Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 9
April 28, 2008
Witness to our existence
Kitchener, Ont.
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For the past six months, I have been engaged in a student placement at a shelter for homeless women. I practise a ministry of presence, in keeping with the philosophy of Jean Vanier. The majority of my time is spent sitting in the front lounge making myself available. My pastoral supervisor calls this “holy loitering.” When I first began this ministry, I found myself restless. I felt that somehow there must be something else I ought to be doing. It took me several months to settle down and simply open myself to what presents itself that day.
Being open means that I let go of expec-tations and prepare myself to be flexible because the circumstances of the residents’ lives are very unpredictable. When I walk through the doors of the shelter on Monday morning, I do not know whom or what I will encounter.
The un-anxious, non-judgmental nature of my ministry invites a response of trust and I have the humbling honour of receiving that when a woman tells me her story. Occasionally, a resident will ask me about the work I do. Once, following a very interesting conversation with a young woman, she reflected, “You are witnessing to our existence. So often our lives are invisible.”
Why do I show up at a women’s shelter several hours a week? The first answer is that I feel called to do this. I regularly ask God where I might be of service and where I might put my gifts to use, and I take this placement to be God’s answer at this time in my life.
Over the months I have been at the shelter I have discovered that the experiences I encounter there manifest what I can only describe as “the fullness of being,” and this is the second reason that I am drawn to return. As I am welcomed into the lives of these women, I touch what author Alice Munroe describes as the “marvellous, shattering absurdity” of life. Freed from much of the trappings we have come to associate with what makes a person, life in the shelter seems to be distilled to its essence. Pain and loss are evident, but so is levity and touching acts of generosity and kindness.
Without title, power or material goods, how does a woman express her personhood in a world that looks to these factors as necessary to our identity? A resident I’ll call Viv answered this for me quite unexpectedly. Viv had been able to raise her daughter Bonnie (a pseudonym) in her child’s early years, but Viv’s drug addiction made it necessary for Bonnie to be removed from her care later.
When I met Viv, she had not seen Bonnie, who is now 18, for three years. Viv had succeeded in arranging a visit in which child services would bring Bonnie, who is living in another city, to the shelter to see her. Viv had the extraordinary task of conveying a sense of her personhood to her child—all in one hour.
Think about it. She cannot welcome Bonnie into a family network that would give her a sense of connectedness and history, nor can she receive her daughter in the personal space we know as home, a place that reflects one’s taste and individuality. She does not have a kitchen in which she can prepare something special for her daughter and she has no money to take her out.
Viv described to me how she envisioned the visit. She wished to receive her daughter in the room that she shares with two other residents. She wanted to leave the door open so that women who know her could drop by and “tell my daughter something about me.” Viv had identified her relationships as a valuable reflection of her identity.
I was there when Viv greeted her daughter and it was a wonderful moment. The residents and the staff had all participated in their own way in Viv’s anticipation of Bonnie’s visit. When it finally happened, there was a collective delight in seeing Viv’s prayer answered.
Viv gave herself to her daughter through hugs and words, but what really stayed with me was the importance of our presence to this moment. Our presence spoke to Bonnie of her mother’s life, and our witnessing their reunion somehow made the whole event more real.
Viv needed us there to witness the existence of her daughter and to witness her as a mother. I believe that our memory of this event will serve as a source of sustenance and identity for Viv as she continues her journey.