By Tom Friesen
Published in September 2019
Perhaps like many an angsty young adult, I was once enamored with the idea of revolution — Rage Against the Machine was a staple of my music collection.
Believin’ all the lies that they’re tellin’ ya
Buyin’ all the products that they’re sellin’ ya
They say jump and you say how high?
You’re brain dead
You got a bullet in your head
There have been times in my life when I was drawn to the idea of tearing down systems. Shouting “cus the man!” and all that felt good. While I still get a kick out of this kind of music and am encouraged to see people standing up to challenge the system, I now think that if rage is not rooted in relationships it is empty. In other words, if our anger toward the systems that oppress people is not reflected in caring for the oppressed around us, it is an ineffective rage. As a matter of fact I would endeavour to say that such isolated rage against the machine is a kind of violence:
It is a violence to speak out on behalf of people for whom you avoid speaking to, much less have a relationship with.
Some 11 years ago I began working at St. John’s Kitchen. St. John’s is a community kitchen that has been serving those experiencing homelessness and those at risk of homelessness for over 30 years. During this time a rich philosophy of service has been cultivated. It is here that I have come to value the prophetic role of, as the Catholic Worker puts it, “creating a new society within the shell of the old, a society in which it will be easier to be good.”
Role of Outreach
It is this kind of nuanced revolutionary thinking that drives me in my maturing years much as RATM would in my youth.
At St. John’s Kitchen I work as an outreach worker. My role is to host the space. I welcome people and build relationships with those in the community. It is here that I have been taught by those whom the system has failed. It is in relating to this community that I have seen my rage grow to include compassion and empathy. I have learned the simple yet often missed piece that each person is unique and did not emerge from an isolated vacuum of personal decisions. In relationship, we empathize with the person and we see our own selves in him or her. When we hear the pain that often lies behind what brought someone to where they are it becomes difficult to stand in judgment over them. It also becomes difficult to think that the solution to their problems is evident or clear. We discover that if this person’s story were our own, we likely would be exactly where they are now. We find that at the end of the day we are all people and we are all fragile. This understanding transforms the way in which one serves. We come not as experts or problem-solvers but rather we come as friends. More often than not we will find that we are the students in these relationships, indeed students who have a great deal to learn.
Paradoxically, it is only in real relationships that this understanding arises, because only the power of friendship breaks down walls of protection; walls that divide us. While fabricated or even “professional” relationships with their clear boundaries isolate, real relationships bring forth understanding; understanding brings forth friendship and this moves us toward equality.
At St. John’s everyone waits in line for our meal. There is no special priority for staff over patrons because we are all an equal part of the community. I eat at St. John’s every day for lunch and believe that doing so is integral to building relationships with others who eat at the kitchen. In sharing a meal with others we take a small step to demonstrate our equality.
Walk With
If we view those we serve as equals we will see that to serve means simply to ‘walk with.’ Walking with an individual means that we recognize one’s life as belonging to one’s own self. We don’t come with a set of goals or an agenda. This isn’t to say that you can’t question or challenge a person’s choices. Rather, it is an admittance that at the end of the day a person’s choices are his or hers to make, and if he or she does otherwise, you won’t abandon the relationship. There is wisdom in this because when we try to make transformation the goal, we will wear ourselves out and become angry and cynical when transformation doesn’t happen. To walk with someone, however, realizes we have no goals per se. Friends mourn with those who mourn, they laugh with those who laugh and they bear one another’s burdens.
Equality in relationships also means that our relationships are reciprocal. They are not one-sided where you give and I receive. They are give and take. One day I was walking in Uptown Waterloo and ran into Robert. Robert was working panhandling and asked me if I had any money. I told Robert unfortunately I didn’t have anything to give that day and as a matter of fact the coffee I was carrying was bought for me by a friend because I didn’t have money on me. Robert looked at me incredulously, dug into his pockets and pulled out a gift card for a free coffee. It is in such an exchange that I can be overwhelmed by the depth of the others’ generosity.
Reciprocal relationships are difficult. They are counter-intuitive. We like to be the generous ones, however in a relationship we must be willing to give as well as receive. If we will not receive gifts, we rob others of the joy of giving and indirectly establish an unequal relationship.
Respect the Place
It is important to acknowledge that real relationships are not boundaryless and at St. John’s Kitchen there are expectations. Our base expectation is that violence is not welcome. Or as a number of our patrons who called themselves The Brotherhood taught me to put it, “respect the place”. It is simple to have a conversation around what it means to respect the place; a list of rules, however, is futile, as every rule needs five more to support it. When we let go of our need to enforce our authority over another with rules and rather open ourselves up to having conversation around what should be done in any given situation we promote equality. This is the hard work of real relationships for it makes us vulnerable. However, it is in such vulnerability that we develop a mutual trust for one another. Such trust is generated when the community sees that we are there to care for them and ultimately care about them.
A Gentleness of Spirit
This also requires a gentleness of spirit.
It is especially in times when members from our community react from places of anger or desperation toward the place that we can most demonstrate this. It is when we find regular graffiti on our walls or our office is broken into yet again and reply with kind notes or a quiet coat of paint. It is how when some
thing is stolen and we approach the person who took the item as a friend and helper rather than a thief. When instead of telling someone who just threw a phone across the room to leave but rather invite them to come into the office and tell us what is the matter, it is then that we embody gentleness of spirit.
Not only am I glad that we responded with gentleness because often it is effective, I am most glad, because this way of being allows for people to become our friends; friends who we deeply value the presence of, and who become our greatest supports.
Finally like those we serve, like all people, we too are frail and broken vessels. Gentleness of spirit means that we are also gentle with ourselves. We must be forgiving of ourselves as well as those we serve, as mistakes will most definitely happen. We won’t always say the right things. Sometimes we will respond out of frustration, anger or fear rather than love. In this we must be forgiving of ourselves and move forward to restore the relationship as best as we can. At other times there will be no clear way to respond to a situation. In these times we respond in a manner that seems right and recognize that we have done our best.
Love is…
Service is never simple. It calls us to a radical life of surrender and engagement with the other, a transformative relationship. At St. John’s Kitchen I have experienced transformation. I am slowly learning how to relate with mutuality and equality to the other. This is the gritty work of peace and justice.
Ultimately the relationships that I have been describing are relationships that are undergirded with love. With this in mind I conclude with the words of St. Paul that embodies what love is. They appropriately begin with the caution, “If I give away all my possessions…but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. Viva la revolution.
