A Human Hand, A Human Face

Vancouver, British Columbia, did not invent Skid Row. The strip along East Hastings Street is like strips all over the North American continent, complete with pawn shops, gyp joints, and people who shuffle along with collars turned up against the cold, who shout and yell their misery, who mutter out loud to invisible companions.

First United Church stands on the strip. It is one of those churches that was fashionable in its day but was abandoned as its congregation moved to the suburbs. Looking a bit like a boat with a triangular prow, First Church towers above a bus stop at a busy Hastings Street corner.

Inside it is shabby. The carpets are threadbare in spots, and people are sitting everywhere. Most of these people look poor, tired, and worried. Some don't speak English; most don't speak officialese. They come for a place to sit, a cup of coffee, a friendly smile, a support group meeting, a political exiles' gathering. Some come looking for an easy mark.

First Church is a sign for me, a pointer. It points the way to hope. I don't believe that Band-Aid programs are the hope of our future, nor that we will all be saved by our good works. Even the political action in which First Church is involved is not the real hope. Hope lies deeper than any of these things.

My dictionary tells me that hope is, first, a feeling that what is wanted will happen—desire accompanied by anticipation. What is wanted? God's kingdom, justice, compassion, and caring. First Church gives me hope because God's kingdom comes here daily, in small ways. It is much easier to anticipate the kingdom when I sit in the pew and hear prayers for justice in Central America mingling with prayers for the grace to stay sober one more day. I anticipate the coming of the kingdom because it is here already.

I expect the growth of the kingdom because of the people who help First Church do its work. It takes money, time, and prayers from the whole United Church of Canada and beyond to enable a ministry of compassion. Somehow it happens—never as much as it should, always falling short, but the ministry is there. It is our sign of the greater love and compassion which does not fall short.

Hope also means the person or thing from which something may be hoped. The beloved community, the Body of Christ, the church; something may be hoped from this. We look to it for conversion, for a change of heart, knowing we can receive hearts of flesh for our hearts of stone.

I am reminded of this by the caring that goes on within First Church, and especially by the caring of the people of First Church for us. We are a family several hundred miles away, wrapped up in the intricacies of anti-nuclear work. Yet we are seen as part of the church's family. When I was in jail last summer for resistance to nuclear weapons, some of the most strengthening "jail mail" came from First Church. It said that the community remained, that our struggles were one, that in the midst of destitution we can still reach out to each other in love.

My dictionary gives one last meaning for hope: (archaic) trust, reliance; that which we trust, on which we rely. First Church symbolizes the reliable love of God. "For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

God's love bears us up, helps us live and breathe, succors us and sustains us. God's love is with us whether we are aware of it or not. We are continually forgiven, loved, and invited. We can rest in the knowledge of God's love whatever happens. Our hope is not that we will avoid trials, but that in the love of God, we can bear them and bring forth fruit. But even if everything we do seems to fail, God's love remains constant.

That is the symbolism at the heart of First Church. Despite its faults, dissensions, and Band-Aid or "too political" works, it is there. It speaks of God's love to people who have the hardest lot: poor people, alcoholics and drug addicts, political exiles, women, gay people, and those who find no meaning in their lives.

I find my hope in the knowledge of God's love. I rest on God's lap and know that I am loved. But especially in dark times, when I've failed others or they've failed me, in times when I doubt that the kingdom can come because of our perversity, in times when life seems hopeless and I can't feel the presence of God, First United Church points the way. It is a human hand, a human face, present in God's love.

Shelley Douglass was co-founder of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Bangor, Washington, when this article appeared.