At the Least Sound of Fear

Over the last few weeks the Leadership Team of the Mustard Seed (YEG)has been involved in a variety of discussions regarding future development and our current services.  Much of the dialogue has been stimulated by careful observation and an emerging awareness of a shifting landscape.  Those shifts are happening in the community and the community of services which support individuals and families impacted by poverty.  Books we read, speakers we hear and a persistent internal witness challenge us to examine our assumptions and practice.

We recognize that we live in a tension between the desire to help and the danger of harmful helping.  Steve Corbett’s excellent book “When Helping Hurts” has challenged us to think about “alleviating poverty without hurting the poor”. We grapple with the impression that we may be contributing to homelessness by the choices and services we offer and we engage a “healthy self-suspicion” around our motives and our actions.

I would suggest that this is exactly what we should be doing.

Incredibly in the midst of all this thinking, questioning and dialogue the ongoing wonder of transformation is all around us.  We could despair and cease to work, paralyzed by our personal and organizational insecurities.  Or we can determine to continue to put ourselves into the mix and see what wisdom emerges.

I have to say my work over the last 12 years or so has required unshakable faith in God and courage each day to encounter and tell the truth about a disparate world.  My faith and courage however are consistently dwarfed by the courage of those I have had the privilege of supporting and knowing.  Each day thousands of Albertans experience homelessness, violence, exploitation and hunger and each day remarkable people put their feet on the ground and engage with our brothers and sisters in the simple and profound act of caring. 

I carry my own share of the anxieties I have described.  I live with many of you in the tensions of an “us and them” society.  My day can end with more questions than answers.  Wendell Berry is among a handful of authors who have impacted my thinking and my stance in recent years.  I offer his words of comfort to those who live where I live and walk on my path.

“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community

Dave Grauwiler is the Executive Director of The Mustard Seed, Northern Alberta


Email Dave  or Twitter @davidgrauwiler

The Size of a Mustard Seed

I recently had the opportunity to write about The Mustard Seed for a national faith-based magazine. I thought you might be interested in a few of my thoughts on life in the inner city. Enjoy!

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The inner city. There are probably words, ideas, and stories that come to mind when you think of the inner city community that exists in your city. Words like “addiction,” “poverty,” and “homelessness” may have surrounded or influenced the images of the inner city that, for whatever reason, have planted themselves in your mind and understanding. However, these characteristics are not the whole truth, nor are they the definers, of inner city communities. This was a lesson I learned firsthand only through experience, only as I made the inner city my community, only as I built real relationships in this community. The catalyst that started my journey into the inner city is a place I now look at with deep love and respect, a place known across the city of Edmonton as The Mustard Seed.

The Mustard Seed is a Christian not-for-profit organization that delivers basic services, housing and employment to those in need, and partners with the community to address poverty. As an organization, we affect change in the lives of people living in poverty through building community and building mutually respecting and mutually edifying relationships within the community. We are inspired by our faith to help those in need – physically, emotionally and spiritually – and we support people of faith from all denominations as part of our commitment to follow the example of Christ in bringing dignity to the marginalized. Our work is about meeting the basic needs and developing the gifts and talents of our community. The venue through which much of this is practically communicated is through our meal program and drop-in activities.

Foundational to The Mustard Seed’s drop-in recreational programming is the idea that broken relationships are central to the issue of poverty. It seems that perhaps what first needs to be addressed in the lives of those living in poverty is the need for healthy relationships. The staff, volunteers, and community members that compose The Mustard Seed community fully understand this reality. For us, tangibly embodying this means opening our space for drop-in activities like karaoke on Tuesdays, art night on Thursdays, and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays. In addition to these evening programs we also have a volunteer-run sewing program, we serve as a food depot that operates out of the Edmonton Food Bank, we regularly give free haircuts, and we redistribute gently used clothing and household items through our Personal Assistance Centre.

While these programs comprise only a portion of our Basic Services programs, these are the programs that create opportunity for authentic relationship, which can then serve as an entryway to next-level programs and services like advocacy, housing, and employment. Without first laying the foundation of relationship – that is, without knowing the stories of the people we serve – it is near impossible to make further connections to other services that are available through The Mustard Seed and other surrounding social agencies. If authentic relationship – that is to say, relationship without particular agenda – is not given primary focus in our outflow of services, we’ve not accomplished our goal.

It is because of genuine relationships within this community that I feel a belonging and connectedness to the inner city. The inner city neighbourhood that I have chosen to adopt as my own community tends to be associated with need, crime, and other characteristics that often incite fear and negative attitudes and opinions, perhaps similar to the images that came to your mind when first reading the words inner city. I’ll admit, prior to my experience in this community I had fallen victim to similar ideas.

