Texas Heat and the Unhoused

Texas Heat and the Unhoused

Written By: David S. Gruber from Housing Forward

Have you, like so many of us, been lamenting the blazing Texas heat? It has been particularly intense this summer, which greatly impacts our unhoused neighbors. 

We are honored to introduce David S. Gruber, the Senior Director of Development and Communications at Housing Forward. Below, David shares what we can do to help community members experiencing homelessness amidst the extreme heat. Housing Forward is one of the local organizations that Arapaho UMC works alongside in an effort to end homelessness in our local community.

From David:

What can you do to help our unhoused neighbors during the extreme heat we are experiencing? This question can and should be answered on two levels, the short term, and the long term.

In the short term, our community has been blessed with several entities who provide or serve as cooling stations for anyone in the community who is trying to escape the heat. 

The Salvation Army has nine cooling stations in operation across North Texas. The City of Dallas’ libraries and recreation centers and the City of Plano’s libraries are open to the public during normal business hours. Our Calling is open Monday-Saturday from 8:30 am until 1 hour after the heat index is below 105. The options on weekends are not as plentiful. Check our I Need Help page for more info. Sharing this information with our unhoused neighbors is a great way to help.

Let’s be frank, though, cooling stations are a band-aid solution. This is not to say that band aid solutions are not important. Johnson and Johnson estimates that since the invention of the band aid, they have sold over 100 million of them. Still, it can’t end there. 

What we really need to do is house people, because homelessness is a housing problem. Then they won’t need to go to cooling stations. Fortunately, we know exactly how to do that. In fact, In October 2021, Housing Forward kicked off the Dallas R.E.A.L. Time Rapid Rehousing initiative, aiming to rehouse 2,700 people by the end of September 2023. We have so far housed about 2,500. Earlier this year, Housing Forward announced that this initiative would be transformed into R.E.A.L. Time Rehousing with a goal of housing a total of 6,000 people by the end of 2025.

What can do to help? Did you know that you already are? It’s true. Arapaho UMC is a member organization of the All Neighbors Coalition, a collective of over 130 organizations across Dallas and Collin Counties, who work alongside Housing Forward in the fight to end homelessness in our community.

Make sure you take advantage of opportunities to educate yourself about homelessness and how we can solve it by listening to our podcast, We Are Neighbors, signing up for our newsletter, and watching our Hard Conversations series. 

It is not that easy to find rental properties to house all the people we need to house, so if you own or manage rental properties, we need your help. Let’s talk today!

Finally, exercise your responsibility inherent in the most prominent office in our land, citizen. Become a YIMBY (yes, in my backyard). Make sure your elected officials know that you support housing our unhoused neighbors in your neighborhood. That is the only way we can end homelessness together. 

Seeking Justice

Texas Impact & Seeking Justice

Written By: Marilee Hayden

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. (Isaiah 1:17 NIV)

I am someone who views the world under the lens of how it “should be” rather than just accepting things as they are. For this reason, I have a lot of trouble trying to understand how there can be such disagreement among Christians about the very essence of God’s messages to us. I believe that Jesus was an advocate for social justice and that the fundamental nature of His advocacy was love and compassion. Jesus took action!

I came to AUMC as a seeker of social justice. To that end, I attended the Texas Impact/United Women of Faith Legislative Event with Pastor Cathy a couple of weeks ago. There were sessions about women’s reproductive rights, gun violence, climate, racial justice, immigration, education/vouchers, and voting rights. In spite of the ice, we took buses to the Capitol and met with the legislators in our districts who had managed to get to the Capitol that day. I felt really energized from the experience and welcomed the knowledge and opportunities to do my small part in making Texas a better place for all of us.

Since coming home, there’s been more news about the Governor’s agenda against trans kids and his warning to state agencies and universities that the use of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are illegal in hiring. The Texas State Board of Education has removed its opposition to vouchers. More books are being banned. There are many things happening in our state that will further disenfranchise people and make it difficult to get out of poverty. Some of my daughter’s friends (members of the LGBTQ+ community) are moving away because they are frightened to live here. It all feels so cruel and some days it just seems like the battle is too big and too insurmountable.

