BOSTON -- Wind, sleet and ice pelt volunteers and ministers of Common cathedral as they prepare for Sunday services – outdoors -- this week on the steps of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston.
The Rev. Kathy McAdams, wears a long ski parka, woolen hat and heavy gloves, as she directs traffic, hefts boxes and greets men who trickle up the stone stairs. Some are visiting pastors from other churches. Others are men she recognizes as regulars to Common Cathedral, a street ministry that tries to fulfill the spiritual needs of homeless men on Boston Common.
“How are you?” she asks one man with a backpack slung over one shoulder. Backpacks, duffles and plastic garbage sacks make up the baggage of homeless men and women always on the move from shelter to shelter, from bench to doorway to food line.
“Cold,” says the man, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and no coat.
“Where’d you stay last night?” she asks.
The answers, depending on the time of year and the weather, could be a shelter, or a doorway, or beneath blankets and tarps out in the open. McAdams greets the men with genuine interest and concern as ministers set up food and a makeshift altar on the damp steps of the historic church. A few men who attend these services are what some call passing-through homeless, but the priest will tell you that many have lived on these streets for years, decades even.
McAdams dispenses hugs and a kind and willing ear as she and her ministers prepare for an informal service, given against the backdrop of beeping machinery, honking car horns, and snow plows scraping paved paths across the street.
A few locals hustle by, heads down, walking fast to keep warm. Mass is being celebrated on a simple wooden cart draped with purple cloth and presided over by young ministers in ski parkas, gloves and hats on the steps of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. About 20 people -- homeless visitors and visiting church members and ministers -- have shown up for today’s services. Only the most dedicated brave the weather, which has driven the churchgoers from the park across the street.
Four purple candles set in glasses surround an empty wooden crèche, symbolic of the waiting for the birth of Jesus Christ during Advent. Boxes of sandwiches packed individually in plastic baggies, a birthday cake, coffee, fruit, chips and other food are stacked against the church wall.
The sacramental wine is grape juice poured from a clear plastic container. The communion host is a large piece of dark bread shaped like a peanut butter cookie. Ministers take communion to the group, breaking and offering bread in front of each person and passing out juice in small plastic cups. The words are at once tender and hopeful.
Those who have gathered sing "Kumbaya" and "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." They are given an opportunity to respond with thoughts about the sermon or with prayers for loved ones and those on the street. No one from the small group of homeless comes forward today, but one minister confides that often people do and the service can go on for long periods if someone has a lot to say.
“I work with a lot of people who despair, whose lives are so tough that they’ve sometimes given up, and I think one of the most important things we do in our ministry is to help people to hold onto hope,” says McAdams, executive director of Ecclesia Ministries and the Common cathedral.
At 42 and an Episcopal priest for six years, she is a veteran of homeless outreach, working with homeless first in San Francisco and now at the helm of organizations that minister to the homeless on Boston Common.
Some 7,300 people in Boston are considered homeless, according to McAdams, who says that number doesn’t include people living in hotels or on couches.
A regular Sunday service held in good weather on the Common can draw a hundred or more in the summer. The circle of those holding hands is much larger. Usually, a banjo player comes and the music is lively. But with weather like today’s, numbers are small.
“To hear people who have practically nothing materially talking about God is just amazing,” said McAdams. “Just to hear the gratitude, to hear them talk about how they feel taken care of and they’re so grateful is something that I don’t hear from people who have lots and lots of stuff.”
She said she was most surprised about the sense of gratitude and joy and humor homeless people sometimes have in the face of tremendous adversity. “I really thought their lives were going to be more about trying to make it through,” she said. “There is that element, but there also is just a lot of joy, of humanity, of loving life.”
Ninety percent of the community served by Common cathedral is men because few women and children live on the Common. Most of the homeless community there are what McAdams calls “somewhat chronically homeless.” Some have been on the streets or in shelters years. Some have had drug or alcohol problems or have recently gotten out of prison. Others just fell on hard times.
There are about 350 people, she said, living outside on Boston’s streets year around.
“This is my church pretty much,” said one homeless man, who gave his name as Kenneth Ashcroft, 39, a military veteran and divorced father of two grown children.
Ashcroft, a member of Common cathedral, says he has lived on the Boston streets during the harshest winter months for two years. Sunday, he wore dark jeans, work boots, a dark stocking cap, and a dark hooded sweatshirt. His backpack was clean. His face was cleanly shaven.
The appearance is deliberate. Too many bags, too many days since a shower and shave, and he wouldn’t be able to pass for just another man on his way walking to or from work, strolling around town, or doing research in the library.
Ashcroft is unusual in that in the spring, summer and fall, he lives on a small stipend in Virginia, where he is studying and working in forestry. He said he has a degree in mechanical engineering and lived a fairly normal life before disaster struck.
“Mine was strictly financial,” he said when asked how he became homeless. “I got divorced. You lose a lot of things after that.”
