Working the Late Shift

I can't understand what I haven't experienced.  I can't know people I haven't met.  And even then, knowing is a long, long way from meeting!

In the past  couple of months God has been introducing me to women in prostitution.  Meaning, I go for a walk, and BANG...there she is.  One afternoon, I was walking to Market Street and M. comes up to me with tears in her eyes. "Mama," she says, "I'm too old for this. I've gotta stop. It's quick money, but it's killing me."

I pray for her. Hold her while she cries. "I can't go anyplace. They be askin' me to do them. Right there on the street."

I pray some more. She finally decides to go to a women-only shelter in Berkeley - a BART train ride away from the men who know here by name.  "If you ask them, they can help you," I say. I hope it's true....

Or, Monday I'm walking to Chinatown and two beautiful, 20-something women are trekking up the hill just behind me.  We're out of the Tenderloin. The clean streets and beautiful old buildings of Nob Hill surround us.  Suddenly, it's as if an amplifier has been attached to them.  City noises are all around, yet, there, hiking up Mason Street to the "summit" of California, I heard every single word.

"I make more money on that side of the street," said one of the women, "but I'm working every minute. All night.  I'm &*#)!( ed up and sleep the whole day then."

Her friend replied, "Yeah, but the money. It's worth it."

Somehow, I didn't think these two were driving cab all night.

In Chinatown, I joined about 20 other people for a walking tour led by a San Francisco history buff who volunteers with CityWalk, city-wide walking tours of nearly every neighborhood in this great place.  I love them!

About an hour into the tour, the leader stops in front of one of the oldest Buddhist temples in North america. "This is a spiritual place. They don't mind tours, but ask that we bow at the altar and make an offering for the temple."

Yeah...no.  Not doing that one.  So I stay outside.  Nearby, sprawled on the sidewalk, is a woman who clearly has had a rough go of it.  She looks somewhere between 30 and 50.  Barefoot.  Sores on her legs. Scarf from injection sites on her arms. Around her neck and shoulders she's wrapped something that might once have been fur.  But, it looks like the "furs" spent time in a dumpster or alley. They are filthy.  She's wearing a bra and panties. Pieces of cloth tied around her waist.  Her hair appears to have exploded into a nest of frizz - all held together by a black scarf.

She says her name is Butterfly.   "Money?"  No, dear heart, I don't give money to anyone.....It's the answer I give to every single person who asks here in San Francisco.  I know crack can be purchased for a dollar.  Five dollars will get you a cheap, short-lived high on heroin.  fifty cents will get you the dregs from another junkie's crack pipe.

Could I buy her something to drink?  Normally, I would do this. But today, my fellow tour walkers are beginning to file out of the temple.  I won't have time.

"I'm sorry, Butterfly. My group will be leaving in a second.  Can I at least pray for you?"

"Yeah. Say whatever words you want. I don't care."

I pray for her safety. I ask Jesus to show himself to her in dreams tonight.  To send a huge, strong, warrior angel to watch over her while she works.  To keep her safe.  I tell her that God loves her. That she is beautiful in his eyes and in his heart.  That He cares about how hard things have been. 

"He sees you. He really does. You're not invisible to him," I whisper.

I don't ask to hug her. She's been using and isn't clear about what she wants and doesn't want.  I pat her hand.  She squeezes my arm.

"Thanks, baby," she says.

 I recently learned that a smart, creative, fascinating woman who loves Jesus and is serious about her recovery sometimes "goes back to work" at the end of the month when money is gone.  Without embarrassment she disclosed a past that included work in a brothel where she "made bank" until drug use began to shut down her body and she nearly died.
Another special soul, "Little" spends her days and most nights near the YWAM base. I'm not sure when or if she really sleeps.  I knew she was making money somehow - sometimes saw cash passed to her.  I felt as if a giant hand were choking my gut.  To be baldly honest, when I learned that she is selling crack, I felt shaky and relieved, "Oh thank you, Jesus."   She wasn't selling her body.  At least she was "only" being damaged and crushed by dealing - and sometimes using.  At least she isn't being violated every day by men - yet.

