Easter Came Early at Haywood Street by Rev. Allen Proctor

Easter Came Early at Haywood Street Easter worship this morning at First Presbyterian in Asheville was pretty spectacular. The music, the liturgy, the message and the visual pageantry combined to create an inspiring celebration of God’s love for all of us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But it was my second Easter [...]

8th Grader Carolina Moore’s poem on homelessness; her reflections on Haywood Street

Smile I know that at least once, you walked into a city, and saw a person that doesnt look like you. Messed up hair, ratty clothes, trash bag in one hand, backpack in the other. Believe it or not they have feelings, feelings of abandonment, loss of hope, hatred and sadness. From family and friends [...]

“there are no homeless Jews”

Towards a new literalism. Not the retreads of exclusion, hierarchy, judgment and damnation, all steel frayed and without theological traction, but the infallibility of scripture that can’t be interpreted away.  From Isaiah and Amos, John and Jesus, the message is unflinching: God shows up for the poor.  And so should the Church. Said a Hobo, [...]

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prayer breakfast invocation

1/15/2011, Grove Park Inn “Beloved Community,” sisters of justice and brothers of grace, let us pray. Because of our contented vista on the mountaintop, our opulent altitude above the clouds O’ Lord, we so often pose before you brandishing the dull edges of complacency, lauding the laurels of yesterday’s half attempt. Yet, on mornings like [...]

“The Church has A.I.D.S.”

2010 Western North Carolina A.I.D.S. Project awareness walk speech Blood transfusions, bodily fluids, sexual orientation, female genital mutilation, intravenous drug use, condoms and intercourse are gritty realities silenced in the Sunday morning lexicon, believed only dealt with beyond the pulpit.  But the forced hush must stop.  And as a United Methodist minister, my spoken task [...]

Bed #34

Door hinges a final time at 4.  Steely latch engages with authority after the deadbolt deadens, opens only from the inside with special permission.  There are no windows.  A wooden crimson cross hangs above the shelter entrance. In the florescent and linoleum hallway, Jesus has been calligraphied half a dozen times.  Primary colors with peculiar [...]

Sleeping in Church

Chronically tired, exhausted from the daily stagger to the soup kitchen, to D.S.S., to the clothing closet, to the Emergency Room, to the bus stop, to panhandling corner, to the bathroom bush, to the courthouse, to the empty labor pool, to the stale coffee, the homeless are never rested. Never restored from a good night’s [...]

Laziness in Motion

“The homeless are lazy, sucking the clean money from altruistic agencies, cashing unearned checks from the government, lining bags with middle class taxes, palming another handout, ripping off the corner church’s charity, stealing from someone else’s pulled weight, angering the citizenry of hard work.”  It is a perception I’ve heard ad nauseam.  A core belief [...]