Although I’ve been working in the Tenderloin for ten weeks now, I recently spent the night there for the first time. Before settling in for a night of long conversations, junk food, and Netflix in their apartment, my fellow interns and I made the long trek (0.7 miles) to the Trader Joe’s in Nob Hill, just beyond the borders of the TL. “Heading up to Snob Hill,” one of the interns joked. I played along: “You know you’ve reached gentrification when you reach Trader Joe’s.” But even as I said this I had to admit, I have no idea what it’s like to live in an environment where gentrification is an active threat.

This summer I choose the more economic option to live with fellow PLT intern Melina Rapazzini and her family outside of the city rather than living in the city of San Francisco. Melina and her family are wonderful and a joy to live with, and this was the only way to make this opportunity financially possible, so I don’t regret the decision. However, part of my reflective process this summer has included considering how I might have compromised the “immersive” element of the “immersive learning experience” that the Project on Lived Theology is meant to be.

From the moment that my summer plans came into being I began preparing myself for the mental schism that would result from living in one place and working in another. I touched on the differences between these two communities, one affluent and the other underserved, in my first blog post and I haven’t stopped being aware of them since. But, like anything else, this daily shift in my surroundings became routine. I grew comfortable. I’ve lived in relatively well-off communities my entire life, so it wasn’t hard to let myself do it again. But what I’ve learned from this experience is this: when it comes to community development, working and living in the same place is a necessity. Truly committing oneself to community development requires becoming a part of that community. I must remember that the change-makers are already living in the Tenderloin, many having lived there for their entire lives. They are entrenched; they’re bound to the people and the space in a way that I can’t replicate. If I want to come alongside them it will require being similarly bound. Only when the problems of the community become my own problems, when the community’s successes become my own successes, and my quality of life is inextricably linked to the lives of those around me, only then will I be able to serve the community well. In essence, I can’t be a commuter-developer.

Now, this is the ideal. I’m not sure if it’s always possible over the course of a lifetime but I’m positive that it is not possible within a period of ten weeks, no matter where I’m living. Also, this is not what’s expected when the Project on Lived Theology says that they encourage “immersion.” Immersion for such a short period is meant to be a taste of what living and working in a community like this could be like, along with an opportunity to reflect on the experience theologically. So even though I did not live in the Tenderloin, I tried to take in a taste of what life there could be like.

When it comes to being involved in the neighborhood, the leaders of YWAM San Francisco, Karol and Tim Svoboda, are excellent examples to follow. After spending over 20 years in India, Karol and Tim have spent the last eight years living in San Francisco and plan to be there indefinitely. Tim has an indefatigable passion for researching and learning about the neighborhood and its history. He is also a part of Market Street for the Masses, a coalition combating gentrification in the Tenderloin. He laments the entry of restaurants and other businesses, with prices well beyond affordable for most Tenderloin inhabitants, designed solely to cater to wealthier people in nearby neighborhoods. He consistently emphasizes that gentrification includes psychological displacement of a people as well as physical, and that combating it means preserving cultures, not just low-income housing.

Tim’s wife Karol is equally involved in the life of the neighborhood. She was recently invited by the former Chief of Police in the Tenderloin to be a part of a coalition for a safer neighborhood that consists entirely of Yemini women that Karol has befriended, and Karol herself. From my own experience with the Yemini community in the Tenderloin I can see that they are a tightly-knit group. It speaks volumes that Karol was given this position. She was also invited to break Ramadan with some of her Muslim friends and to attend a young Mexican girl’s first communion in the Catholic Church (alongside other BJM staff) this past summer. This, to me, epitomizes living in community; Karol, and all the staff of BJM, have taken the opportunity to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

