The Early Years: Outreach Take 1

I have been an outreach worker in three different capacities during my Hammer days.  The first time was when I was fresh out of university.  I loved it and it wrecked me and I loved it.  There is something about meeting people in the midst of daily life instead of an office or shelter that is powerful to cut through any barriers or boundaries. Connecting with people who are living on the street provides a collision of experience.  The places where we met were 'home' for them but part of the public landscape for me.  Often the places were built for public convenience such as ATM vestibules.  Ordinarily if I wasn't an outreach worker, I would be popping into one to grab some cash before carrying on with the rest of my errands downtown, but it was the 'living room' of the men I would connect with there, the place they gathered to stay out of the cold and share festivities with each other.  They were always hospitable and kind offering me some of their listerine to drink, thanking me for caring and charging me with making sure that I look out for the 'young ones'.  Men who had had jobs until some tragedy struck and their lives had disintegrated.

At the end of the night I would get into my car and drive home to my warm house in Stoney Creek with my family.  The dissonance would rattle around in my soul as I climbed into my warm bed at night.

The early years...a memory

One of my favourite memories of you while I was an outreach worker was from my first winter.  It was one of the first snow falls of the season and the city was already decorated for the Christmas season.  There were little white lights on all of the trees and the snow was falling at a slight angle catching the light as it fell.  The streets that were full of people during the day were now almost empty as everyone had the good sense to be inside.  I had bundled up warmly so the only part of me that was cold was my face as the flakes hit my cheeks. I remember looking around at you transformed, peaceful, beautiful.  It was a good moment of rest in a job that was often full of crisis.  That night still pops into my head every year when the core is first decorated with lights.  Those were the days before the nativity scene was enshrined behind plexi-glass.  I used to think that it would be an appropriate picture to replace the baby Jesus in the manger with someone trying to sleep, huddled against the cold with a combination of cardboard and sleeping bags...in a Matthew 25 kind of way.  At the end of the shift I joined a friend at one of the local pubs to listen to a local band though I can't remember which one.  It was a perfect Hamilton night.

Let's See If We Can't Work Things Out

Hey Hamilton,

I started thinking about you the other day.  I wrote a letter to my city councilor and the mayor about how I was opposed to a casino being built in the downtown core.  As I was writing it I started reflecting on what you were like twelve to fifteen years ago when I was a brand new outreach worker and you were still in your awkward phase.  I remembered how I used to walk through your streets and think and pray about all that you could be.  It was during those days that I realized that God is a God of social justice who cares deeply about people who are experiencing poverty and oppression in our society.  Those were good days, except that I was a bit misunderstood by my church friends back then.  It wasn't really an okay thing to talk about the good news as anything more than people coming into a saving relationship with Jesus.

And now look at you, here you are, full of independent businesses and coffee shops (many of them with a justice bent), hosting monthly art crawls, you are the Hamilton I always knew you could be.  Not only that but the church has embraced caring for you and the marginalized citizens in your boundaries in a way that I always dreamed it could.  I stand in awe of how many church leaders engaged in the issue of seeing a casino built in your midst.

So what's the problem?  Well the truth is that I have been a little distant over the past couple of years.  I suffered a major disappointment in your midst.  I blamed you for it.  It wasn't really fair of me, I know, but I needed to have some space for a bit.  I didn't have anything left to give. But as I said at the beginning of this letter I started thinking about you the other day and I realized that I have missed you...I still miss you.  So I am going to take the next little bit to record my thoughts and experiences about you over the past number of years in order to see if we can't work things out.