The truth about the inner city – about any neighbourhood – is that relationships are what define a community, a truth that resounds within me because of my personal experiences within the inner city. It has been nearly two years since I started my employment at The Mustard Seed and I consider my time here to be an honour and a privilege. Without acceptance into this community I never would have met Thomas*, a man in his mid-40s diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Thomas has been separated from his family for the majority of his life, leading to his on-again-off-again homelessness, and he is unable to retain a full time job due to numerous health issues, all of which has led to occasional intravenous drug use. My friendship with Thomas has had its ups and downs, but every time I see him he is nearly in tears expressing his gratitude to be a part of a community that cares about the details of his everyday experiences, a community where people actually know his name. Thomas’ reality is that The Mustard Seed community is often the only place he feels like he is accepted, a place where he belongs.

As my relationships with people like Thomas deepen, my commitment to this community only solidifies further. Thomas’ smile and words of appreciation may appear small, but it is through Thomas that I am reminded that it is in the little things that life, love, hope and joy are found. These little things might often be as small as a mustard seed.

Through the eyes of a student

In Community Living we have been blessed with many students; social work, nursing, summer students, and many others.  We have a social work student with us presently who although Canadian, came from a different country, different time, a totally different way of being.  Her first journal post to Mount Royal University is shared below.  It is, through the eyes of someone not just new to The Mustard Seed, but also new to the world of poverty and homelessness as a Canadian that we get a fresh view of who we are and what we do, and what it looks like from the outside.

Social Work Practice:

• The Mustard Seed is offering exposure to me of the lives of Calgary's residents, lives that were unknown to me; those experiencing hard times
• I am learning to have a greater respect for people who are going through difficult times or who are homeless, and not to be afraid.  I have had opportunity to observe and talk with, I now can say, "these people are beautiful, they are so well behaved and understand social norms, they honour us"
• I could take a leaf from this book of homelessness in calgary and share with those in my home; the way the talk, the way the visit, the way that they are so honourable
• I have witnessed intelligence, I have seen Bible studies where topics of great magnitude are reviewed, based on sophistication rolling off of tongues that has shown me new light
• These are not homeless people, they are people who presently are experiencing not having a home.  There is a difference and I will not label

My thoughts:

• I am interested by the level of relationship betwee the employees and the guests.
• They treat each other as equals, not superiority, only friendship
• They eat together, talk together, joke together; this relaitonship has surprised me.  If I can't tell who is staff and who is guest then I know all are comfortable with being here; eating the same food served in the same way
• Those without homes at the Mustard Seed know they are respected, they are wanted, THEY ARE SOMEBODY

Refining my thoughts:

• In my country we are 99% black and you would never go and see a manager sit and eat with a homeless person.  Food is served on a golden plate to a manager, while those without homes eat from paper plates

Theory:

• STRENGTHS BASED:  Guests are offered things and goals that they can manage and that they choose, so they succeed.  They have responsible roles because someone believes in them and so they rise up
• A resident with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome sets up and prepares for a Bible Study; this is community
• The residents voted on conflict resolution based on aboriginal healing circles.  This is RESTORATIVE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE being lived

Strengths of the Agency:

• Holistic and interested in the total man or woman
• Food, health, talking, communicating, valuing:  life being lived
• Freedom for guests to come and sit and talk, no one is too busy to care and doors here are always open

The Mustard Seed Wrecked My Life

May 9th marks exactly one year since I walked through the doors of The Mustard Seed in downtown Calgary for my first day of work. When I applied in January 2011 for a summer student position and I received the job, I was excited, and looked forward to what I hoped would be a rewarding summer of work before returning to university in September. But God had other plans.

I'll be honest. I didn't really sleep for about a week prior to my first day. As it loomed closer, I started getting more nervous. Growing up, I'd spent only limited time around homelessness, usually from behind a kitchen window, silently serving up plates to what seemed like endless lines of people. How was I ever going to connect with or relate to the guests of The Seed? I consoled myself with the knowledge that I only had to survive 14 weeks and then my job would be over.

12 months later, I'm still here. And loving every minute of it.

I've never had a day at The Seed where I haven't looked forward to going to work. Don't get me wrong -- there are challenging moments, tiring nights, and emotional battles. But every day, I learn new things.

I've learned that if I ask guests how they are, I usually won't receive the superficial "good thanks, and you?" answer that often characterizes day-to-day interactions. If someone's having a bad day, they're going to be honest about it. And so my motto now, not just at work but in all areas of my life, is to never ask someone how they're doing if I don't have time to stop and hear the answer. Because sometimes, the only thing any of us needs is an opportunity to be heard and understood.

