Today approximately 45 high school students from Milton joined us at PNC. We split them into groups and rotated them through three experiences: walking the neighbourhood with Joanna, participating in the drop-in with me and listening to the story of a man named Steve Grant.

I was thrilled that Steve got to share what living on the streets had been like and how his life is now, living in an intentional community house. I count it such a privilege to have been a part of his journey and to call him my friend. He is a teammate to Joanna and I. Steve helped break down barriers today. Those students understand a bit better that becoming homeless can happen to anyone, that none of us are immune.

Some of the students confessed that at first they felt as though they might be intruding. Interesting that by the end of the day this feeling evaporated. I was so heartened (though not at all surprised) to hear that our community truly hosted them. PNC folks wanted to make sure that the students didn’t “leave hungry”. People who are so used to wondering where the next meal might come from showed selflessness when passing the potatoes.

I’ve written before about hoping to shift around traditional power dynamics. Today was a beautiful example of that. Today the people who some would refer to as PNC’s “guests” became the hosts.

I love it.

I’ve said this before and I will say it again: I often wonder when people are going to figure out that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Sometimes this thought creeps in to my heart when I’ve had a terrible week. Sometimes it comes when things are going surprisingly well. In truth, I think it resides in me on some level all the time. I’m on a steep learning curve.

PNC, especially over the past year, has been one wild decision after another. No money? Okay then, we’ll get rid of our building. No food for the drop-in? We’ll call Second Harvest. No place to put our stuff? We’ll get rid of it. On and on it goes.

Here’s the amazing part: we’re still here. And we’re not just surviving, we’re thriving. Not thriving in the ways some might expect: we are still the church without our own walls with very few belongings. I still take a load of files and a little laptop to any number of my offices (read: coffee shops) along the Queen Street West strip. Joanna and I had our staff meeting on a park bench last week. However, our Monday drop-in is ever-growing; our friends at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop are making the Coffee Corner LARGER because our people are packing it out; we’ve started an art drop-in at the Health Centre; our plot in the Community Garden is secure; we have a committed team out on the streets every Wednesday night; our worship service is developing and we’re even about to change our name. And those are the things that are fairly easy to describe. Some of the best stuff is happening in the little moments stolen with our friends: the conversations around a table, the accompanying someone to court, the sitting on a curb and hearing a person’s life story, the holding of someone’s hand as they make the decision to get clean.

While these things are going so well, I still have frequent moments of wondering how the next bit of money is going to come or how I’m possibly going to find new supporters. I was reminded this week that what we need often comes in very unexpected ways. A country club called The Boulevard Club decided to raise funds for us through their annual tennis “Calcutta”. Who knew that could happen? Just today a pastor told me his church is prepared to support us in any way they can, this a full year after hearing my impassioned plea for PNC and our need for help at a conference. I am constantly reminded that while I need to do everything I can for this place, I also need to just get out-of-the-way and let it happen. God’s timeline is not necessarily mine.

So I fumble along, fully aware that at any moment I could fall flat on my face. Which is okay, because this was never really about me to begin with. I’m just a piece of the puzzle that is PNC. I’m confident too that when I land on the ground, one of my friends will be there offering me a hand, maybe gently teasing me about the fall and telling me to “get on with it…this place is about us and that us includes you”.

I speak from experience.

A year ago we decided that it might be time to change Parkdale Neighbourhood Church’s name. This wasn’t a new idea, it just finally felt right. While we are very truly “church” for people, we don’t function as a church organization, meaning we are not supported by our members. This has been a huge stumbling block for us. We’ve long thought that maybe a name change would help people understand the scope of our work.

I’ve discovered that choosing a new name is HARD. How do you capture the essence of PNC in a word or two? How do you suggest that we are very rooted in the neighbourhood?

A lot of time has been spent asking the people of PNC what this place means to them. This has very much factored into the process. Just yesterday at the drop-in I was asking people to write down some of their thoughts about PNC. Here’s what one friend wrote: “Without the PNC many community members would go hungry and/or cold!…Many of us would be lost without the PNC”. How beautiful. People consistently use the word “safe” to describe how they feel in this community. I know that I use that word too.

While it isn’t yet time to announce the fruit of our labour, I thought it appropriate to warn that this change is coming. So, don’t be surprised when we finally unveil it.

What a journey this is.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: power.

At PNC we are constantly considering what it means to place people who usually aren’t, at the centre. Some of us are street involved, some are living on Ontario Works or Disability, some are refugees, some are dealing with a substance addiction, some have a mental health challenge that could range from depression to schizophrenia, some are under housed. The truth is people who struggle with these particular things are often pushed to the margins.

So what does it mean that these friends are the core? It means that we are shifting the power. Rather than it be about what I (in all my relative capacity) have for YOU, it is about what we have for each other. It is hopefully about inviting people into full participation of the community, in so much as they are able.

A piece of stone fruit has a centre, or core and is surrounded by flesh. Those two things together make a peach a peach. PNC is a place for all people, regardless of circumstance. We’re not suggesting that someone who has financial means, a house and an addiction to coffee *ahem* instead of crack has no role here. We’re just trying to turn the power structures that we are all so used to, upside-down.

In a sense we are creating space: space for us to realize that when you strip away the trappings of this world, we are all the same. And while we are fundamentally the same, we have been created with our own personalities and gifts. One could argue that I have power at PNC, and in some ways that is correct, except that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that while I have a unique role to play, PNC is not about me. I also know that I am encouraged to bring what I have to offer by everyone there.

Power can be about the possession of control over others. It is all too often misused. Power can also be defined as the “capability of doing or accomplishing something”. That is what we long for at PNC: to have everyone contributing what they can, and in so doing, creating a very deep sense of community.

Fight Shift the power.

I had the honour of attending a funeral for a young man named Mark Andrew Rumsby on Easter Monday. Marky lived his life with an unidentified genetic disorder. As his dad said, “he had no words, but developed a way of looking at people that transcended speech”. Marky had an incredible capacity to make people feel.

I walked away from the church tearfully longing to learn Marky’s way of communicating. Ironic I suppose that I am busy writing down these thoughts. I am so full of words. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes they are not. Oftentimes they don’t have the effect I so desire. On Easter Sunday it got pointed out that Mary Magdalene, when greeted by Jesus himself, was so wrapped up in wanting to find the body and FIX it, that she wasn’t even aware of who she was looking at. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” I will get him. I will fix this. All too often I am Mary.

I want to learn how to listen. I don’t mean simply to sit and listen to someone else’s words (though I want to do that well too), I mean to learn how to hear those things unspoken: unspoken pain, unspoken loneliness, unspoken regret and apology, unspoken hopes, unspoken joys. By waiting for the words I could be missing what is already being said. I need to quiet myself and attune my heart.

Maybe in the process I will become a little more like Marky.