So, what does prostitution look like here?  Attractive young women who could be college students on Nob Hill. Another woman - tired a still attractive after years of living "fast" and "easy money".. She lost her children to Child Protective Services and desperately wants to stop. Yet, how?  What will she do?  Work as a barista at Starbucks?  Tend bar at some dive in Oakland?   "Easy money" is killing her.

Butterfly sprawled on the sidewalk.  The fact that she is still alive seems miraculous.   "Little" walking a pirate's plank with dealing on one side, the threat of her own drug use on the other.  Sharks circle in the water.  One false step and she'll end up selling her body for crack.

On Saturday night the BJM team went into the Tenderloin for street outreach late one night.  We don't do this often - not often enough for my heart.  But, it's challenging.  In a few hours I met Star - she might be 20....maybe.  A beautiful, round face. Skin the color of a Latte. Dimples.  Oh, Jesus....Chelsea - who took my little card with contact information for La casa - the area Domestic Violence women's shelter - yet would not go there that night.  Taylor stood on the curb, waving and peering into passing vehicles. She wanted prayer.  "But I can't take long. I'm working. I don't wanna be late...it gets real dangerous late."

Women standing every 3 or 4 feet along Leavenworth new the New Century strip club.  Young men filed in the doors.  It was so obvious that many of the women were high.  They waited for those young men to exit the club...maybe they'd be ready to buy then.

Many let us pray.  Many smiled when we offered little gift bags with nail polish, make=up and sweet-smelling hand lotion inside.  Tucked in, also, was a tiny flyer about Nail Day and a card with emergency information ....La Casa. Homeless Outreach Team. Crisis line phone numbers.

It will be a year this week that i arrived in San Francisco expecting to spend a summer volunteering with BJM.  Now, I know I'm here until God sends me else where.

Some have asked "what's next?"  I don't know.  Right now I'm hip deep in healing groups, prayer ministry, one-on-one mentoring, mothering and a passel of trans-gender "ducklings" I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with - except loving and more loving. But, my heart is starting to stir. Not sure what it will look like or when, but DAD seems to be giving me opportunities to know "working" girls in the neighborhood.  he seems to be pointing the water cannon of my heart toward these women.  He's educating my heart and showing me how much he loves these beautiful, hurting be-loveds.

Not sure what it means.  But, they are  all so beautiful. so so beautiful.

One Year in San Francisco. What's different? Mostly Me!

Mid-May.  In a few weeks, it will be one year since I flew into SFO, planning to spend the summer as a volunteer intern with Because Justice Matters.  I expected to have a great time with wonderful people. I expected to enjoy BJM and to find meaning in the work they do. 
I didn't expect to fall in love.

But I did.  I fell in love with the tenderloin.  With the women who live on its streets. With unexpectedly beautiful, kind people.  My pastor, Paul, said I would see shining goodness approaching me on the street.  I fell in love with that goodness. I fell in love with the shining - which catches me by surprise over and over.

The Tenderloin has changed me. My first friend was - and still is - a kind old former hippie who joyfully said, "Who would have thought I'd end up an old queen in the Tenderloin?"  We hang out at un Cafecito, our favorite coffee shop, to talk and laugh and spout opinions on all sorts of world problems. Ahhh....someone else with as many opinions as I have!

 P is bright - speaks French fluently and, I just learned, used to be an ESL teacher. She's told me bits and pieces of her story. A few months ago, I was feeling kinda crazy and not sure how to handle strange-but-potentially-touchy family event.  I headed over to un Cafecito and found P.   She held my hand and gave me kleenex and some good advice.

