors that seems to function well when there is something to fix. I often have a very difficult time just slowing down and truly being present. Though being someone who can get things done effectively has it’s place in the church, it can become a hinderance to pastoral care, and this book was a kind yet constant reminder that simply being present is so much more important that how many people I helped today.
 
Rennebohm describes four key elements of companionship: Offering Hospitality, Walking Side By Side, Listening, and Accompaniment. He weaves these together to paint a beautiful picture of mutual care and support. Hospitality, he shows, is about created space with another. It goes beyond simply welcoming people into your physical location, but creating what he calls sacred space, where someone is welcomed without judgment. From that place you can begin to walk side by side. Rennebohm says that, unlike sitting across from someone, side by side is the natural position of journeying together. It models a relationship of equality, where we walk at the same pace, where questions about where we are headed are discussed, not ordered from one of the parties. Which is why listening is so important on this journey. Though hearing is a part of our daily lives, truly listening often happens few and far between. Where we seek not simply to hear another person, but to understand them. Where we can listen to all that is happening in that moment, and not simply the words being spoken. And to listen for hope. Which brings us to accompaniment, where in both physical, spiritual, and metaphorical ways, we commit to journeying with another, being willing to navigate the twists and turns even when it becomes difficult. 

This vision Rennebohm paints is beautiful. It fills me with hope. Yet even as I typed it, I felt myself questioning how much this is possible. I have been there before, in a space where I wanted to practice being a companion. And where I felt like I dropped the ball. Because this way of being present with another human being on a journey is hard. It can drain you mentally, spiritually, and even physically.  Even when we are healthy, being a companion is something that must be done purposefully and slowly over time. And it is also something that must be done in community.

Which brings us to Rennebohm’s concept of “circles of care.” The work of caring, of healing, of companioning should not be left to one person. Rather, each of us can have a role to play in someone’s journey. And as each of us lives into our role, we can become another connection in someone’s circle of care.  For instance, as a pastor, I can have a role if I encounter someone living outside, who is looking for support on their journey. But let’s say they also need housing. I would try to find someone who know’s the housing situation in my area far better than me, and hopefully they could meet with them. And like that, another person is added to the circle of care. 

This image, of companioning with others and creating circles of care, fills me with hope in it’s simplicity, but also with cynicism, as this way of living is so against our Western consumer culture. A culture that has even infiltrated the church, where many of us look for a place that can fulfill MY spiritual needs. Even in myself I can see how much this goes against my tendencies and desires to get things done and be “successful” in the eyes of the world. Yet at then end of the day, the hope is stronger.

As I picture my own neighborhood of Bayside, in North Everett, I can see how even a small group of people living in this way might change our community. I dream of a community that, rather than kicking people experiencing addiction and poverty out of our parks, comes together to better understand the reality of poverty and addiction, in order to make our neighborhood a safe place for all. I dream of a community that sees people living on the street, experiencing mental illness, and struggling with addiction, and sees them as people rather than problems to fix. People who are hurting, and a majority of whom do not choose to live like that. I know this is a big dream. But like the X-Files poster on my office wall says, I want to believe. I want to know that this simple but beautiful idea of coming alongside people who are hurting and creating networks of care in our community can happen. But it will mean working together, not just with people outside my church and faith tradition, but outside my cultural and socieo-economic and friendship groups, for the bettering of my neighborhood and community. 

But I think it is a neighborhood that we all would want to live in. 

A few years back when I was living in Portland, I saw an article about a church not far from where I was living that wanted to let a few homeless women and children sleep in their cars on the church property.  The church had seen the reality of how many people in Portland were sleeping on the street or in their cars, and they wanted to do something. Because that is what churches should be about.  And one way they wanted to help was by opening up their parking lot to a few people who were sleeping in their cars. Though not ideal (it wan’t actual housing, after all), it would be a start. They were also going to make sure those who stayed there had access to restrooms and garbage cans. All sounded good and simple.