After the divorce, he says, everything changed. His descent into poverty and then homelessness began with living week-to-week in motels, then at friends’ houses, but he found he couldn’t keep imposing on his friends, and he couldn’t afford housing. His children are grown now and going to school, but he tries not to tell them too much. He doesn’t want them to worry.
Now he has a night job in a factory. “It’ll keep me busy for the winter,” he says. “It’ll help me with supplies, but it won’t get me off the streets.”
For now, he sleeps in homeless shelters and naps during the day in places like the library. He sometimes can do laundry at friends’ houses or take showers at the Starlight Ministries. One more year of this, and his internship will be over and he’ll have a permanent job.
When he first got on the streets, before he learned where to shower and find places to do his laundry, “I saw how people would treat the homeless – they’d shun them.” He spends a lot of time staying clean – washing his laundry, showering, shaving, cleaning up, so he doesn’t encounter that stigma so much.
Raised Catholic, Ashcroft has explored different religions. He said he discovered most churches wouldn’t welcome him as a homeless man. Before he learned how to keep himself and his clothes tidy on the streets, he would go into a church, and “they would follow me with distrust.” One day, however, he was walking across the Boston Common and saw a Common cathedral service around park benches near the fountain. He said he stopped to listen, and he’s been coming ever since.
He isn’t much for organized church anymore, he said. But here in the outdoors, with McAdams and her fellow Ecclesia ministers, other homeless people, passersby and visitors from other churches, Ashcroft finally feels welcome again.
There is the Eucharist. There are readings from the Bible, a sermon, singing. Afterwards, food is handed out and there’s a Bible study. Today it’s being held in the basement of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
The Common cathedral is not a traditional church in the sense of having a building to sit in -- most Sundays the service is held around park benches in the Boston Commons.
But it’s his church.
“I think that you find a little bit of God in everybody, and it’s on this level that God really matters,” he said.
McAdams also feels most comfortable here, among the poor.
"I understand God to be walking with us, loving us eternally," she said. "I believe in resurrection, which allows me to be hopeful that either in this life or the next that things will be better than they are now."
She said she also has faith that through God humanity can change, that humans can bring about a better world.
"We can help to usher in the Kingdom of God to restore the world to the way God created it, God intended it, which is about justice and everyone having enough, and peace and love."
Email Me | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Comments (13)
Buddhism is actually atheism, directed against the superstition of Hinduism.
January 16, 2008 6:00 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 16, 2008 18:00
Yes, there are people, some religious and some not, whose service is self-serving, and there are also those who won't give food or shelter without preaching first--or after. But you might notice if you read the Gospels that Jesus didn't do it this way. He healed, fed, comforted without imposing any requirements. And there are still people who do this. As St. Francis of Assisi told his followers, "Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary." If people see in our actions something worth emulating, then we've preached a much finer gospel than any sermon ever proclaimed. Other postings above unfortunately indicate that too often that gospel of compassion is replaced by a message of domination and oppression.
December 20, 2007 11:34 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 20, 2007 23:34
to Artistkvip (and paganplace who seemed not to notice)
The song attributed to Janis Joplin is "Me And Bobby McGee" which was written and first recorded by Kris Kristofferson.
As for the topic, yes, there are religious organizations that "help" the poor and those on the streets so they can proselytize or even to look good to others. There are also many organizations, religious and secular that help simply because people need help.
A couple of questions come up .
Why do the street people have to worship outside on the steps of a church? Why are they not allowed inside?
For that matter, why don't the churches offer shelter and job assistance to those needing help,especially in the type of weather that was described?
December 19, 2007 1:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 13:22
And not to rant too much, but a lot of the food-bank infrastructure is so busy being all about their 'God,' that a lot of places would rather let families go hungry than accept donations from the inevitable food drive at Pagan festivals.
It's actually *hard to give the food away, at least without obscuring the source of it.*
So, feh.
December 19, 2007 1:33 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 01:33
Same with 'Catholic Charities' by the way.
They also chose to shut down rather than help the poor without trying to use people's destitution to enforce their religious tabooes.
December 19, 2007 1:28 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 01:28
I mean, hey. the Christians were all lamenting how it was 'government oppression' when the Salvation Army decided to close shelters and not help people at all cause someone said they shouldn't be able to use government money to queer-bash and proselytize.
That's right. If we can't queer-bash, we won't help the poor with that money the 'evil secular government *gave us.*
Forget about it.
December 19, 2007 1:27 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 01:27
Fact is, before the 'faith based initiatives' even made it *legit,* most of those religious 'privately-funded' charities that served only their own in fact got most of their funds from the *government* *anyway.*
December 19, 2007 1:23 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 01:23
"Janis joplin said freedom was just another word for nothing left to loose..."