Early in the summer I was invited into a similar moment of rejoicing and weeping. It was a Friday morning and all of BJM staff was gathered together in the Well, our community center on Ellis Street. The Well had recently flooded and we were standing in the re-construction zone praying for the renovation process when two women, Lisa and Myra, passed by the open doorway. Lisa is one of BJM’s “cornerstone women.” She has been a friend of BJM’s since its beginnings and her story is incredible. (I encourage you to read it here in her own words.) When the pair saw all of us standing in the Well they rushed over to inform us that Lisa was on her way to the hospital – she had received a call that very morning telling her that they had found a kidney for a desperately-needed transplant and that she would be going into surgery as soon as possible. Lisa had been on dialysis for years and the team had been praying for a kidney for just as long. I’ve rarely seen such joy as I did in that room that day. There were looks of bewilderment, followed by shouts of excitement and tears of joy. Everyone rushed to overwhelm Lisa with hugs. She had to run to the hospital, but we quickly prayed her out the door, yelling over the noise of a jackhammer from the street.

In this moment I felt privileged to be a part of the team. I saw the tears streaming down their faces and I realized that these women and girls aren’t just projects to them. As Bonhoeffer says in his classic Life Together, “It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated” (100). Lisa is a sister to the women of BJM. They have taken on her burdens as their own. Thus, when they heard the news it was like a heavy weight had been lifted from their shoulders.

This experience inspired me to ask, what does it mean to take on another person’s burdens? Does it mean providing something constructive to benefit another person, like humanitarian relief or social services? Or does it simply mean listening and empathizing, allowing the problems of another human being to come close enough to feel them yourself? Can we (or should we) do one without the other? As I thought through these questions (to which I have no perfectly-packaged answers), I was reminded of another moment in Life Together. In his comparison of human community and spiritual community, Bonhoeffer says “… in human community, psychological techniques and methods [govern]… service consists of a searching, calculating analysis of a stranger” but in the spiritual realm “the service of one’s brother is simple and humble” (32). Although many of the women BJM interacts with do need services, whether psychological or otherwise, they need not be treated as strangers. And thus, with my limited skills as an undergraduate, all I could do this summer was treat them like neighbors. The only service I had to offer was simple and humble. I listened to women as they described their struggles–things like finding permanent housing, dealing with transphobic relatives, caring for an elderly parent, or trying to earn a college degree as a homeless student. I listened to a young girl admit that she had run away from home because she felt like no one wanted her there. I listened. I served coffee. I pushed children on the merry-go-round. I played card games. I laughed and I ran and I sat and I prayed. Most of the time that was all I could do.

As I transition back to my life as a student in Charlottesville I’m considering what it would mean to bear other people’s burdens in my community here, especially beyond my immediate circles. The UVA community faced many challenges last year, including the death of second year student Hannah Graham, the aftermath of the Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” and Martese Johnson’s assault by ABC officers. The idea that I could possibly bear any of these burdens, especially as a white student who is neither a friend of Hannah’s nor a survivor of sexual assault, seems both daunting and presumptuous. Even when I think of my own friends and the difficulties in their lives, I am faced with feelings of inadequacy. How could I possibly bear their burdens? What do I have to offer? As much as I want to see their pain alleviated, I am powerless to do so.

But that’s when I remember, bearing your sister’s burden does not require solving her problems. It does not even mean removing the burden from her shoulders. It simply means listening and serving, simply and humbly.

Bathrooms are fascinating. They look different all over the world. In fact, for me they are a good indicator of how far away from home I am (i.e. Bidet or no bidet? Running water or bucket? Do I have to dig my own hole or no?). But for almost everyone, I’ve discovered, they are things we don’t think about until they’re gone. They are easily taken for granted. I realized that the longest I spend without direct access to a nice, clean(ish), private restroom on a typical day is the 20 minutes I spend in the car. This is not so for many people living in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

The TL, as many locals fondly call it, is infamous for being a place where you must watch your step to avoid stepping on either needles or human waste. The Daily Caller called the entire neighborhood one big “public toilet,” describing the population using it as “drug dealers, addicts, prostitutes, and mentally unstable street people” (citing the San Francisco Chronicle). This portrayal erases the presence of immigrant families, the elderly, and disabled people (and some yuppies) who also form large percentages of the population. While these reports are insensitive and ignorant, showing no sympathy for the problem of public urination as it faces homeless people or providing any productive criticisms, they reflect a commonplace attitude.