And then some neighbors got wind of what was going on, and their complaints helped to shut down the project altogether. And one of their primary complaints was one of safety. Yes, you're are hearing that correctly. Because a church was going to let just a few women and children sleep in their cars in the parking lot, neighbors were worried about safety. For themselves. The most poignant and heartbreaking reality of all of this was in a statement by the church after the program was shut down:  "The amount of publicity generated by the situation created a hostile environment where the church could not be confident about the safety of the people in the car.”  Yes, you heard that right. The neighbors, out of a concern for “safety,” were so riled up, that the church was concerned for the safety of the women and children.  

I remember being so angry when I first heard this story. It is a perfect example of NIMBY-ism. The “ let’s help people, but how dare you try to help them in my vicinity” mentality. But the reality is that this way of seeing those in poverty who live on the streets or in their car is not limited to this one neighborhood, but has become a part of our cultural myths about those living on the streets.

I was reading an article this week, and this story of the church in Portland kept coming back up in my mind.  The article was simply titled, “Our fear of the homeless is killing the homeless.”  The main idea of the article was that there is a widespread culture of shaming the homeless in our country. From ridiculing people who live outside for engaging in life-sustaining activities, to building a culture of fear about those who live on the streets being dangerous, this narrative is carried along by the news and other powers that be. The reality is, however, that it is those who live outside who are actually unsafe. Those who live inside are actually the ones who are a threat to those who live outside, and not the other way around.

One of the most striking things cited in the article was that the idea that those who live outside are dangerous to people and property is just a myth. The realty is that, though homeless people are more likely to have a criminal record, there are actually less likely to commit a violent crime.

On the contrary, those who live outside are more likely to be on the receiving end of the violence of our system.  Here are a few of the statistics cited in this article:

• The mortality rate for those living outside is around 7 times great than it is for the general population
• Half of the women and children on the street ended up their because of domestic violence
• At least 2/3 of women on the street have been sexually assaulted (and that is likely a low estimate)
• Treatment for everything from addiction to HIV/AIDS is much harder to access when you live on the street
• The average life-expectancy for someone living on the street is between 40 and 50. The average for the general population is 78.

To live outside is to be perpetually unsafe. Those of us who live inside have many layers of safety surrounding us. We have doors to lock. We have neighborhoods who care about safety. We have security systems. We have healthcare, and cars to get us there. We have social networks of people that can help us.  To live outside is to lack most, if not all, of these things. 

Yet our fear of those who live outside contributes to their lack of safety. And part of that fear, I think, comes from the fact that such visible poverty is a reminder of how close poverty can be. To quote the article again:

Criminals. Drug Addicts. Lazy. Dirty. Bringing down the neighborhood. Eyesores. 

These are a few of the things you would likely assume about those living outside, if the only information you received about houselessness was from the media. While it’s true that there are journalists and media outlets that portray those living outside in a better light, by and large, since I have been paying closer attention the last few years, this is the kind of coverage I have seen. 

For example, this morning I woke up to this on twitter: 

The picture shows the reality of poverty, that human beings are living in their RVs, likely moving around week by week so they won’t get harassed. But what does this reporter say? They are in the way for a festival. That they are unsafe and we should be worried.

I was going to rant more about how the media portrays those living outside (and indeed they often do an awful job), but I’m going to hold off on that. Because the thing is, if this was just a media issue, it would be easier to just dismiss. After all, my friends who live outside are by no means the only group that the media regularly shows in a bad light. But I see these perceptions just as much in the broader culture, and the media much more as falling in line with the popular narrative of those living outside, then orchestrating it themselves. Our society wants to believe that to end up on the street means you have some personal failing that brought you there. You were lazy. You were on drugs. You messed up. You are a criminal. We refuse to believe that someone who didn’t make poor life choices could end up on the street. We cling to the American Dream Myth that hard work = success = morality.  We continue to see poverty as a moral failing. And this is much easier to do if we associate poverty and houselessness with tangible acts of social immorality.

Which is why we often don’t notice the media’s portrayal of those living outside. And also why we must. Because, as so many wise people before me have said, the opposite of homeless is not housing, it is community. It is relationship. And the way our society sees those living outside makes is incredibly difficult to find a community where they are welcome, and where they are seen as simply neighbors, rather than shunned. A community where low income housing is met not with fear, but opportunity for our neighbors to succeed.

