I’ve learned many things after 22 years of walking with neighbors living through homelessness and counting them as true friends. One thing is that every single one of them refuses to give up and die. They want to live. Yet, many factors lead them to find ways to survive. They need places to sleep, camp, use the bathroom, shower, and find sustenance. So when a locality arrests them for trespassing and imposes fines, they cannot pay, even if they work (and many do); they need to invest their paychecks in hotel stays, medications (yes, meds), and food. They can’t afford the fines associated with trespassing charges, much less the court fees.
Arresting neighbors living through homelessness or charging them with trespassing is a legal way of criminalizing homelessness. Not only is it the opposite of trauma-responsive practice, it is counter-productive. Tying up dockets and jails with charges like these is unhelpful to the justice system, taxpayers, and the neighbors’ ability to get on their feet.
It is just unhelpful. There is a better way. Just reach out to organizations like 3e or churches of compassion and collaborate. Together we can find a way.
Dr. Samuel Cartwright, born in Fairfax County Virginia, was the son of Rev. John S. Cartwright. He was trained at a young age in the language of Greek and Latin and grew up to become one of the most prominent physicians in antebellum Mississippi. He published articles on yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria, syphilis, the uses of iodine, surgical removal of ovarian tumors, and other conditions that advanced medical science. He was a prominent physician with great national influence and earned the praise of the medical community, reaching as far as Europe.
In 1851 he published “Diseases and Peculiarities of the N***o Race” in a southern magazine primarily focused on the agricultural industry. The diseases he described only affected Black people, one of them a mental illness he called “drapetomania.” He created this term from two greek words, drapetes, meaning to run away, and mania, meaning madness. He claimed this illness was the reason behind why many enslaved Black people continued to flee enslavement.
In a series of published letters to Rev. William Winans in 1843, Cartwright’s racial views were clear. He believed that the relationship between the enslaver and the enslaved was “not based upon human but Divine law.” Drawing from the abhorrent Hamitic curse theory he concluded that the Bible cursed the “Ethiopian” to be a “servant of servants.” Unsurprisingly, Cartwright’s consciousness was formed by the colonialist-turned-southern brand of white supremacist christianity and his pro-southern political views (Jefferson Davis was one of his patients). He was incapable of separating his theology and ideology from his medical research.
Cartwright’s theory of “drapetomania” was declared as pseudoscience.
Among the many things Cartwright’s story demonstrates is how the consciousness of the oppressor is incapable of understanding liberation. His diseased imagination was not only sickened by the sin of white supremacy, but the heretical brand of christianity it supported and its death-dealing politics of the pro-slavery confederate south committed to the commodification of black and brown bodies and exploitive economics. Power and privilege, and in Cartwright’s case white privilege, blinds the eyes, twists the mind, and arrests the conscious which, as the 2nd century African church leader Origen (185-253CE) said, is the “chamber of justice.”
We know that the realities of the reign of sin and death comes to us. Sometimes it feels like floodwaters dragging us out into the deep of an ocean of chaos where we feel like we are drowning in our hurt, or sorrow, or failed expectations, or broken dreams. But listen beloved, the reality of the reign of God’s grace and faithful love tells us that although it may feel like a flood, it is only a wave. It may be tidal wave upon tidal wave, but it is only a wave. At some point in some future moment the waters will recede. But while you are in it, the Lord will not let you go. You will not drown. You will breathe.
God’s abundance is revealed in surprising ways when Christ’s reign is working among and between a once-divided people now reconciled together in by the gospel. From the miraculous provision of God where circumstances are divinely woven together into a fabric of unexpected blessing that answers an impossible need, to the everyday normal transactions when one child of God shares with another to meet a need, God’s inclusionary hospitality opens up a fountain of every blessing that comes from God’s abundance.
“All the believers…felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.” Acts 4:32 NLT
In the Ancient Near East the practice of hospitality moved beyond relational embrace to holistic care. It was a moral commitment that involved compassionate care and generosity for the “other,” especially someone far from home. Food, shelter, and physical well-being are signs (and outcomes) of hospitality. With this in mind I like to think of hospitality as solidarity with neighbors, including strangers, expressed by a mutual relationship of faithful presence, compassion, and generosity where we come together in the struggle for dignity and human flourishing.
Back to Jesus. With the inbreaking of God’s kingdom a new way of understanding what it means to be human has been announced. With God as Provider there is no limitation of resources. With God as divine Homemaker anyone can find a home. But this conviction must be enacted and practiced among those who confess it.
So Jesus mandates his followers to, “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.” Luke 6:35-36 NLT
About this text Dr. John Koenig observes, “the underlying faith expressed is that God takes an active part in generous relationships between humans, more than covering any “losses” incurred by the one who extends aid. But those who choose the life of greedy accumulation over the life of sharing cut themselves off from God’s abundance.” (New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission, 37.)
What followers of Jesus have to decide is do we believe God can cover any potential “loss”, and then some, when we take this kind of hospitality serious enough that we become reliant on God’s abundance?
Through Orange Colored Glasses
My dearest mentor, friend, brother, pastor, activist and example. Read it. You won’t be sorry that you did.
Williamsburg Christian Church's Blog
Get Sunday Wrap-Ups, Insights Along The Way, Practical Ways To Live Missionally, Weekly Updates, & Special Announcements
Long Way Here 