House of All Souls, Chattanooga

On Friday, April 15, our urban ministry class visited the House of All Souls, a permanent residence home for disabled, chronically homeless men. The house is maintained by the Chattanooga Community Kitchen, where we visited earlier in the semester, and Brother Ron Fender, Episcopal monk, is the house manager. He lives with the men at the House of All Souls.

The idea for the House of All Souls came when Brother Ron was living at St. Matthew's shelter in downtown Chattanooga. During his four years of residency there, he observed that many of the men who lived in the shelter would do well while at St. Matthew's and while in the treatment program there, but as soon as they got out of the shelter and got their own places, they'd wind up back on the streets again.

These men were used to living in community, Brother Ron observed, and an empty apartment with no furnishings, no pots and pans, no toilet paper, no basic essentials at all -- was not an answer to their needs. Sure, it might give them a roof over their heads to call their own, but as one of the men at St. Matthew's once said to Brother Ron, "A home is not four walls and a ceiling: that is a cell."

So, Brother Ron had the idea that he could start a communal living home for formerly homeless men. As a monastic, he believes strongly in the practice of living in community, but his religious order does not have a religious house where the monks live: they live all over the country in their own homes; some of them are even married. (The Brotherhood of St. Gregory, Brother Ron's order, is part of the "new monasticism," which challenged and changed traditional monastic practices such as living in cloistered communities and being celibate and single.) So why not create an intentional community living situation for these men who desperately needed community?

The Community Kitchen partnered with Rosewood Supportive Services (an organization that had built group homes for disabled and mentally ill people) to build the House of All Souls, which opened a little over a year ago, in March 2010. The house provides permanent housing for up to eight men who are disabled and have been chronically homeless. Right now, Brother Ron said, they have six men living in the house. We met one of the residents, Phillip, who is autistic and told us about how he had lived on the streets and in substandard tenement housing in downtown Chattanooga, until he "left that dump to come live here with Brother Ron," he said, with a big grin on his face.

The house has a library and a chapel upstairs, bedrooms converted into alternative use space. The library has posters of Jack Kerouac and Bobby Kennedy and Tennessee Williams on the walls, and includes sitting chairs and bunches of books and magazines. The walls of the Brandenberg Chapel (named after a homeless man who helped Brother Ron dream up the idea of the House of All Souls) are painted a deep green, and it houses an altar, two pews, an upright piano, and a lectern on which the daily lectionary readings were placed. The altar (pictured at left) was built by two members of the class of 2010 at Sewanee's School of Theology (the altar's design echoes the design of the altar in the seminary chapel), and was given to the house as the class of 2010's senior gift.

Brother Ron said that he prays the Daily Office in the chapel each day, but that the members of the house do not have any regular, corporate prayer services there. "A lot of people on the streets have been hurt badly by religion," Brother Ron said, "so they often won't come to corporate worship services. But the men do spend a lot of time in the chapel, individually."

I was very much impressed with the beauty of the home, situated in a lush, green thicket just off a main street in Chattanooga, with a nice-sized yard, a screened-in back porch, and beautiful rooms painted deep reds, cool greens, and neutral beiges. The living room was warm and cozy, and very clean and tidy. It was certainly not what I was expecting: when I'd heard that Brother Ron lived with some of the formerly homeless men from the Kitchen, I'd assumed it would be in a small, cinder-block, grungy, shelter-like environment. What a wonderful surprise to find this gorgeous house, providing a true home for these men, not just the "cell" of four walls and a ceiling.

All the same, though, Brother Ron shared with us that they have already had several men move out of the house, in the little over a year it's been in operation. Those that leave often cite "the happiness" as a reason why they can't stand to live there. One man who decided to leave told Brother Ron that Christmas has been the breaking point for him: "I just couldn't stand all that happiness," he said. Brother Ron explained how many of these men have been so bitter and angry and numb for so long that they simply do not know how to adjust to being happy.. and are afraid to give up their bitterness and anger because it seems to be so much a part of their identity. One man who Brother Ron was trying to convince to stay in the home refused, shouting at him, "I'm NOT going to be happy! You can't MAKE me be happy!!"

I was reminded of a scene from the film Peaceful Warrior, in which Dan (the main character) is struggling with his alter ego, the side of him that holds on to fear, anger, bitterness. In a dramatic visualization of the psychological drama he is undergoing, Dan is on top of a large tower, wrestling with his alter ego. Finally, the alter ego falls over the side, but is still holding on to Dan's hands.

"YOU CAN'T LET ME GO," the alter ego screams, its face contorting ghoulishly. "DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE WITHOUT ME?!?!?"