The way our society sees those living outside continue to build barriers between us and those who live outside. So let us work toward bringing those barriers down.
 

While scrolling through my news feed the other day, I read the first of what would be many articles I would read about my former city of Portland, and one way that they are choosing to address those who are living outside: The Homeless Sweeps. This is nothing new, and has been done from time to time since long before I ever started working among those living outside in Portland. I have seen them happen to my friends, and have seen the devastating effects the sweeps can have on people who are already pushed to the margins of our society. But the fact that is still occurring, and even increasing in certain areas of our country, just made my heart heavy. That this tactic, which is proven time and time again to do nothing to help those who live outside and only to protect the middle class from having to see poor people in their area, is being wielded by the powers that be.

If you are not familiar with the sweeps, they happen when the city decides - either on their own or because of citizen (read: middle class) complaints - to clear out anyone sleeping in a certain area. They are required to give at least 24 hours written notice before they clear out an area, but that is not always that much time if you happen to be gone for the day. Then the police show up one day in force, and make everyone who they think is sleeping there move out of the area, with the threat of arrest should they not comply. If people are gone, their possessions are confiscated. Now, legally, the city must hold their possessions (which for many is their worldly belongings) for at least 30 days (4th amendment and all that), and make a reasonable effort to get it back to them. But having seen this stuff firsthand, I can say I rarely saw any effort to locate the owners, and in fact i have seen friends of mine who tried to get their stuff back have a very difficult time finding out where it was being kept. 

Often the folks who were being cleared out would ask the officers where they can sleep, if they aren’t allowed to sleep in this area. They were never given a straight answer. Often they were told by the officers, “I don’t know, you just can’t sleep here.” I have asked officers this myself and not been given an answer. I have been in a room with the downtown Portland precinct commander who was asked this question, and even he couldn’t give us a straight answer. So what those who sleep outside hear is that you can’t sleep here, and you can’t sleep anywhere. That you are not welcome in this city. That basic life sustaining activities like sleeping are not available to you because of your economic status.

Given all of this, I find it telling that the powers that be don’t like it when people use the word “sweep.” The police spokesmen says that clearly in the article. They don’t like that term. Because it describes accurately what is happening:  the sweeping of human beings. Just look at any article about the sweeps. You will likely see the city, the police, and the media talk about cleaning up an area as a reason for the sweeps. Cleaning up people. Sure, they will point to the actual garbage in the area, and the need to clean that up. (Which, by the way, is a by product of not having a garbage can outside of your back door like us good middle class consumers do.) But in the end, the result is the sweeping of human beings.

And at the end of the day, sweeps will not work. They are the city wide equivalent of me shoving all of my toys under my bed, and then telling my mom that my room is clean. Only instead of a messy toys in my room, we are talking about people, and the injustice that so many people sleep outside every night in our prosperous nation. I do not have all the answers for what a city should do. I am a pastor, not a public policy person. But regardless of what solution they come up with, people deserve to be treated like human beings, deserve to practice life sustaining activities without harassment, and deserve to have a say in the solution to their own situation. 

And sweeps deny them all of this, which is why they need to end. 

“Come on Punky Brewster, let’s go! We need to finish this!” I yelled those words quietly but angrily at our dog this last weekend. We were finishing up a walk, and she thought that would be the best time to stop and smell everything we walked by, and even to roll in some unknown goodies in the grass by the sidewalk. It was like she could sense my hurry, and was just pushing my buttons, trying to get me to slow down.  By the later half of the walk, I was annoyed. I was on a mission to finish this walk now, and Punky Brewster was going to listen and stop dragging her paws. Or so help me God...