I've learned that I'm really not that different from a lot of my friends who don't have permanent addresses. If anything, many of them are just a lot stronger and more resilient than I will ever be.

I've learned what it means to be part of this amazing community. When I got severely sunburned last summer and could barely walk for two weeks, I had guests shading me with umbrellas every time I stepped outside, offering me their own supplies of sunscreen, running to the store and getting me aloe vera...and yes, teasing me mercilessly and calling me "The Lobster". But hey, I deserved that one.

I've learned that we have some of the most talented and gifted artists, writers, and musicians in all of Calgary right here in our midst. Seriously.

I've learned that I will see Jesus in the most unlikely of places.

I've learned to delight in the simple things, like a chaotic game of Dutch Blitz, a crash course in card tricks, or a conversation full of hysterical laughter.

I've learned a new level of sincerity in my faith, as I've sung worship songs in a shelter dining room, and prayed in a stairwell, and cried alongside guests as they confess to God, with tears pouring down their faces, that they don't want to be prisoners of addiction anymore.

I've learned that I have received far more from my time here than I'll ever have to give.

I've learned that God gave me a passion for messy relationships and brokenness, and that being part of someone's journey toward healing makes my heart beat faster...makes me feel like I was made for this purpose.

I've learned that I'll never be the same person as I was 12 months ago.

The Mustard Seed wrecked life as I knew it, and I am so grateful. I wouldn't trade the past year for anything, and at this point in my life, I can't imagine working anywhere else.

Why do we value 'justice'?

Some recent conversations, and a really good book , have got me thinking about justice, and about how significant it is that The Mustard Seed has included justice as one of its core values. I’ve started asking myself, “If values inform a community’s vision and work, how should The Mustard Seed’s valuing of ‘justice’ shape our work with those on the margins?”

‘Justice’ is an extremely slippery concept. Just think about some of the images that 'justice' brings to mind . . .

The meaning of 'justice' is so debated that many wonder if it makes sense to use the word at all.
I think it does. When Jesus and the prophets spoke about ‘justice’, they meant ‘putting things right . . . restoring broken relationships, whether those relationships are economic, political, social, or otherwise’. By valuing justice as an organization, we place ourselves in the long-line of God’s people who care about healing a broken world and ‘putting things right’.

There is a second reason I think valuing justice is important. When we talk about ‘putting things right’, we end up talking about ‘rights’. Things are wrong - things are unjust - when people are denied something that they have a right to.  What do people have a right to?  I think food, clothing, a home, fair treatment in a court or a hospital, a decent wage, and respect would make the list. When people are denied food, or do not have access to a decent home or a living wage, they are being denied basic human rights. They are being denied the opportunity to flourish. Injustice is present.

Of course, a community that cares about rights also has to take some responsibility.  When we value justice, we  take responsibility for the wrongs in our community and work together with those who have been wronged to put things right.

Having this ‘justice’ mindset can make a huge difference in our work at The Mustard Seed. For one thing, people would not have to “do anything” to demand what is right-fully theirs. By the simple fact that someone is a human being, an image-bearer of God, they deserve a home, good food, the economic resources to flourish, and respect. It is their right. Even if folks are frustrating, or are living lifestyles that might make us uncomfortable, or don’t fit into our culture’s idea of ‘deserving’, they have a basic right to the things that will allow them to flourish as God created them to flourish.  Justice demands it.

Another difference that justice makes is that, if someone finally does receive what is rightfully hers, she does not have to go out of her way to say ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’. As Nicholas Wolterstorff puts it:

“Since poverty is a violation of rights, the poor person is fully entitled to stand up and demand what is hers by right. She does not have to beg for it; she may demand it. That’s what’s implied in rights. Further ... she is entitled to demand it not on the basis of her good behaviour but on the basis of her personhood - this in turn grounding her imaging of God. And if and when she does finally receive what is due her, she does not have to pen letters of gratitude. It will be quite enough for her to breathe a sigh of relief and move forward toward becoming what she can and should become.”

I realize that all of this leaves a lot unsaid. What exactly will it look like to give everyone access to a good home, a decent wage, and basic respect? How do we actually practice justice?

But, at the very least, by saying that we value ‘justice’, The Mustard Seed says that our community members have a right to some really fundamental things – simply because they are human beings, made in God’s image. Not because they are nice. Not because they asked politely. Not because it might make us feel better to give it to them. No other reason is needed than that they are a human being. They exist, and that is enough.