"No," the real Dan says calmly, but lets go anyway, plunging the alter ego to its death, then wakes up, shaking and shivering and utterly disoriented. But it is the beginning of a rebirth.

It is my prayer that all those angry souls out there who do not know how to be happy could release that alter ego and begin to know their true selves, however scary or how far of a fall it may seem to be.

Opening the eyes of the blind

Sermon given at Trinity Episcopal Church, Winchester, Tenn. (my field ed parish), Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year A (John 9:1-41).

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

The question would have been a natural one in Jesus’ day; it was widely assumed that sin and physical illness were connected in a directly causal relationship: if you were sick or had a disability of any sort, it must have been because you had sinned. If you were born with an illness or disability, either you must have committed some sin while still in the womb, or your misfortune was due to the sins of your parents. So the disciples were trying to figure it out, to determine which category they should place this man in to explain his abnormality, to find someone to blame.

Despite the advances of modern science, we’re not so different in 21st century America from the disciples who sought to explain the condition of this blind man by blaming it on sin. We’re always looking for ways to blame someone for the uncomfortable abnormalities and disabilities we see in others – “That poor child is deformed because her mother used drugs during her pregnancy,” or “If only he’d stop smoking, he wouldn’t have gotten lung cancer,” or “She has AIDS; that must be a punishment for her lifestyle or drug use.” And if we can’t find a reasonable person on whom to pin the blame, we pin it on God. “Why, God? What have I – or my sister or my uncle or my friend – done to deserve this?” we ask, the assumption being that illness and suffering are only inflicted upon those who “deserve” it as punishment for something they have done wrong.

But the interesting thing is that Jesus rejects this assumption that physical illness is an indication of the presence of sin. “Neither this man or his parents sinned,” Jesus says, “he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

But is this really any better? The man’s blindness – and by consequence, the miserable life he would have experienced as a blind person in first-century Palestine, with no real opportunities for making a living open to him besides begging by the side of the road – was created just so Jesus could come along and perform a miracle? Does that mean all our sufferings are created just so God can be glorified through them? Certainly God can be glorified through our sufferings, but does God create them on purpose – does God make us suffer – just to glorify himself? What kind of God would that be?

Luckily, several biblical scholars have suggested that that is not necessarily what Jesus meant to say in this passage. Some scholars propose an alternative translation of the Greek text from the one we heard this morning, a translation that goes like this: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.” (9:3-4a). In this translation, Jesus does not give an explanation for the man’s blindness, but simply accepts it as a given. Rather than dwelling in the “why” questions, Jesus is concerned with the more practical “what” questions – what can I do for this man now, and how can God’s glory be revealed in his life, regardless of his condition or his past?

In a similar vein, the blind man is not interested in explaining or justifying Jesus’ behavior when he is interrogated by the Pharisees; he is only concerned with testifying to his personal experience of Jesus. “We know this man is a sinner,” the Pharisees say to him, trying to get him to speak ill of Jesus. “I do not know whether he is a sinner,” the formerly blind man replies. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He offers no other explanations beyond this simple statement.

In the story as we have received it, both the blind man and Jesus are concerned with the here and now – with responding to the facts of the present situation without over-analyzing them. Jesus does not try to explain the reason why this man was born blind to his disciples, and the blind man does not try to justify Jesus’ actions to the Pharisees. Jesus sees a need and responds to it; the blind man receives a gift and testifies to it. The disciples are so caught up with trying to find a reason for the man’s blindness, to find someone to blame for this misfortune, that they miss seeing a real human being in need in front of them. The Pharisees are so caught up in arguments over what is and isn’t lawful according to religious tradition that they miss the miracle that has taken place in front of them.

The Pharisees tend to get a bad rep in the Gospels, since they’re always set as the “bad guys” in the story, in opposition to Jesus. But as this story shows, the disciples don’t always “get it” either. And aren’t we a little more like the disciples and the Pharisees in this story than we’d like to admit?

I sometimes wonder how Jesus would be received if he were to appear in an Episcopal church on any given Sunday morning. Might we not find ourselves to be modern-day Pharisees, more worried about whether Jesus was performing the liturgy correctly than about the miracle of his presence among us?

And don’t we often look around for people and institutions to blame when things go wrong in our lives, rather than accepting the circumstances for what they are and trying to think creatively about how we could contribute to making the works of God be revealed in that situation?

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus says, “but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.”