This story would be nothing more than a little amusing, if not for the fact that this wasn’t just an everyday walk, but a journey on one of the neighborhood labyrinth’s that our church-in-formation has started practicing. These were something my wife and co-pastor Rebecca created, as we talked with those around us about what it would look like to begin spiritual practice that is focused on our neighborhood. Rebecca had inspiration for this idea for the neighborhood labyrinth walk after reading a children’s book to some kids in our neighborhood. The story she was reading was about talking an older dog for a walk, and how the person walking the dog was forced to slow down because the dog couldn’t move as fast as it once did. But in slowing down, the dog’s owner was able to notice things they had not noticed before in their neighborhood.  Rebecca loved the idea of slowing down on a walk, for the purpose of seeing, listening, and noticing things we may have missed in our neighborhood.

So there I was. Annoyed at our dog. For causing me to slow down, which is one of the main purposes of the walk I was on. An act that mirrored the very story this spiritual practice was inspired by. The reality of that hit me not long after the walk was finished.

You see, I am not always good at slowing down. At taking the time during a busy week to take a deep breath and truly listen to my neighborhood. To see what God is up to in unexpected places. To see beauty in my community that I might otherwise miss. To notice pain and injustice that I might have overlooked.

It is so easy for me to let that spiritual practice of listening become simply another task to accomplish. Something that needs to be done in pursuit of something else. A means to an end. Rather than a way of life. A practice that helps me live out the gospel of God’s love and justice in our world.

Labyrinths have traditionally been a place where one could slow down. Where one could re-center themselves on the sacred. Labyrinths are by their very nature a spiritual practice in not taking the most efficient path, but rather seeing that the journey to the center can be long and winding. They are also a place to slow down our minds and to listen. To the Spirit. To the sacred. 

As our community continues to practice these neighborhood labyrinths, I pray that I might build into my life a rhythm of listening and being present in the physical space in which I dwell, Bayside neighborhood in Everett. I want to see our church-in-formation not simply survive, but be a presence of love and justice in our community, seeking the good of our neighborhood.

And slowing down and listening is a good place to start.


*We will be walking these Neighborhood Labyrinths every month, in each of the five neighborhoods in North Everett. Come and join us! Here is the next one coming up.

“Looks like it’s going to rain,” one of my friends said, as we were standing outside in downtown Portland a few years back. “Really?” I replied, looking at the sky and seeing a little too much blue to think about rain. “Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly, as he began to gather up his things and pack them away where they would be protected from any sudden storm. My friend, like two thousand other people in the Portland area, happened to live outside, and most of his stuff fit into the large pack he carried. As he packed up his belongings and we began to walk away, I notice other outdoor dwelling folks packing up their stuff as well, occasionally glancing at the sky. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, I feel the first drop, and soon after it is pouring. 

You see, when you live outside, a little thing like a rain shower, mere annoyance for most of us in the Northwest, can be a much more serious threat. Particularly if it is cold out, as it was with that day with my friend. So knowing when it might rain is vital not only to your comfort, but also to your survival. My friend was not an expert on the weather. But he was an expert on surviving. And since his survival depended a deep connection with his place, including knowledge about the rhythms of the weather, he was ready to go the minute he sense that rain was coming.

Those who live outside inhabit the extremes of place. On one hand, they are more connected to the land that they live on than almost anyone else in the city. They have to be in order to survive. Downtown is not a place to come work and play before you head back to your safe suburban house. It is home. They know the ins and outs of this city:  where to get dry, where to make your money go the furthest, and where you are less likely to get harassed by the police.  Their survival depends on being connected to the place that they inhabit.  But on the other hand, that are some of the most dis-connected to their place. They have no land to call their own. They are often driven out of the public space that they are on, by the powers that be that don’t like such visible poverty in their midst, or by those that associate houselessness with crime. They are seen as an issue, not as people, and as such often have little control over areas of their lives that we take for granted. My friends who live outside have a deep wisdom about their place, but a wisdom that is often overshadowed by the fact that they sleep outside. 

I have been thinking quite a bit about this story this last season of life, ever since my wife Rebecca and I have accepted a call to explore a new church community in Everett, WA. Both of us from day one have been asking the question, “What would a church look like that is intimately connected to the land, the rhythms, and the culture of Everett?”  We want to be a church community that deeply knows the place in which it dwells, and lets this knowledge shape who we are.  I have also been thinking about this story this week, as we get ready to spend a few days with other practitioners at the Inhabit Conference. Every year this group gathers to ask how our churches, ministries, and organizations can practice the mission of Jesus in the place that they dwell.  It will be attended by people from all over the country (and even the world), many of whom are doing some amazing and beautiful things in their communities.

