Quaker Life

When I arrive in the surgery prep area, I find Julia, a black woman in her late 70s, sitting upright on her gurney, legs spread in front of her under a blanket, with a despondent look on her face. I greet her and confirm she’d requested a chaplain visit; she looks at me, nods, then stares away again.

I was listed in the hospital database as the emergency contact for their mother. Early on in my time as director of an emergency drop-in shelter for women and children, I learned that many people become homeless because of a lack of resources, including a lack of family or social network. Without a support system, they not only have nowhere to turn for shelter, they also have no one who will go to appointments with them, no one in the waiting room when they receive hard news, no one to list as an emergency contact. So I’ve made sure that my guests at the shelter know they can always list me, that I’ll always sit in the waiting room with them, that I’ll always be there to drive them home when they are released, no matter what time of day or night. Little did I know that this could also mean becoming legal guardian of their children.

On Ash Wednesday, a couple weeks ago, I packed up the babies and headed to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Lebanon for their midday service. In the Quaker tradition we don’t “do” Ash Wednesday; still, it’s the beginning of the church season of Lent in which people often adopt specific practices or short-term fasts as spiritual preparation for the joy of Easter. I’ve been spending enough time at the altar of our diaper-changing table that I didn’t feel the need—or the capacity—to take on some other new spiritual discipline, but I needed to practice transporting the twins on my own and I do love the Ash Wednesday liturgical experience.

It took around two years for our committee to form and get on the same page. It felt like a small eternity. We yearned to follow scripture’s teachings, wrestling with our hesitations. Could we truly welcome the foreigner? What would it take specifically to help refugees resettle in our home city? I remember watching news stories during that lag. So many people who needed aid. They were desperate. The image of the drowned toddler, washed up on the beach. Still, we were organizing. And then, like that, we were clear. We were ready.