Fecal matter in the streets is a source of frequent joking among YWAM staff. Once, when we were out in Santana Row (an upscale shopping area in San Jose), someone remarked that it was so nice to be able to walk down the street without worrying about stepping in crap. We all laughed along and nodded our heads. YWAM staff love the neighborhood, and they show their commitment through their service. However, I realized that for me, laughing about how “ratchet” the TL is only further solidifies the negative image of the community that we are trying to fight against.

I must admit, there have been times when I have seen the public bathroom a block away from the YWAM base and callously thought, “Gee, why can’t the people who pee in front of our building ever seem to make it over here?” Then, one day a woman ran up to the building in a state of emergency. After being let in and allowed the use the bathroom, she came out and apologized, saying that she had tried to use the bathroom down the street but it was locked. Public bathrooms in the TL have had a poor track record of becoming sites of prostitution, drug use, and other dangerous activities. Now, the best options for relieving oneself are the portable pit stops that come in Tuesday-Friday from 2-9 pm. These bathrooms are monitored by attendants from a city-contracted non-profit to prevent the issues that have come with public bathrooms of the past.

While these pit stops have been extremely helpful, reportedly reducing the number of complaints about human waste in the streets from 27 calls per day to 15, they aren’t a foolproof solution. Human needs do not disappear outside of the 7 hours per day, 4 days a week that these two toilets drop on the block. People are still forced to urinate and defecate in the streets, in plain view, every single day. This is not merely a sanitation problem; this is an affront to human dignity.

In this city of impossible wealth, the most expensive U.S. city to live in, homeless people are often considered an eyesore. For some living in other parts of the city, having to walk by a makeshift homeless camp on their way home is a sure sign that “the neighborhood has gone to crap.” Every day thousands of homeless people struggle for a limited number of one-night beds, getting in line in the middle of the afternoon only to be booted out again at 6 AM. They put their names on impossibly long waiting lists for more permanent solutions: 90-day beds, SROs, or Section 8 low-income housing. Thanks to policies requiring hotels to reserve a certain number of beds for low-income people, there are 9,990 formerly homeless people living in 208 hotels in the Tenderloin’s 23 blocks. And yet, the large number of homeless people still on the streets makes the problem seem impossible to surmount.

Two days ago I averted my eyes as a homeless woman, whose name I know and whose face I see nearly every day, exposed herself to everyone on the street (mostly men) in broad daylight and urinated not 5 feet from me. She seemed nonchalant. I can only assume that this has been such a consistent reality for her that she has moved past the point of shame and embarrassment. Two days prior, I stopped in my tracks as I approached a homeless man that I was supposed to be meeting up with when I realized that he was relieving himself in the street. I tried to make myself scarce, hoping that he wouldn’t be embarrassed if he didn’t see me. But he did. Three days prior to that, a woman rushed into Nail Day whispering urgently that she needed feminine hygiene products. When she came out of the restroom she sheepishly asked for a discrete bag to carry the products in. Like the pubic pit stops, the YWAM base also has times in which the restrooms are available, for one person at a time, with a monitor waiting outside. Although these measures are necessary, they must be so infantilizing. I would not feel dignified if I was put in any one of these situations.

I have one last bathroom story to share. Carly*, one of the transgender women who comes to BJM’s Nail Day, has been looking for a church. After visiting many Christian churches and being unsatisfied with how little they actually spoke about Jesus Christ, she settled on a Baptist church like the one she grew up in. She liked the church a lot and was beginning to feel welcome there. Then, the pastor (a man) pulled her aside and led her through the church building to show her the one-room unisex bathroom. She had been using the women’s bathroom prior to that. She hasn’t been back since that day.