Recently, we had an hilariouslly good time. She asked me "how do you know if a dress is too short?" My comment that "if you raise you hands above your head and everyone can see London" produced howls of laughter. for us both.  We talked about whether knees should go into hiding after a woman reaches "a certain age" and she explained to me that, when one guy recently said, "Nice legs, girl" to me he meant it as a compliment - not an inappropriate weirdness.  She helped me arrive at a funny-ha-ha (not funny peculiar) understanding of the gap between what men seem to do or say and what they actually intend.  Evidently "working it baby" is a compliment in the Tenderloin - who knew? Not me!

We laughed. She said, "I know how guys think. Trust me, I really do understand these things." And reminded me, "You're in San Francisco, now...the air is different here!"

Just the other day, P stepped in to help one of my precious stones, K, think through her opinions and emotions about applying for General Assistance. P understood both the system and K's fear of it with sensitivity and wisdom.  P. said, "Please don't sleep out in the rain. Here's my number. You could crash for a night at my place."

Knowing P has changed me.  Our friendship has challenged thoughts I never would have admitted, but nonetheless, exist in my mind about friendship and "ministry."  The idea that "I minister to" some people and become friends with others. 

I would have said, NO I don't believe that.  Yet, when "the other" lives in the Tenderloin. Or has had a really, rough past. Or where our differences slide into the no-man's land of class and social status.  Maybe I find someone with a similar heart for justice and a huge love for Jesus like mine, yet our lives seem to be light years apart. P and I are similar in many ways.  But what about someone else who was a drug addict when I was a college student or spent time in prison while I was busy raising kids in a lovely home in a beautiful neighborhood?  Will I reach across the seeming gaps to really, honestly be FRIENDS with others?  Not "loving on" (a term I dislike so much I may have to blog about she sheer mass of this dislike!) but simply loving.  Be-friending. And being friended back.

So, I wonder, what would my beloved blog-readers think of my also be-loved friend P?  I think you'd love her humor and deep thoughts about the world and people.  You'd be challenged by her determination to always, always choose love - even when criticism masked as truth-speaking or "being honest" seems more real and maybe even more effective.  You'd laugh with (or maybe at?) us when things get crazy at Nail Day and she whispers to me, "the children are acting up again...we may have to send them to the corner."

One of the many reasons my friendship with P has changed me is that, when P says "I really know how guys think" she's not kidding around. Because she used to be one. A guy, I mean. 

P is transgender. Her struggle with identity and haunting sense that "he" was really a woman began about 30 years ago. When few people acknowledged such thoughts or struggles.  When painful confusion about gender identity was met with "you must be gay....or.... something."

It's painful to think of my friend trying to figure this out alone. Mostly without help or compassionate, supportive community.  The absence of support (and the presence of judgement) in Christian circles drove her away from Jesus for a time. But, she returned, because she wanted Jesus more than she wanted to avoid Christians.

So I want to share about my friend. And to tell how her determination to be honest and real - to be her real self, as much as she understands herself  - has changed me.

I'm not Holy Spirit. It's my job to love and be loved, not to decide what people should do and not do.   Or be and not be.  I have light years to go in my understanding of the diverse, often confusing ways we see attraction and love and identity "working" in human beings.

Some people have said, "Why do you say 'she' - if someone is born a male, they're male. that's it."  Others have asked if I've been drinking the San Francisco kool-aid and slipped into the abyss of liberal-dom. Still others have commented, "but you're called to ministry with women. Women."

And yet, I find myself surrounded by and loving transgender people who consider themselves - and wished to be considered as - women.

I asked God about this. He said, "Transgender people are....what?" I thought....what? is this a trick question?  I don't know...hurting? Confused? Rejected? Then Holy spirit said, "People. They are people. And, what did I ask you to do with people?"  I felt a huge wave of relief. LOVE.  I'm supposed to love people. Just love them.  Whew...I can do that. I don't have to have answers, I  do have to have love.

So, I may write more about this journey. About the power of love, pronouns, and respect for people where they are. And about friendship in unexpected - and joyful - places.