As a woman who owned a business and worked with women ranging from executive leaders to women who were on the front line, I am particularly concerned about the loss of reproductive rights in Texas. Our ability to control when (or if) we have children has a big impact on our career progression and economic well-being. Even though we’ve come a long way, pregnancy slows down our career growth.

For women with lower incomes, an unwanted pregnancy can mean financial demise. It’s a vicious circle because an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy can make it difficult to work. Childcare is expensive and it’s a requirement for young children. How are women living in poverty supposed to go to work if they can’t afford childcare? Whether we are pro-life or pro-choice, it seems cruel to institute an outright ban against abortion without implementing social and financial safety nets to mitigate the negative impact of the law. In addition, there is no exception for rape, incest or even age.

Bee Moorhead, Executive Director of Texas Impact, told us that change is slow and incremental. Bee told us that we may not even see much change in this legislative session. However, we must speak up and advocate for social justice because silence paves the way for even more inhumane treatment of people who are disenfranchised.

On Saturday I went to an event called A Challenge to Act with a Heart for Justice organized by United Women of Faith. My main takeaway from the speakers was that people of faith must take action. Talk without action is just talk. There are so many people at AUMC who advocate for social justice and are really good at it! Shandon Klein, a doctoral student at SMU, told us that we need to consider what our actions say about our belief in God and that we need to be cognizant of the power we hold in our churches. That power is the power to make change.

Pastor Cathy and I will be organizing letter writing campaigns, and I hope that many of you will join us. Texas Impact will be using mainstream civic engagement platforms to meet the legislative objectives. If you would like to be involved in letter writing or other legislative advocacy efforts or would just like more information on the Texas Impact agenda, please email me.

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My Journey Toward Racial Justice

My Journey Toward Racial Justice

Written By: Kenton Self

My grandmother could put a popsicle stick in the ground and in time it would grow popsicles.

Well, not quite, but she did have quite the green thumb, so as the grandson of Mamie Wagliardo, I spent a lot of time with her digging in the dirt. One of the lessons she instilled in me is that if you want to get the dandelion out of the yard, you can’t just break it off at the stem, you have to pull it from the roots.

Pulling dandelions takes a certain skill that one does not acquire on the first attempt. If the ground is too hard, it has to be softened. It’s frankly a whole lot easier to break the stem. When the yard is freshly mowed you can’t see a solitary dandelion that was cut off at the same height as the grass around it. You can pretend it’s gone. But it’s still there. Give it time, and those roots will eventually pop up another ugly dandelion.

The Journey Toward Racial Justice is an initiative of the North Texas council of the UMC.  It  was created in order to “create disciples of Jesus Christ who are courageously anti-racist in a broken and hurting world.” AUMC is committed to getting this initiative off the ground and to pilot the program. We are developing the program as we go through it. We are working out the kinks. No, not the kinks in the program (well, we ARE working out the kinks in the program, but that’s not the point of this) We are working out the kinks in ourselves.

I grew up in Dallas. My family has been in this city for generations. When I was going into the sixth grade, Dallas ISD started a desegregation process that bussed students from minority schools to white schools. A lot of my peers moved out of the district that summer.

We didn’t. We stayed.

It was messy. I didn’t have a mindset that welcomed people that didn’t look like me. I told jokes that were inappropriate. I harbored resentment against classmates of color who exhibited talents and intelligence I didn’t have. The roots were deep. The ground around the dandelion was hard. 

Over time, I was able to see the ugliness that I carried and of the system of racism I lived in. I’ve seen how my friends of color had to (and still have to) navigate the world by different rules than I  was afforded by my white privilege. I wanted to be a part of the solution. In my attempts to do better I have seen a bunch of ugly broken dandelion stems in my right hand. I have done well at keeping the grass mowed. But dandelion roots run deep.

There is a lot to say about the Journey to Racial Justice program. The reading, the conversation, the invaluable partnership with Hamilton Park UMC, the events... We are doing a lot to help soften the ground. One moment in particular, though, stands out for me.