Empathizing with Carly, a transgender pastor of a Lutheran church in San Francisco had this to say about her experience with bathrooms: “If I’m standing in front of the bathrooms I’m thinking, if I go in the women’s I’ll get screamed at, but if I go in the men’s I’ll get beat up.” Carly feared that there had been complaints by women of the church who bring their children into the bathrooms with them (because of the nasty stereotype that transgender people are pedophiles). The idea that anyone would think she could possibly hurt a child disgusts her. Bathrooms, which are a place of relief for many, are a place of uncertainty and fear for trans people.

What these stories reveal to me is that we, as Christians, are really good at loving our neighbor until it is hard. Until it makes us uncomfortable. Until it’s smelly. We talk about people being made in the image of God, and the inherent dignity that all human beings share as a result, and then we turn up our noses when we see them urinating in the street. We assume that they are too drunk or high or lazy or careless to make it to a proper bathroom. We isolate them and push them aside when we are forced to mingle with them in private spaces. We show them that it’s more important to us that they use the correct bathroom, the one with a little figure wearing pants on the door, than it is that they are able to be in the presence of God with fellow believers.

In Life Together, his classic text on Christian community, Bonhoeffer says, “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal but a divine reality” (26). This means that Christian community is not about our notions of perfection. It’s not about bringing the exact “right” group of people into perfect harmony with one another so that we feel loved and find it easy to love one another. No, “Christian community springs… from grace alone” (23). Living in community, whether with Christians, non-Christians, or both, is meant to be hard. And if it is not hard, then the community isn’t inclusive enough. This is of the utmost importance because, as Bonheoffer puts it, “the exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ” (38).

We have to do better. We have to love better. And we need Christ to do it.

As a Church and as a society, when we think of places like the Tenderloin we must remember this: Just because there is shit in the streets doesn’t mean the people are shit. And if we can’t wrap our heads around that… well then we’re all pretty shitty.

If you walk through the doors of the building where I work on a Monday afternoon a woman named Kimmie* will undoubtedly greet you. She will probably be wearing her trademark rainbow fedora, leggings beneath jean shorts, and something hot pink. She’ll take a pink earphone out of her ears and you’ll hear pop music blaring as she introduces herself. Then she’ll want you to meet Mama J (also known as Julia), a BJM staff member and something of a surrogate mother to Kimmie. When Kimmie found housing earlier this month (a literal miracle in the Tenderloin), she immediately called Julia and they rejoiced together. Julia even gathered the BJM staff together to host a house-warming party for Kimmie. I felt privileged to attend this party and to be welcomed into Kimmie’s home after helping carry a few gifts there.

This may sound strange, but there is one factor that makes Julia and Kimmie’s relationship especially meaningful to me: Kimmie is transgender. To be honest, when I came to BJM, knowing that it grew out of an evangelical Christian missions organization, I was a little fearful of how they would view and treat trans people in the city. I thought, if I have to spend my entire summer either biting my tongue or trying to convince these people to call a transgender woman “she,” I’m not going to make it. Fortunately, from the first day, BJM dispelled the assumptions that I was trying to resist making.

Now, I don’t want to misrepresent BJM. Although Julia is affirming of transgender lifestyles, from what I can tell, most people here foster a fairly traditional understanding of gender identity. However, there is diversity of opinion, and most of all, there is an attitude of respect for all people. Regardless of her anatomy, if a person who identifies as a woman comes through our doors, she will be referred to by the pronoun she chooses. But, in reality, that’s pretty superficial. That’s the bare minimum of what BJM strives to do. Every Monday, BJM hosts an outreach called Nail Day in which women from the community come for free manicures. Many trans women attend. Volunteers and staff hold their hands, look into their eyes, and talk with them for about 45 minutes at a time. It’s an intimate moment. This is more than respect; this is love.

