When I first arrived at Friendship Park nine years ago, Alise growled and yelled at strangers when they came through the gate. She sat with her friends near the front of the park. It was a rough bunch of scary looking characters, lots of prison tattoos, obviously folks who camped out, who trusted very few outside their circle and kept their guard up. Alise, a white woman in her thirties at that time, had crazy blond dreadlocks that only added to her off-putting persona.

It was the day Alise screamed at me as I walked past, "You're one crazy f---ing pastor!" that I realized I was "in." Stunned, caught completely off-guard, I stopped in my tracks. Then it hit me. Coming from Alise, this was a huge compliment! I slowly turned around and headed towards her and gave her a big hug.

Slowly, through the Side-By-Side candle ministry and cautious visits, I was accepted by this closed group. Alise began calling me "The SMUD Lady" (for Sacramento Municipal Utility District), because the candles Side-by-Side gives away are her form of "electricity" in her tent on the river.

When I first met her, Alise rejected attention and refused to have her photo taken. Today she has agreed to let me share her story here. I am deeply grateful and humbled to do so.

41 years old now, Alise grew up in and around Sacramento and Davis. She describes the adoptive mother who raised her as "crazy." She realizes now that her mother probably was mentally ill. Her parents split when Alise was quite small and she rarely saw her father, a sociology professor. She describes him as pretty messed up. When Alise was 19 years old, her father took his own life. She says both her parents were "twisted." Life at home was hard, so Alise left the insanity at age 15 and has been homeless off and on since then. She never finished high school because she just couldn't stay on task. She admits she may have some type of hyperactivity because her thoughts are still very flighty. She's never been assessed.

Alise has six children, five of whom she knows. Her 15-year-old twins live in Sacramento with their father, and volunteered this summer at Loaves & Fishes. Alise camps on the banks of the Sacramento River in a secluded forest with her dog, Chopper. Chopper is her protection and companion. I know better than to get near Chopper unless Alise has a firm grip on his collar. It's rough out on the river. Last night, Alise heard a terrible thud from something falling off the highway bridge near her. She grabbed Chopper as he went to investigate, when she realized it was a woman's body. "It freaked me out," she said, "I'll never forget that sound."

Currently Alise works part time for Loaves & Fishes stamping lunch tickets as the ticket numbers are called. She's worked for Loaves from time to time for four years. Though she doesn't make a lot of money, Alise says, "At least I'm not sitting on the street corner selling dope anymore." She admits that drugs were a part of her life and showed me the needle marks on her arm to prove it. I also noticed the scars from the past where she's intentionally cut herself, and the colorful tattoos down her forearm that disguise what is there. She's backed way off the drugs in recent years. I asked her what changed and she said she doesn't have the strength to continue the lifestyle. It's a lot of work to live that way. She's mellowed a lot over the years. She says she still yells at people, but has to watch it since now she works at Loaves.

Alise has a golden heart that shines even more than her golden hair. When a friend dies, Alise carries the large spray of flowers from the Friendship Park memorial service out to the river, where friends hold their own private celebration. Many of her friends and campmates have died over the years. The last one was a suicide and Alise brought a large cross woven from vines and branches to the Friendship Park service and placed it in the memorial wall fountain pool. She rarely attends and never speaks at the services because it is just too difficult.

I asked Alise what she would say to people about homelessness. "People think we're scum. Get over it. We are all just the same," she said. "Whenever you are judging a book by its cover, open it up and read it – at least the first two chapters."

Recently Alise was a bridesmaid in a wedding I officiated at Loaves & Fishes for another formerly homeless worker and his fiancée. Alise, who never wears dresses or fixes herself up, found a dress for the occasion but could not find appropriate shoes. So she made the other women in the wedding, including me, agree to go barefoot with her, but I forgot. "Hey, you have shoes on," barked Alise. I immediately took off my high-heeled boots (it was winter) and stood in my stocking feet on the concrete floor as I officiated the ceremony. If you say you are going to do something, you do it. We stood in solidarity together, a shoeless bridal party.

Today Alise doesn't snarl or call me a crazy f---ing pastor when we see each other in Friendship Park or in a crowded dining room at the church community breakfast. Over the noise and confusion she calls out, "I love you!" And I respond, "I love you too, Alise!"

The Great 50 Days – A Mission of God's Movement in the World: Day One

By: Blake Busick on 2/18/2011

Topics: Daily Bible Study

For the next 50 days you are invited to immerse yourself in the story of the church becoming a movement of grace transforming the world. What you are about to read is very dangerous, even subversive. It is the story of the power of Christ's resurrection set loose in the world through the fire of the Holy Spirit.

It is a story that is:

Dangerous to systems that perpetuate crushing poverty and poor health;
Subversive to a world bent on violence and war;
Deadly to the forces that keep people lost, addicted, hopeless, oppressed, or ignorant of the fact that they are children of God."

What if, by 2020:

All congregations in our Conference had a clear, simple vision and strategy for making disciples in their unique context who reach their mission fields;
Our Conference culture naturally encouraged innovative ways of multiplying disciple-making movements to create new places for new people;
One-third of the congregations in the Conference are starting something new that reaches new people through context-discerned models of new faith communities, and/or new expressions of current offerings;
We had a new multicultural congregation that consistently engaged no fewer than 1,000 active participants each week;
We had at least five existing congregations with no fewer than 1,000 active participants each week;
We had at least 20 faith communities with no fewer than 500 active participants each week?

How would we be different? How would people's lives be changed? How would our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world be enhanced?

Would these be signs that we had become a movement again?

Let's catch fire as we open ourselves to God through these daily Scripture readings. Let's pray that God would make us a movement again. It can start with a single heart igniting through a fresh encounter with Christ.

Could that heart be yours?

ACS 2011_Bishop's Award Guidelines

By: Warner H. Brown, Jr. on 2/7/2011

Topics: Letter

Page 1 of 2 Next

Blogs

Topic

Author