We recently took a tour of Dallas that highlighted the “Hidden History” of race. There were 90 of us in two buses from both Arapaho and Hamilton Park, sitting together and hearing stories many of us had never heard before. The last stop, though, was a story I knew. The last stop was Forest Avenue/James Madison High School. It’s an ugly episode within Dallas' racial past, when African-Americans began moving into a predominantly white neighborhood around Fair Park. (This article  tells the story of the school.)

When my mom was a girl, her family lived in that neighborhood. My uncle and aunt graduated from that high school.  My aunt still has vivid memories of living there and she has shared them with me often. When our tour stopped in front of that building, I felt a connection to the story, to the neighborhood, to the history, and to the system of supremacy that still inhabits that area and our whole city.

We have a long way to go. We have a lot of work to dismantle the system. It takes time and intention to soften the ground and pull the dandelions out. It takes active listening to the stories of others. The Journey to Racial Justice offers us an opportunity to move the story forward. I’m thankful to be a part of it.

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Healed People Heal People

Healed People Heal People

By Lindsay O’Connor

Father Richard Rohr says that great love and great suffering are avenues for transformation. Nowhere in my life have the two been more entwined than in motherhood. They arrived on my doorstep like a whirlwind pulling me in and catching me up in a disorienting swirl of joy and pain. I came to the end of myself as I faced how little control I had over my body, my feelings, my mental health, my schedule, and the tiny lives that began (and one that ended) within my very own body. The chaotic, messy, holy intersection of shame and motherhood is where God met me. 

In his book Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning talks about “the imposter,” also known as the “false self.” The imposter is made up of the parts of ourselves of which we are ashamed. I saw myself in Manning’s story of realizing that he had been projecting his negative feelings about himself onto God. He suggests that we bring our whole selves—including our imposter— before God. The imposter needs to be loved, not condemned, in order to be healed.

I was first introduced to this idea when I was in the throes of new motherhood, grappling with the shame I had attached to my anxiety and postpartum depression. Timidly at first, when I began to notice the parts of myself I wish I could change, I practiced bringing my whole self to God. I expected to be reprimanded and corrected, but that was not my experience at all.

When I sat quietly before God, opening up my whole self, I found myself held in perfect Love. I felt waves of compassion and healing wash over me. Instead of trying to fix me, God seemed to want to envelop me in Love—in God’s very Self. When I am sad, angry, jealous, or afraid, sometimes God’s comforting, strengthening presence is palpable. Other times, I sense God gently asking me a question, inviting me to discover the root causes of my feelings instead of trying to push them away. 

I became more aware of the shame that had plagued me and had intensified in the midst of my mental health struggles. For years, I had felt like something was missing in my relationship with God. Finally, I began to develop the intimacy with God for which I had been striving. I discovered that surrender and vulnerability, not striving for perfection, drew me in closer. I learned to expect grace and compassion, in place of condemnation, from my Creator.

As my relationship with God began to heal, so did my relationship with my self. I started questioning the old ways I had understood the Bible and Christianity that were not aligned with the breathtaking beauty and compassionate Love that I was getting to know through personal experience. God modeled nonjudgmental curiosity and compassion toward me that I have been practicing extending to myself. When uncomfortable feelings arise, I pause to notice them and let myself become curious about their origins. Often, when I unearth the answer, the result is deeper self-compassion that allows me to ask for the real healing that I need.

The process of healing is on-going, but occasionally, I see guideposts that illuminate how I have changed. In the midst of this reorienting season, we made the difficult decision to leave our church home of ten years. One Sunday morning, I found myself at a new church, scrolling through my phone instead of listening to the sermon. Frustrated with myself for not paying attention, I focused back in on the pastor’s words. I heard him describing the crucifixion of Jesus in horrifying detail. A large portion of the sermon emphasized how undeserving we are of Jesus’ sacrifice. I kept finding myself distracted, when I realized that I was trying to cope with mounting anxiety. As the shame-based preaching reached a crescendo, my anxiety continued to rise until the thought sprung to the forefront of my mind: I can’t be here. 

Sitting and listening to that sermon felt like voluntarily re-entering a jail cell from which I had been released. I breathed in the fresh air of my newfound belovedness and knew that I could not go back.