Although some of my thoughts and opinions are still more progressive than many at BJM, somehow I know that if get on a high horse I will get knocked down. So I’ve gone ahead and taken my foot out of the stirrup. I may have read scholarly articles by trans people. I may be swimming in a sea of queer theology and academic jargon. I may even be “Safe Space” certified, but this does not mean that I know how to love trans people. Political correctness is not love. The women of BJM are teaching me how to love trans women. And Jesus is teaching us all.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading The Long Loneliness, the autobiography of the legendary Catholic social activist Dorothy Day. As the publisher raves on the back cover, Day was “unstinting in her commitment to peace, nonviolence, racial justice, and the cause of the poor and the outcast.” She was at the forefront of the social revolutions of her time and an inspiration to activists like Thomas Merton, Michael Harrington, Cesar Chavez, and many more.

As I read her story, I too am inspired by her courage, her compassion, and her piety. But sometimes…. I think she’s kind of sexist. Especially when she says things like,

“I am quite ready to concede now that men are the single-minded, the pure of heart, in these movements. Women by their very nature are more materialistic, thinking of the home, the children, and of all things needful to them, especially love…” (The Long Loneliness, 60)

Day was quite obviously forward-thinking, but how could she have said these things about women? How could she care so much about socioeconomic inequality but not about gendered inequality? In The Moral Vision of Dorothy Day: A Feminist Perspective, June O’Connor recognizes that Day’s moral vision was affected by “sexist thought patterns that she inherited and sustained,” but she argues that there is a “hidden feminist dimension” to her writings. In essence, she, like all of us, was trapped in her time. This doesn’t make her impervious to critique, but it does make her understandable.

In response, I’ve been asking myself the following questions:

If someone read my autobiography 100 years from now, which of my opinions would seem incredibly shortsighted and ignorant to her?

In what ways am I “trapped in my time”?

What are my ugly thoughts?

I’ve been trying to apply this to my thoughts about transgender people and other marginalized groups. I haven’t had any breakthroughs. While I’m happy to distance myself and point out that “the Church’s” thoughts about women, homosexuals, and others have been ugly, I can’t fully exclude myself from this group. Although I’ve changed as I’ve studied, prayed, and listened over the past few years–and I believe that God, in Her graciousness, has redeemed many of my thoughts–I’m far from having it all right. It’s still much easier to see the speck in someone else’s eye than the log in your own. I think Jesus said that…

Mostly I’m just thankful that I’m only 21. I have plenty of time for self-critique. In a particularly frank moment of self-scrutiny, Dorothy Day wrote this:

“I do not know how sincere I was in my love of the poor and my desire to serve them… I wanted to go on picket lines, to go to jail, to write to influence others and so make my mark on the world. How much ambition and how much self-seeking there was in all this!” (60)

Sometimes I see this attitude in myself and I’m actively trying to resist it. I thank God for bringing me to BJM and for introducing me to people like Kimmie as I continue this struggle.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the women in this community.

On my first day in a new city, I got off the train and walked confidently out onto 4^th street…in the wrong direction. I remembered from Apple Maps that my directions were very simple: just walk down 4^th until I reach Ellis and make a left. That was all fine and good except that I wasn’t sure which way to walk on 4^th. I pulled up the Maps directions again, but this time it told me to walk down 5^th. I listened. (After driving all the way across the country to get here, I’ve realized that Maps is my friend).

When I reached 5^th Street at Bryant I was almost stopped in my tracks by this image.

This is a famous mural entitled “To Cause to Remember” by Johanna Poethig. With its depiction of the Statue of Liberty, lying on her side, shackled and torch-less, symbolizing our nation’s “best unrealized intentions,” this mural is boldly political (Poethig). It struck me that this piece of public art is just overt enough to match the stark contrast between prosperity and poverty that my day was sure to hold.

When I woke up that morning I was lying in my comfortable bed in the Rapazzini household in Los Gatos, California, where I’m fortunate enough to be living for the summer. At the end of my two-hour commute, I would be in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. As I moved between these two communities, the number of non-white residents increased by 45.5 percent, the median household income decreased by $99,040, and the number of homeless residents increased from nearly none to approximately 3,000. It’s a dramatic shift.

