On Monday night at 9:30 I’m stepping off the bus into the Tenderloin. I’ll be meeting up with Thom Longino, an associate night minister. His agency, the Night Ministry of San Francisco, has been around for 50 years offering a ministry of presence in the city. It was established through a collaboration of congregations wanted to address the growing homeless population that was coupled with the counter-cultural movements of the time. 2 CPE students will also be walking this night and a crisis counselor will be answering the crisis line in the office. We will be working from 10 pm – 2 am.
“We walk at a saunter,” Thom explains as we head out. “We want to go slow enough that folks will notice us, but be ready to break into a sprint if we need to.”
The strategy is simple: Show Up. Be there in the Tenderloin and the Castro. Walk the streets. Be approachable. Show up in the bars and the all-night donut shops and the drag shows. Talk with the regulars outside Burger King. Look for the folks you usually see. Be.
It is a cold evening, even by San Fran standards, so Thom and I head out with a bag of socks and 5 or 6 blankets. The blankets are gone in the first 10 minutes. The socks are gone within 40.
I’m struck by how many people know Thom and Night Ministry. Sometimes the conversations are long, but often they are short. We get hit up for change – or more. Occasionally someone will ask for a prayer or a blessing. The conversations with bartenders and the worker at the donut shop have the feeling of having begun ages ago with no end needed – like the conversations of a play-by-play and color commentator of a baseball game. The conversation goes on for innings – sometimes over several games – paused and constantly interrupted by the next pitch. But these conversations have no urgency, no need for completion. They will continue. There will be time to pick it up again.
Since it is cold – and near the first of the month – the streets are pretty quiet. This gives me and Thom a chance to chat about ministry and callings and Franciscan thinking and living and life.
What I’m most struck by in all of this is the consistency of the Night Ministry. Thom hadn’t been out on the streets for a week. But someone was. And someone was answering the crisis line. This work is 365.
I’ve been noticing recently that there is no “down time” at All Peoples. There is busy and very busy. But even in the midst of our busiest time, we still shut down for heat or snow days. We still take a sabbath week in August. We will, from time to time, close our doors.
And that’s the thing. The Night Ministry has no doors to close. It is out there, every night. Night ministers are on the streets. When they are tired. When they are cold. When they aren’t sure they have anything left to give. When one more hard luck story, one more life broken by violence or addiction or abuse seems too much to bear, the Night Ministry is there. And the people, the community, knows this, depends on this.
I saw the looks as we walked – the confusion (was he really in a priest shirt?), the resentment (damn Jesus freaks), the shame (“God knows I’m sinning, just keep on walking”). But most of the time I saw a look that can only be described as knowing. A knowing look that conveys the assurance that no matter what, no matter how hard it gets, someone from the Night Ministry is out. And that knowing look expresses what so many felt, what I feel: Thanks Pastor Thom.
Manifest Complexity 