Yet in these stories, I can’t help but see the privilege that we enjoy. For Rebecca and I, place is not a matter of survival, but rather something we have the privilege to explore. We were able to move here from out of state (though it is coming home for Rebecca), with the support of an amazing denominational community, knowing that each of us have at least part-time jobs for this next season. Regarding the Inhabit Conference, in order to participate, one needs to travel to Seattle, take time off of work, find a place to stay, eat meals, etc. All of these make it more accessible to those with privileges of time and finances. Conferences, by their very nature, are less accessible to those whom connection to place is more about surviving than about exploring the idea of place.

I very much believe in the church. And I believe that being connected to one’s place is one of the best ways that the church communities can live out God’s mission of love and justice in the world. But If we as the Church are going to take seriously the importance of place, then we also must take seriously the fact that there are people that have been living out this idea in our communities long before there were conferences and books and blogs about place. We need to take seriously that there are people like my friends who live outside, who carry a deep wisdom about place, but often have little access to the conversation. We need to recognize that the more steam and exposure an idea like place gets, the more it gets commodified, which will inevitably push it into the hands of the privileged. 

And one way we can stand against this is to make sure we not only listen to those on the margins, but sit under them with a willingness to learn, in our desire to inhabit well the place in which we live. And in doing so, we not only learn better how to be a church that is rooted in our place, but we also learn how to live into God’s Kingdom, a place where those whom are often pushed to the margins have a place at the center, and those at the center get to step back and learn from those at the margins. 

And together, we can live out God's mission of love and justice in our communities. 

Over the years of working in and around the streets of downtown Portland, I have talked to many folks who, for different reasons, find themselves living outside. I have listened to how many different people talk about their situation, and one of the resounding things I have heard is a sense of failure. Because we live in a culture that sees success in terms of power, money, and recognition, they see themselves as having failed at all of that. Since the "American Dream” (which in reality is more of the American Myth) says that hard work equals success (which usually means money and power), and their hard work did not, they see failure.*

I read a Facebook post today talking about the moralistic fallacy we make when we make we we equate what “ought” to be (that hard work will lead to financial stability) from what “is” (that in our context hard work in only one factor, whose influence is often small compared to, say, if your parents have money). How embedded this is in our society can be seen in so many ways. You can see it in dehumanizing system we force those in poverty to go through to get their meager benefits. We can see it in how we think we should have a say in what folks on food stamps do with their limited money.  And we can see it in the reality that those of us in the middle class and up actually see those in poverty and living on the streets as less than human.

The fact is, this myth needs to stop. It is hurting people. I am not saying I have all the answers, but if we can't recognize that our economic "success" is not just about how hard we work or how smart we are, we will continue to lose the imagination we need to ask better questions and find better solutions. And there will continue to be a larger and larger wall between those in poverty and those in the middle class, a wall that desperately needs to be broken down, because it is preventing the relationships and community that is vital to moving forward. 

I say all of this as a pastor, and I see relationship and community as central to anything we do in regards to those in poverty. But I think this goes beyond the faith community. Our whole society would be better if we stopped blaming the poor for their situation, and took the time to get to know them. If we truly listened to the complex situations and forces that led people to end up where they are.

How can we do this better? How can we begin to create a culture that sees success outside of money and power? How can we challenge these harmful myths that ignore things like class and privilege and put the blame solely on poor people? And how can begin to imagine, and create, communities where one’s economic situation is not a hinderance to being a participant in the life of the community?

We can do better. I know we can. Let's do it together.


*In case anyone wants to ask, yes, I occasionally met folks who were ok living outside. But it was a very small number. Most, by far, did not want to be there. Some had lost hope. Some did not know how there could get out of where they are. But very, very, very few were actually ok with living outside. This is another myth that needs to go away.