a hopeful meditation on faith in a broken world.

How do we reach out to the hurt and bring care to our neighbor? How does the Spirit move in our lives to support healing and bring forth well-being among us? How do we know God, especially in the most trying and difficult circumstances?

From a street chaplain's work with homeless people who suffer from mental illness come uplifting stories of hope and redemption and a call to us all to build healing communities.

In the old district of downtown Seattle, down a flight of stairs from sidewalk level, around a couple turns and through a door, is a service center. Hispanics who live on the street call it the Hoyo, or the Hole, because of its subterranean location, but it's not a "hole in the wall" or a "pit." As we enter, we see a large, low-ceilinged space filled with tables. Near the front door is a service counter where people can get a pair of shoes, a clean shirt, or a jacket; or they can sign up for a shower in an adjacent room and borrow a towel. Some seventy or eighty people of various races and ages, mostly men, sit around the tables, and there's an ongoing murmur of conversation. One man sleeps, his head cradled in his arms on a tabletop. Several have sleeping bags rolled up or piled next to their chairs. In a corner of the room, a card game is in progress. Before the city banned smoking in public interiors, the place used to be bathed in a gray-brown haze, but otherwise the atmosphere was one of simplicity and warmth, as it still is. The center was, and is, a kind of club, and some of the folks who eventually find a home return to help those who are still left behind. One feels welcome here.

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