Minding the Gap: Building Partnerships across Difference

In a world tom apart with anger, hatred, and conflict, we have the privilege of being living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.-Brother David Viyhof, SSJEFor the past decade our attention has been consistently drawn to the growing income inequality gap in our country and the decline of the middle class.1 The fabric of life in America is changing, politicians, economists, and sociologists tell us, as the elite wealthy class increases in numbers and isolation while a growing number of people are falling below the poverty line. The church has a role to play in addressing income inequality in contemporary American society. Communities that are vastly different from each other and yet bound together by the communion of saints and the teachings of Jesus can mind the gap and cross the income inequality divide to forge relationships and share resources. This is one priests story of how partnerships across difference and collaboration between secular and faith-based organizations built up an economically challenged neighborhood church and its people, and allowed both to thrive.The stained carpet down the center isle of the cold sanctuary was strewn with onion peels, wrinkled bruised apples, and dirt that fell off carrots pulled from large sacks. Volunteers in winter coats reached into fifty-pound bags for handfuls of potatoes to place in the brown grocery bags on top of cans of creamed com and bags of stuffing. Frozen turkeys sat at the bottom of the bags that filled the pews in the stunning, beautifully boned Episcopal church designed by architect Henry Vaughan and built in 1882: St. Marys on the Hill in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Three hundred turkeys in grocery bags filled the normally empty pews that morning. They were all gone by noon. On Sundays, the last remnants of a diminishing community gather to sing and pray in this cold, nearly empty church. On Tuesdays, people stand in line from early morning to be allowed entry because they do not have enough food. Jesus fed the hungry and told the poor that they were blessed, that the kingdom of God belonged to them. I moved to an economically challenged neighborhood to hear Jesus' teachings in a new culture, and to practice living by faith where there wasn't much else to live by.What Brings Us Together?Before I moved to the city, I served St. Anne's-in-the Fields Epis* * Church in Lincoln, Massachusetts as their rector for twelve years. The parish name gives away its setting. The kitchen window and back porch encircled by day lilies on the south side of the country rectory looked out over an open meadow of purple heather. In warmer months I walked the wooded trails to Walden Pond and dove into the clean water to swim; when snow fell we broke trails on crosscountry skis that took us into woods whose heavy pine branches held the resting snow.One weekday afternoon a high school basketball player from my church joined me to offer a girls basketball clinic at the afterschool program in an inner city parish with which we were partners. During the car ride home she told me about the girls who came to play basketball in the dingy gym. They were good athletes and quick learners, she said. Did I know that they had no physical education classes in their school? Did I know that they never practiced or played on a team? Did I know they had no recreation department and no afterschool sports?Two voicemails waited for me when I returned to my lovely office with its bay windows looking out on fields and trees. Two thoughtful parents had called to say their children would not be attending choir rehearsal that afternoon: a daughter had made the cut and would be dancing in the Boston Ballets Nutcracker, a son had made the tennis team at their private club. These practices and rehearsals were mandatory, and the church's programs were superfluous for these families able to follow their children's talents and interests wherever they might lead. …