The Mantel of Remembrance

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Taize Community, Taize France

I walk through the halls of Open Door Community and I am immediately surrounded by various pieces of art by Jacob Lawrence and other black artists. There is a photograph of the "father of Blues", W.C. Handy and the leading black author, Zora Neale Hurston found in the hallways at Open Door. There are banners advertising various events that are relevant to the community of Open Door. In the back hallway there is a mural drawn, remembering such peace activist as Phil and Daniel Berrigan and Catherine Morris. There are 66 rooms at Open Door Community and each one is named after such human rights advocates as Fredrick Douglas or Fannie Lou Hamer. Social activist like Caesar Chavez and Nelson Mandela are also remembered at Open Door. The the hallways, the rooms, stair case landings or small alcoves remind all who pass by that Open Door Community is a part of a great and wonderful tradition of prophets, activist, and people who believe in freedom and justice for all. Here, at Open Door, we are a "surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses...let us run with perseverance the race that is before us." Hebrews 12:1

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Taize Community

As I climb the front staircase to my room on the second floor, I notice photographs of some wonderful people who have passed through the halls of Open Door Community. Most of these are brothers and sisters who have volunteered at Open Door Community in one capacity or another. Each of them have beautiful stories of overcoming barriers, addictions, terrible memories, or folks just seeking sanctuary to find rest, peace, and wholeness in an otherwise painful and difficult world. Each of them have compassion for the least, the marginal, and the poor. Each believe that God has called them to this place to walk alongside of those who come for hospitality and care. At some critical point in their life, Open Door Community volunteers were there for them and now they've chosen to be present for others who may be on a similar path or a very different one. Whatever the reason, they remembered the kind and generous care and concern of Open Door Community.

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Taize Community

In the main hallway where many of our friends wait for their meal, a shower, or a change of clothes, there is a bulletin board filled with the photographs of our friends. Above this wall of pictures, in both English and Spanish, is the phrase: "No, no they are not numbers. They are names." Their smiles, some with broken teeth or no teeth at all, smile upon us as we live and work and serve our friends. Each day we are reminded that our friends are not vagrants with no name, no personality, or human soul. No, they are people -- people with real needs who are not only among the hundreds we feed each day, but are also our teachers, our friends, and our advocates. Each day this sacred wall reminds us that our family is more than those with whom we live and work, but they are our brothers and sisters on the streets of Atlanta. For these are God's children too.

Jesus remember me when I come into your kingdom
Jesus remember me when I come into your kingdom

Taize Community

As I pass by the bulletin board today where our friends smile down upon us, a picture of one of our friends is missing. We got word today that Willy died at Grady Hospital. He was a quiet man, but a good man. Many on the streets do not share too much for they are afraid they might say too much or be implicated for something they didn't do. Willy was getting old and the streets were too hard for an elderly man. Many who die on the streets have been estranged from their families and no one remembers them, but at Open Door Community we have a special place on the fireplace mantel in the living room where we place our friends who have died on the street because no one should die alone and forgotten. We pray for our sick friends daily and our hearts grieve when one of our trusted friends leaves this hard and cruel world and finds the peace they've never had on the streets of Atlanta. It is the least we can do at Open Door Community -- to remember our friends and prayerfully and with tears in our eyes, we carefully place our friend on the mantel of remembrance, never to be forgotten.

Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom
Taize Community

Life at Open Door Community is not just a community that feeds the hungry on the streets of Atlanta. Yes, it is a place of hospitality, resistance, and radical discipleship. For the people on the streets it is a family where they will not be forgotten, where they are not a number, but a person where their memory will live on. So, I babble on, soon to depart from Open Door, and I will carry with me the memories of this place and the loving way in which the folks at Open Door Community look upon our homeless friends as family and the promise that in life and in death, they will not be forgotten.