September 15th is One Year

It’s September 15.  It happens e very year.  Comes right after September 14 and right before September 16.  You can’t stop it from happening.  You can’t wish it away.  You can’t stop the clock.  It’s an ordinary day for most people.  Not a holiday.  It probably is somebody’s birthday, but not mine.

Grief has taught me that there are days in our lives that have a more profound impact on our lives than others for one reason or another.  It could be a day that makes everything you thought was true becomes a lie or you question if what just happened really happened.

Since June, 2019 I knew September 15 was going to be a special day for me.  June of last year was when we were told by the Methodist Annual Conference that September 15 ,2019 would end our time in the building where we had been doing our ministry for those living on the street and were marginalized. It was a ministry that spanned almost 40 years.

Sunnyside United Methodist Church was a big old run down church that I had grown to love and made a great effort to breathe new life into it after the congregation closed its doors  September 2015. Sunnyside was a place that I knew I could always find God present in the walls, in the people who came to serve, in the people who came needing to be served. Sunnyside was a container for much of my practice as I struggled to understand the teachings of Jesus. Sunnyside was the place where I began kissing the lepers of our time.

But change was happening.  Neighbors complained about our street friends.  They didn’t like the mess that frequented the outside of the church.  They didn’t like the drugs that were being used in our vicinity.  Neither did we.

A church congregation, not yet Methodists, called the Groves had been given rights by the United Methodist Conference to make decisions about the future of the property.  They had plans to make it into a gathering place for neighbors living in houses.  We had that same desire.   We had welcomed many of our housed neighbors in for birthday parties, memorial services, political meetings, book readings, and basketball games to name a few. But we also had a large following of poor amongst us looking for refuge.  We thought we were going to work together to continue the good work of the church. But it didn’t turn out that way.

I know gentrification doesn’t mix well with needy folks swimming in their own pool of unhealthy behaviors and misfortune . Many people in our city have been displaced from the places they called home only to be moved to an unfamiliar environment that didn’t smell or look like their childhood memories.

Our peeps were not welcome at Sunnyside any longer but they didn’t have a place to go starting September 16 of last year.  All they knew was that the church and some of the neighbors didn’t want them here.  They would still be hungry.  They would still be tired.  They would still need a shower.  They would still need someone to reach out a hand to them and welcome them into a place filled with love. We, “the Hard Times Supper” as we were formerly known, became homeless like those we served.

The church and neighbors thought if our program left, our peeps would go away too.  Not true.  People living on the street live in little communities.  They know which homes are safe and helpful.  They know who they can depend on. They know the best outside sleeping accommodations when it rains or snows. These street folks weren’t going anywhere and they laughed at the thought of leaving.  Why leave? There is no place that they would move to that would welcome them.  So they stayed.  And we stayed with them—but outside.  They used to come to us, now we came to them.  They used to tell us what their lives were like.  Now we got to see their lives up close.

I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be on the street for long.  We had found a church that was willing to sell its building to us so we were hopeful and quickly began making plans to make the move.  We thought we had much of the needed finances to pull this transaction off. I admit it was hard for me to wrestle with the fact that a ministry that had very little overhead was now going to need almost $2,000,000 to continue.  What we knew was the work wasn’t done and we weren’t done doing the work.  So I got over my pride and accepted this new cost of discipleship.

After months of positive negotiations the pastor of our soon to be new home pulled out of the deal saying he changed his mind and didn’t want to sell after all. That was pretty hard to swallow.  But maybe there was something better in store for us.

By now it was raining and the temperature was in the 30’s.  It was not much fun being out there serving hot food and conversation.  But we prevailed. I can remember saying I cannot be out here on the street another winter.  This is too much to bear!

Another opportunity came along—better and more expensive than the last.  But it helped us to dream big and bring in other potential partners.  We planned to create a village where our peeps could find all the services they needed to make their next step to a better life in one location. But the lesson we were going to learn here was that something that seems too good to be true is usually too good to be true.

So here we are September 15, 2020.  We’re still on the street.  Our lives continue to be enriched by these lepers turned Jesus in our eyes. I can’t imagine them not in my life. I have had to learn to change my words from “I can’t be on the street another winter” to “I can be on the street if I have to.  If that’s what my friends have to endure, I can too.”

When I pull up at the park at 1:00 PM every day they are there waiting to help me.  They always ask how I am doing and mean it. They can tell when something is troubling me.  When I forget the sugar for their coffee, they remain kind and don’t berate me.  I know their flaws and they know mine.  I’m at peace with life as it is now.  It’s all good.  Even the hard stuff.