I anticipated this shift; I had been thinking about it for weeks. But it didn’t stop me from feeling a familiar onslaught of emotions at the sight of the first homeless person I saw. The first step is a kind of detached recognition. I’ve seen enough homeless people in my life (and almost daily on the Corner back in Charlottesville) to be able to walk past someone without thinking twice, but this is exactly what I’m working against. A few years ago, I asked someone I respect what his policy is on giving out money to homeless people. He responded by saying, “I can’t always help them, but I can always acknowledge their existence.” This is a motto I’ve taken to following. So the next step is forcing myself to look and see the man or women before me. Whether this involves actually making eye contact, or speaking with them, or just taking an internal pause to recognize that they are there, I try to do this regularly.

Although the organization I am working with this summer, Because Justice Matters, does not cater to an exclusively homeless population, I believe that this practice is transferrable to everything that I do. Because Justice Matters (BJM) is a non-profit Christian organization in the Tenderloin that exists to serve women who are victims of sexual exploitation and domestic violence, and offers support to those experiencing isolation due to economic and cultural challenges. As I engage with these women this summer, I am challenging myself to an extended version of the practice I just described. Every day, as I move from a place of comfort and affluence to a place of hardship and poverty, I will pause, and I will look. I will try to truly see the women and girls before me.

As I looked up at this mural I reminded myself that I was about to enter a world that is radically different from my own. It’s a hard thing, I’ve realized, to really know and understand people who come from such a profoundly different background. But I’m hoping that with a sustained effort and a lot of grace, God might help me truly see the women of the Tenderloin–as She sees them.

I looked back down at Maps and saw that I was on driving directions, not walking directions. Without this mistake I would have walked right past this mural just another street over. A fateful accident, to be sure.

At this point I’ve been living in the Bay Area and working in the Tenderloin for two very eventful weeks. Although many of the programs that BJM runs are on a break for the month of May and resume in June, I have had a number of opportunities to interact with women in the community.

On Tuesday mornings I attend a community group called Alpha that is comprised of women who live in the Tenderloin, including some of the BJM staff. This is a diverse group of women, ranging in age from 30 to nearly 80. They are black, Asian, Pacific Islander, and white. They come from different cultures, different educational backgrounds, and differing housing situations.

The meeting begins with a meal shared together, followed by a video that covers various tenants of the Christian faith, and then a discussion. Natt, a member of BJM’s staff, warned me beforehand that the video was made for teenagers, and therefore could be a little silly. However, she said, it is more engaging and easily digestible for people with limited formal education. True to her warning, the video was ready-made for white, suburban, evangelical youth groups. As the video played I couldn’t help but think, this must be so ridiculous to them. The hardest circumstance the average viewer of this video probably has to overcome is their mom saying they can’t go out with their friends until they finish their homework. I know these thoughts trivialize the lives of an entire population (which I used to belong to), but in the moment I was disappointed.

I’m not blaming BJM for choosing the video series; they are making do with what they can. But I do wonder, where are all of the teaching videos targeted towards women living in poverty? Where is the material catered towards women who have been affected by violence, exploitation, and mental illness?

I just finished reading Bible of the Oppressed, a book by Latin-American liberation theologian Elsa Tamez. In this exegetical work, Tamez uses the narratives of the Hebrew Bible to reveal that the God of Israel is the God of the oppressed, a God whose highest aim is justice and a God whose modern-day followers must pursue justice in their communities. Although the Bible has been used as a tool of oppression in many times and places, Tamez redefines it as a book that reveals Godself to God’s people – and God’s people are the exploited, the downtrodden, those considered “nothings” by society.

Unlike the Alpha videos, the Bible is, in fact, meant for the women that BJM serves. It contains a message of hope and grace that is intended for them. I can only hope that Alpha Group can guide them to this message.