love your neighbor

Kris Brunelli 10-30-2023
The image is a collage of many people who are a part of the Catholic Worker community

Top row, left to right: Dimitri Van Den Wittenboer, Bud Courtney, Lyn Lamadrid. Bottom row, left to right: Gerald Howard, Hideko Otake, Tom Heuser. / Photos by Kris Brunelli 

“CATHOLIC WORKER” is shorthand for a movement, a place of hospitality, and a one-penny newspaper started by activist visionaries Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the early 1930s in New York City. They imagined urban and rural communities where poverty and loneliness could be alleviated by compassion, connection, shelter, and meaningful work rooted in the teachings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Catholic Workers are also the people who dish soup, pour coffee, sweep floors, and work for peace at more than 100 loosely affiliated Catholic Worker houses around the world.

Kris Brunelli has been involved in Catholic Worker communities since 2011 when she started serving soup in New York City’s East Village. She met her husband, Marcus, while they were live-in volunteers at the Denver Catholic Worker. Now the two live in Harlem and volunteer at two Catholic Worker houses of hospitality: St. Joseph House and Maryhouse. Marcus is one of a dozen St. Joseph Catholic Workers that Brunelli interviewed for this story.

Between the clang of ladles and the splash of dishwater, community is born and reborn each day. Although people experiencing hunger and homelessness come to St. Joe’s for obvious needs, everyone who walks in the doors needs something. “We volunteers need community — need it just as much, if not more, as the guests who come and eat,” Brunelli says. “We would be lonely without it — lost, even.” — The Editors

Hideko

AT 8 IN the morning, my husband and I knock on the graffiti-splattered, candy-blue door. Most Mondays, alongside other St. Joseph Catholic Worker volunteers, we help serve breakfast to roughly 80 people. Since 1968, off First Street and Second Avenue in the East Village, people have found community.

“Come in! Come in!” Hideko says.

Five feet tall, a black braid down her back, she smiles over her shoulder. “The boss” several days a week, Hideko asks if we want to help make sandwiches — and heads back to the door when someone else knocks.

She stays busy. Originally from Japan, she’s worked on the Japanese translation of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s 2021 edition of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, as well as for Democracy Now! Japan, and regularly organizes protests against U.S. military bases in Okinawa. She is “stubborn.” She says, “you have to be to do this work.”

Kate Ott 3-19-2020

Editor's Note: As part of her piece "Using the Love Commandment to Talk COVID-19 With Your Kids," Christian ethicist Kate Ott collected drawings and quotes from children engaging in the topic of loving your neighbor during this health crisis. Here's what they had to say.

Kate Ott 3-18-2020

As adults are forced into major social and work-related changes, we can quickly lose patience with our children, forget their perspective matters, and resort to “just do it”-type responses. I want to encourage parents to take a deep breath and invite children into a new way of being in the world shaped by COVID-19. Children are morally resilient and creative when we give them the chance. So, how can we talk with our children about this pandemic? Let’s use the love commandment as our guide.

Jim Wallis 10-22-2019

Illustration by Jackson Joyce

FOR SOME OF US, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays may be the only time all year that we see some of our relatives. Some probably harbor anxiety or even dread at the difficult conversations on politics and faith that surface during meals with family members who see the world very differently than you do.

In Advent, our thoughts turn to the meaning of Christ’s coming and the deep significance of the season for followers of Jesus—“waiting” for him to come, which has special and poignant meaning for us in the deep political and moral crisis in which we find ourselves. In many ways Advent is my favorite liturgical season, because it demands of Christians that we do the work of preparing our hearts for what it means that God came and lived as one of us in a world that needed (and needs) to be changed.

Rose Marie Berger 4-25-2018

ROBERT HARVEY had a problem. The church he pastors was vandalized after the election: “Trump Nation. Whites only” was scrawled across its sign. His congregants, nearly 85 percent of whom are immigrants from West Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, were shaken.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported 1,094 bias-related incidents across the country in the month after the election. The greatest number of these types of events are against women in public spaces who are also immigrants, Muslim, or African American. These are assumed to be a “small fraction of hate-related incidents,” as the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that two-thirds of hate crimes go unreported.

Harvey, rector of Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Silver Spring, Md., decided to take action. First, he reached out to the local community and other religious congregations. Second, he signed up for a nonviolence and “active bystander intervention” training.

To understand how to be an “active bystander,” one must first understand the “passive bystander” effect. Research shows that when someone needs help and they are in a crowd, bystanders are less likely to act. The more bystanders there are to an event, the more each one thinks someone else will help.

Jason Byassee 4-25-2018
piosi / Shutterstock.com

piosi / Shutterstock.com

SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE, and churches ... slow ... down. Folks are planning for vacation. Staff are away. Pastors are away. It’s as if we take our status as middle-class bourgeoisie more seriously than our baptismal vows.

By contrast, in the summer the biblical texts pick up—in intensity, directness, drive. Pentecost falls on us like an avalanche of fire, teaching us languages we don’t know, names, places, people. The old joke is that war is God’s way of teaching geography to Americans. No, in the church, that would be Pentecost. The descent of the Holy Spirit empowers people to preach who most say shouldn’t (in our texts that includes Arabic-speakers, women, unnamed prophets), and confounds those of us who think we “should.” Then Trinity Sunday, and all three persons of the triune Godhead are on the stage. We now know God as fully as God can be known by mere creatures. What we can’t know is not because God is tragically removed or far away. No—it’s precisely because God has come so unbearably close and is so unimaginably beautiful. That’s why we can’t take all of God in. So we praise instead of merely examine. And then Jesus sends out the disciples in mission to do what he does, or even greater things. Teach. Heal. Exorcise. Baptize. This doesn’t sound like a summer vacation or even a mission trip. It sounds like a new way of being in community for others.