Oh, but how I used to belt out that song. :)
"i think this in my experience is one of the most painful yet freeing truisms i myself have ever experienced.... when one is stripped of everything except the simple human dignity we all possess at some level and my faith then i truely know i think a peaceand a sense of faith and wonder that people who go about thier business wrapped in the rags of personal possesions, pride, and entitlement never know existsts."
I think that's kind of the point. Gods know that in times of my destitution, I met some of the RebeccaTs of the world, and others who thought that their 'devotion to the poor' didn't mean actually bothering to help anyone if they didn't kneel in the right place.
But these are about more possessions, prides, and entitlements, really, even if some say it's 'God.'
I think the way that the Christian conservatives *hurt* the poor, then funnel half or a third as much back *through* professional proslytizers, who of course spend a lot of that money and effort on proselytizing and being 'faith-based' *gatekeepers* for who gets fed, talks more about *the entitlements of the rich* than the needs of the poor.
They may have grand little services that they feel all enriched by, but, no, they ain't out there with the food. Call me cynical.
I think I'm allowed.
December 19, 2007 1:21 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 19, 2007 01:21
janis joplin said freedom was just another word for nothing left to loose...i think this in my experience is one of the most painful yet freeing truisms i myself have ever experienced.... when one is stripped of everything except the simple human dignity we all possess at some level and my faith then i truely know i think a peaceand a sense of faith and wonder that people who go about thier business wrapped in the rags of personal possesions, pride, and entitlement never know existsts.... it is one of the most baffleing thinggs to me that in some cases when a person loses all and has faith in God they can somtimes find themselves or maybe it is the knowledge of somthing bigger than oneself that frees the mind from the need to constantanly fix.... everything...somtimes adding or merely experiencing what is reality instead of perception of expextations... but i don't think anyone... even those who are so blessed with this knowledge would willingly choose to follow this path. remember if the ducks are worth feeding in the park so are the homeless and remember if you give a gift of food or money to somone less fortunate if is is truely a gift you should not care what they do with it. gifts are given freely dont act like you have hired an employee or purchased a slave with a couple of dollars..if it not a gift don't pretend to be giving...
December 18, 2007 11:05 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 18, 2007 23:05
That's not the point, Rebecca. The point is that just because there's plenty of poor people out there who'll be pious, sincerely, or on demand, doesn't mean that people can walk in and define what life on the street is according to an agenda.
December 18, 2007 10:45 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 18, 2007 22:45
yeah, it's just terrible that the bible beaters show up in the cold to have service for those who want it and offer a little food and comfort. How dare they. I'm sure it's just a cover for their real hope - to rape, villify and marginalize all the people who aren't like themselves. They aren't fooling anyone!
It's so good that the readers here can see right through their do-gooding to make sure we aren't fooled into missing their nefarious schemes.
But hey - nothing like peace and goodwill towards all and all that crap.
December 18, 2007 4:42 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 18, 2007 16:42
Basically, you look only at what comes into the churches for a good old kumbayah, you miss out on all the people the churches rejected. The ones that hear sermons and determine they're demon-afflicted. The queers, the Pagans, the gutterpunks, the crazies. Those that probably wouldn't be on the street in the first place if they hadn't been cast out like the 'God-pushers' in the comfortable world seem to keep demanding.
Salvation Army maniacs that'll try and rape you while saying how healed their God made them.
Forget about it.
One thing to say for it, though, ....it's *simple.* People *will be real* if they can. There's nothing else, apart from whatever gets you thorough. I've seen my Gods there, and people who know, 'We're homeless, not stupid,' who resent people coming in and telling them it's lack of piety that brought them there, or that we're supposed to parade our destitution for the benefit of moralistic do-gooder... Well, I got called an 'Angel' more than once doing my Pagan bit out there, and saw no need to go telling anyone differently.
I wouldn't last fourty eight hours out there, these days. As it is, my health may never recover.
And it's been a lot of years.
No pedestals. No illusions.
But, yes, there's something about life that Bible-beaters forgot in all that. Something you can't read or pontificate about or appropriate.
December 18, 2007 12:52 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 18, 2007 00:52
"She said she was most surprised about the sense of gratitude and joy and humor homeless people sometimes have in the face of tremendous adversity. “I really thought their lives were going to be more about trying to make it through,” she said. “There is that element, but there also is just a lot of joy, of humanity, of loving life.”"
Guess what. You don't have to be Christian for that.
It *is* about trying to make it through, when the missionaries and the Jesus-freaks go home to dream of sugarplums. It's a long-ahem slog, it's not some glorious enlightened 'blessed are the poor' netherworld, ...but things are just so *thin* at times that it doesn't take much light to get through them.
The Boston streets *I* knew did a lot better job of being multicultural, multifaith, and yet actually *sharing* the sacred than missionaries and Bible-thumpers ever can when they come to trying to set policy or tell the comfortable what it's all about to be homeless.
Don't make that mistake.
December 18, 2007 12:31 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 18, 2007 00:31