A troubling event in a small town has global implications. I am a seventh-generation Vermonter. I’m active in same local mainline church I attended as a child with my parents. My great-grandfather and grandparents attended the same church.
We at North Church think of ourselves as liberal and open and affirming. But this was recently tested. The church became embroiled in a warming shelter issue unfolding in the town. The state of Vermont asked the town to find a location for a 10-bed warming shelter or overnight respite for homeless individuals during this year’s winter months. Neighborhood homeowners and businesses rejected several proposed locations in town. Eyes turned to North Church’s basement as a possible location. Although a majority of the executive committee voted to continue exploring housing the warming shelter at the church, there was an emotionally charged divide for and against the warming shelter in the committee. An information meeting between the congregation and state representatives went quietly, but a public meeting with neighborhood businesses and homeowners was fraught. There was an intense and emotional reaction to the proposition voiced by some church members and nearby businesses and landowners. When the membership of North Church later voted on the proposal to house the warming shelter it was defeated, although the vote was quite close.
I want to consider the intensity of the response to the possibility of a warming shelter at North Church expressed by church members and some neighbors. People raised concerns about their or their children’s safety walking along the streets, finding people outside their apartments in hallways, or lingering in front of the church, disrupting tourists. People suggested that more than ten people would loiter around the church, causing noise, producing trash, and committing criminal acts. Others spoke of people moving to town and taking advantage of the facility. Others believed that ten beds would expand to as many beds as the state wanted and that the warming shelter for four winter months would mushroom into a year round homeless shelter. The town, the beautiful neighborhood and church would be inundated and overwhelmed with… Well, with whom? With what? That is the crux of the problem.
Those who believed that providing space for a warming shelter fit our Christian mission to help the disadvantaged had one lens for the situation and one image of the homeless and those opposed had another lens and another image charged with fear. It was impossible within the given timeframe to consider the proposal and vote on it after a compassionate, open-minded dialogue about the issue. Fear trumped the situation.
This seems like the story of a small town grappling with a local issue. But I see much larger implications in this local story. Our nation and our world are gripped with fear about “new citizens”, about all sorts of “othernesses,” racial, ethnic, gender, immigrant, religious affiliation issues and more. And today particularly Syrian immigrants. Consider the irony of only allowing Christian immigrants into our country!
What do our cultural values, and in the case of my church, Christian values tell us? We need to seek first to understand the other. Then, open-mindedness, dialogue, and compassionate acceptance of each other can loosen the grip of fear. We will then know the needs of others and how to meet them. The alternative is fear that can cause hate which can lead to violence and a destructive circle feeding upon itself ensuring more fear and so on. We can see this spectacle unfurling daily in our world.
My hope is that we find a way to respectfully challenge a fear reaction with compassionate questions and understanding and that the values of respect and acceptance weaken and abolish the cycle the fear. Then perhaps my church and country will find our way to offer shelter to the homeless and a haven for the threatened and oppressed.