Shame—the feeling that we are unworthy of love and connection with God and others— is so intolerable, it sends us into self-protection mode. Scripture says that we will know things by their fruit, and the rotten fruit of shame manifests as behaviors that are destructive to our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation.

The healing I have experienced in my relationship with God and with my self impacts my relationships with others. When my worthiness is no longer on the line, I can be more honest and vulnerable with others while maintaining healthier boundaries. I started intentionally seeking to learn from people whose life experiences are vastly different from my own. God has been leading me into the difficult, healing work of racial reconciliation. Reckoning with my own biases and complicity in systems of oppression is uncomfortable, but when I am anchored in my unconditional belovedness, I can take an honest look at the parts of myself and our society that I haven’t wanted to see. Only then can I enter into true repentance and restoration with others. 

The process has no finish line, but the fruit is abundant. I now see that God’s image bearers are so diverse because we all represent various glorious aspects of who God is. To know others—to really get to know people of all races, ethnicities, ages, gender identities, and abilities—is to know God more fully and truly. 

I believe that all good and holy work begins with the work of becoming more firmly rooted in our identity as beloved children of God. When we begin to get flashes of understanding of how lavishly we are loved, we can start to imagine what it might look like to extend that same love and grace to others and to all of creation. If the saying “Hurting people hurt people” is true, so too is the idea that healed people heal the world. In the words of William Blake, “…we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love.” May we enter into the difficult, holy work of allowing God to heal us so that we might be agents of healing in a hurting world.

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About The Author:

Lindsay is a writer, mother, former teacher, and contemplative wannabe. Her writing centers on cultivating well-being in relationship to God, self, and others, with particular focus on shame resilience and racial justice. She works for a non-profit that assists with spiritual development and Enneagram work. She can usually be found with her nose in a book.

Three Faithful Responses to the Separation of Families at the Border

Three Faithful Responses to the Separation of Families at the Border

By Blair Thompson-White

Children are being separated from their mothers and fathers at the border. 

This story from NPR offers startling statistics--2,342 children have been separated from their families--and reports dramatic details that one has to read twice in order to believe: agents telling children they are getting a bath in order to lure them away from their parents; parents being taken away without clear information about where their children are going.

Even more startling than pictures of children crying is the sound of their weeping, heard in this seven minute recording. I heard it while in the car and it cut right to my heart; after ten seconds of hearing the inconsolable children crying "mommy" my instinct was to turn the channel to a music station. The temptation is to try and numb our feelings, to turn the news off about what is happening to these children and families. 

Our Christian response begins with tuning in and turning towards this terrible story. It is our responsibility to stay tuned in and to let our hearts break. The word compassion means 'to suffer with.' Let yourself suffer with these children and families and when people ask you why you feel so deeply for them, say:

1) These are God's children. We believe that each person is a child of God, no matter where they are from or their color of skin; each person carries the divine image. The divine DNA is in each of us; we are all connected!  The crying child is my child. The mother torn from her two-year-old is my sister. Their pain is our pain. This is our family.

2) Ending this cruelty is ours to do. We have the power and the responsibility to stay informed, to keep talking, to keep praying--and to take action.

Some actions I have taken include: Calling my representatives; sending a letter to the White House and Department of Justice (click here for a template); donating to Justice for our Neighbors, a United Methodist-sponsored agency that offers high-quality immigration legal services to these separated families. 

All of us can do something. I read one story about a group of children who put together a bake sale to raise money for lawyers sponsored by Together Rising, another organization working tireless to fund legal help for these families.

Jesus has no other hands or feet on earth but ours. We are given the power of the Holy Spirit to make this right in Jesus' name right now.

3) Scripture gives us the greatest commandment to love God and love others. It is NOT complicated. Why get so passionate about the plight of these children and families? Because Jesus said "I am them" in Matthew 25. When we look into their eyes and hear their cries, we are encountering the living Christ. 

The Bible tells stories of religious folks who got mixed up and put the law over love. We will not get mixed up. 

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said: the time is always right to do the right thing. It is clear what the right thing to do is. 

Children and families should not be separated.

We will not numb. We will not tune out. 

We will pray, think, and act until the sound of weeping is turned into shouts of joy.

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