“I do not know whether he is a sinner,” says the formerly blind man. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

John’s Gospel this morning is inviting us to let go of the urge to explain, to analyze, to justify, and simply open our eyes to the world around us. Where is there a need that you can respond to, regardless of the reasons it exists? Where have you received a gift that you can testify to with gratefulness? Our personal stories about how we have experienced God working in our lives are the most powerful evangelism tools we have. What is the “one thing you do know” about God in your life? I invite you to share your answer to that question with someone in your life this week, and see what happens. Maybe you too have the power to open the eyes of the blind.

Charlotte Boatwright (RN, LPC, PhD), The Domestic Violence Coalition of Greater Chattanooga

On Friday, April 1, our urban ministry class traveled to St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Redbank (a suburb of Chattanooga), to hear a presentation by Dr. Charlotte Boatwright on domestic violence. Charlotte was originally a nurse (RN) and her husband was a physician. Later in life, her husband became an Episcopal priest, and she became a counselor and educator around domestic violence issues.

Charlotte's presentation was sobering and disturbing. She gave us all kinds of statistics about domestic violence and interspersed graphic images of battered women throughout her PowerPoint presentation. She said she uses the images to make sure people realize that this is a serious issue, dealing with real violence, not just a "lover's quarrel," and that women aren't "making these things up" -- but after a member of our class objected, saying he had difficulty with seeing such images, she sped past the remainder of them in the presentation.

It's so important for clergy to be educated about domestic violence, Charlotte told us, because we will have families in our congregations who are abusive. The statistics are too high for that not to be the case: one in three women will be victims of domestic abuse, compared to one in eight women who will get breast cancer. And yet, domestic violence is often hidden and unreported -- and because of the power and control of the abuser, many abused people will never speak about their abuse to anyone.

One of my classmates asked a question about gender issues and domestic abuse, pointing out that Charlotte kept referring to the abuser as "he," and talking about abused women. Aren't men abused as well? Yes, Charlotte said, but in about 90 percent of the cases, the victim is a woman -- so for reasons of statistical majority, she said, she uses the male pronoun in reference to "the abuser." We discussed, however, that the lower statistics around abused men are likely due to the fact that men are less likely to report abuse due to the perceived social stigma around a man being abused by a woman. And overall, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of domestic violence cases are reported.

There are 2,000 deaths annually in the U.S. from domestic violence, and 300,000 hospitalizations. 3 million women are abused each year, and 3.3 million children will witness abuse -- and often learn to be victims or perpetrators themselves from observing this behavior in their home.

One of the things Charlotte stressed to us was that domestic abuse and domestic violence are learned behaviors -- it is not caused by mental illness, substance abuse, or stress (all things that are often cited as "causes" of domestic violence), but it is learned behavior -- the abuser has learned that he or she can behave this way and get what he or she wants from the other person. Certainly, mental illness, substance abuse, and stress can exacerbate a domestic violence situation, but they do not cause domestic violence in and of themselves: not all mentally ill people, addicted people, or stressed people abuse their spouses. The behavior is learned: abusers often have abuse in the family of origin, and 80 percent of males who observe abusive relationships will become abusers themselves.

Charlotte told us that if we learned only one thing that day, she wanted us to learn that domestic violence is not about anger. It's about power and control over another human being.

People often think domestic abuse and domestic violence result from people acting out of anger, that their violent behavior comes out of a place of anger and is uncontrollable. On the contrary, Charlotte said, people who are truly abusers do not have poor impulse control. They are not angry. They do not simply "lose control" in the "heat of the moment" of an argument and lash out and hit their spouse. They know exactly what they are doing and strategically plan ways to exercise control over their spouse, down to controlling when and how their spouse can leave the house, how much money they are allowed to have access to and to spend, and how much contact they have with friends and family. It is an overarching, calculated system of control, not a matter of a "hot temper." Victims of abuse are literally "living in a war zone," Charlotte said, never sure of what to expect from the unpredictable behavior of their spouse.

In the past, courts often sentenced abusers to anger management classes. This kind of treatment is entirely inappropriate for domestic abusers, Charlotte stressed. Instead, they need a different kind of treatment centered on addressing their needs for power and control and conditioning them to find alternative ways of meeting the needs that they have previously met through exercising control over their spouses and families.

Because of the link between power and control and domestic abuse and violence, Charlotte said, you find higher percentages of abusers in vocations that are about power and control: doctors, lawyers, military, police -- and clergy -- are often abusers.

This last point was a very sobering one to me, as we sat in this group of clergy and future clergy. Certainly, ordained ministry gives one a great deal of power and control over other people -- if not physically, certainly mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Those of us in the ministry would do ourselves a favor to be tirelessly introspective about our own tendencies to abuse our power and be in constant contact with a support system -- professional counseling, spiritual direction, etc -- to keep ourselves in check.