A Place of Mercy: Finding God on the Street What is it? • A series of roughly chronological snapshots reflecting theologically on experiences at the House of Mercy in Rochester, NY. The House of Mercy itself is an outreach to the homeless and poor in a medium-sized, rust-belt city. They engage in food distribution, emergency housing, advocacy and assistance with welfare, utility companies, landlords, chemical dependency, medical problems, veteran benefits etc. It was founded by Sr. Grace Miller who spontaneously began handing out surplus food to people out of the back of her car in 1985. She eventually received funding to move into an old run-down home in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Rochester. The House of Mercy continues to operate in this original spirit of impromptu generosity twenty years later. What makes the House of Mercy unique? They practice radical hospitality, which means they turn no one away—even those who are dangerous. The nearly fatal shooting of C.W. New Years Eve 2005 demonstrates this commitment. They also espouse a unique spirituality that is informed by Catherine McCauley’s ideals, but not restricted to the charism of the Sisters of Mercy. How I became involved In the Summer of 1993 I taught Sexual Ethics at St. Bernard’s Institute in Rochester and Sr. Grace Miller, the founder of the House of Mercy was a student in that class. She was enthusiastic about my classes and took others from me and she invited me to become a part of her outreach to the homeless. The Purpose of the Book • I originally set out to systematically develop the theology of radical hospitality that Sr. Grace had so eloquently described and that I had been a witness to for so many years. • However, whenever I tried to develop the theology I found myself retelling the stories that I had lived, as well as the ones I had learned from others and had made my own. • From my perspective it seemed theology of radical hospitality was inextricably tied to the ongoing narrative of the House of Mercy. • The book does not develop a theology abstractly, rather, it describes a theology as it was witnessed and lived by one observer. • There is almost something unintended about the final form of the work—natural and unplanned. I just wrote down the stories as they came to me. Nonetheless, there are consistent themes for each chapter that unite the various stories. • Therefore, the book tries to be reflectively descriptive, not logically prescriptive. • It is an attempt to test the claim that one not only sees the mystery of God differently from the perspective of the poor, but that one sees it more clearly. One thing that I think is refreshing about the work is that it leaves the answer to this question to the reader. • In the end, the decision to use narrative might be more sensible than one might first imagine. Most of the foundational documents of Christianity are narrative accounts and so are many of the Christian classics like Augustine’s Confessions and the historiographies of the Saints. Yet contemporary theology insists on a prosaic, philosophical style. • A Place of Mercy, therefore, might be understood as postmodern in the way it does not conform to the prescribed style of theological discourse inherited from modern theologies, and it does consciously and freely borrow from other forms. • A Place of Mercy is also an unusual hybrid product. It is a kind of memoir, but at the same time, it is also a type of ethnographic study that depends on a collective memory that was the result of numerous interviews with key figures to make certain I got both the theology and the facts correct. • It is also a kind of theology, but it does theology by way of reflection on experience, much like the sorts found in various religious formation processes. In the long history of Christianity this type of literature is not novel or unusual at all. • The title was carefully crafted. The phrase “a place of mercy” is a reference to both the House of Mercy and the streets themselves. A passage that I will read later will clarify this relationship. The subtitle uses the word “finding” to evoke the image of theological discovery, as opposed to some theological approaches that logically construct God, so to say, ex nihilo. Theological Themes • Image of God — A fundamental theology distinguishes itself by its conception of God. Who or what is God and what difference does belief in this God mean? In the case of this theology, what is God for people who live on the streets of North America? One of the surprising outcomes of the book was the discovery that the God we encountered on the street was not a white monarch, but an African-American matriarch. • Spirit — Theology must also deal with issues of spirit, inspiration and revelation. It has to answer questions of how human beings relate to a transcendent realm and how that transcendent world can communicate with us. Rather than being abstract and ethereal as Spirit is so often portrayed, we discovered Spirit in the mundane and visceral struggle to contradict the forces that constitute our inhospitable world. • Justice — The right order of God stands out in abrupt juxtaposition against the disorder of human society in the lives of the homeless. Justice achieves a clarity on the streets that is hard to match anywhere else in North America. I knew justice then better then than I ever had known it before, or since. • Peace — The House of Mercy was a peacemaking laboratory where Peace was constantly being made, broken and remade. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they will see God. In the chapter Swords into Plowshares, the book recalls a number of typical episodes that describe the peace being broken and repaired. • Death — It has been said by others that human life has meaning to the degree that our deaths have significance. The very recent case of Reta Reingruber here is Chicago highlights the way in which society undergoes a crisis of meaning when confronted with the relatively valueless deaths of homeless individuals. Obviously, when Reta was alive our society did not care enough about her to provide the most basic resources to keep her alive. Why, then are we agonizing over the futility of her death? On the street death is very close to meaningless and so it raises deep theological questions about the purpose of human life and the existence of a God who could countenance such a hollowed out creation. Is human life really so worthless? • Wandering — Immersion in the uncertain world of the poor taught us that spirituality is born and formed in circumstances where we either have relinquished, or lost control. The liberated Egyptian slaves learned this in the desert. Jesus encounters this in the garden the night before his death. We at the House of Mercy learned this lesson daily on the streets with the homeless. • The Paradoxes of Faith — Ministry at the margins of society is cluttered with surprises and paradoxes. For instance, in communion with the poor we discovered it was not the strong who saved the weak, but the weak who saved the strong. The book recounts one such instance when the homeless guests at the House of Mercy reached out to hungry children and created their own before-school breakfast program for kids waiting for their bus. • Integrity — Homelessness confronted us with people who did not fit in with mainstream society. It also confronted us with the inadequacies of our social systems to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. We were constantly questioning our own integrity asking at what point does compromise and conformity to social norms in order to attract mainstream funding and approval become a betrayal of those suffering at the hands of these systems? • Idolatry — We should never treat other human beings like objects, but always as ends unto themselves. I think we should also not treat objects as ends unto themselves, but only as a means to an end. Idolatry comes in many flavors, and in recent times security has evolved more and more into an end unto itself. The streets and the people who occupy them are frightening for much of America and the homeless have become targets of misguided efforts to make life more safe, homogenous and predictable. One of these security measures, fingerprinting welfare recipients, was an issue the House of Mercy fought a long and unsuccessful battle against. • Crucifixion and Sacrifice — It is absurd, though nonetheless true, that the most caring and compassionate people in human society are frequently singled out for persecution. The chapter titled, The Trial, recounts the events surrounding the arrest and trial of three Sisters of Mercy who work at the House of Mercy who were brought before the courts on charges of criminal trespass because of their protest against fingerimaging welfare recipients.