That’s what the church is, in summer or anytime.

Onleilove Alston 4-24-2017

Sincere love during these times means offering sanctuary for the sojourner, risking our congregations, and even putting our bodies on the line — knowing that our true citizenship is in the Kingdom, where no one is illegal and all are loved. 

 
Stephen Mattson 3-20-2017

Christians who refuse to break rank from their political tribes and social circles at the expense of refugees, immigrants, the sick, the poor, the uneducated, the maligned, and the outcast are prioritizing carnal hopes rather than divine promises.

the Web Editors 1-26-2017

The draft text of the order, like much of Trump's campaign rhetoric, uses the language of domestic security, couched in tear of terrorism. This is dramatically out of proportion with the actual statistics on crime among immigrants and refugees, when in reality, newcomers to the U.S. commit far less crime than those born here.

Victoria Mason 6-22-2016

Image via Rareclass/Flickr

I grew up in Northern Ireland. I lived through very little of “the Troubles,” in large part because of the huge efforts of those on both sides seeking peace. I remember the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and experienced the stability of the years that followed. So my heart sinks when I think of leaving the EU — of the border controls we would build to stop freedom of movement through the U.K.’s only land border with an EU country, and of the smouldering tensions this would fan effortlessly into flame.I grew up in Northern Ireland. I lived through very little of “the Troubles,” in large part because of the huge efforts of those on both sides seeking peace. I remember the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and experienced the stability of the years that followed. So my heart sinks when I think of leaving the EU — of the border controls we would build to stop freedom of movement through the U.K.’s only land border with an EU country, and of the smouldering tensions this would fan effortlessly into flame.

Joe Kay 4-08-2016

Image via /Shutterstock.com

Will we sit and listen to a refugee mother talk about her family’s horrific life in her war-torn country, and realize we’re no longer afraid of her? Will we talk to the gay couple that needs a cake and hear their love story, and feel a bond because it reminds us of our own love story? Will we look into the eyes with the homeless person begging just outside our car window and see another human being in pain, and suddenly feel an urge to help them? Will we make ourselves divinely vulnerable?

In that moment, we reach beyond our fear. We’re finally freed by love. No longer hiding in a tiny room behind a locked door. That. We all need more of that.

Image via /Shutterstock.com

If we who are Christians participate in the political process and in the public discourse as we are called to do — the New Testament tells us that we are to participate in the life of the polis, in the life of our society — the principle on which Christians must vote is the principle, Does this look like love of neighbor? If it does, we do it; if it doesn’t, we don’t.

We evaluate candidates based on that. We evaluate public policy based on that. And that has nothing to do with whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, liberal or conservative. It has to do with if you say you’re a follower of Jesus, then you enter the public sphere based on the principle of love which is seeking the good and the welfare of the “other.” That’s a game-changer.

Jeremy Schultheiss 11-24-2015
Syrian refugees in Slovenia

Syrian refugees at the Slovenian border in September. Photoman29 / Shutterstock.com

God’s been telling the story of restoration since Genesis when we were created selem Elohim, in the image of God. We were created into perfect communion with God. From Genesis 3 until the end of the Old Testament, we see a narrative of a people in exile and God giving opportunities for reconciliation and restoration of relationship that humanity is incapable of accepting. Reconciliation is an exchange of something worthless (our condition of sin) for something immeasurably worthy (communion with God).

In the New Testament we see a biblical narrative through Jesus of now-but-not-yet restoration. In Jesus we see the coming of the Kingdom of God and get to be reconciled back to God. We even get a glimpse of an eternity where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

If we truly believe we are the image of God, it changes how we approach the image of God in the world. Our call then is to actively partner with God in taking the world somewhere.

10-26-2015

Who your neighbor is and how you should treat them were topics addressed by keynote speaker Lisa Sharon Harper at Saturday's Summit on Race, Poverty and Inequality held at the Henderson Fine Arts Center.

Brian McLaren 3-04-2015
katarinag / Shutterstock.com

katarinag / Shutterstock.com

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” [Micah 6:8]

Too often, perversions of our world’s religious traditions make the daily news for their violence, corruption, greed, and prejudice. Meanwhile, authentic representatives of those traditions are often busy doing good — good that goes largely unnoticed. That’s why I’m glad that a diverse group of religious leaders are sharing about seven ways authentic people of faith can work together to make a better world.

I served as a progressive evangelical pastor for 24 years, and during those years, I saw the evangelical movement struggling with its identity. The best versions of evangelicalism, whether they were labeled conservative or progressive, always took seriously passages like Matthew 25, where Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” Those verses continue to inspire evangelicals of all persuasions to engage in life-giving mission — and in particular, to engage constructively in the world in seven positive, reconciling, and healing ways.

If you invest just a few minutes over the next seven days thinking and speaking up about these seven ways to participate in our world, I believe by week’s end you will be moved to action and in it find a richer, more faithful life:

Tyler Francke 12-19-2014
A gay couple holding hands. Image courtesy EpicStockMedia/shutterstock.com

A gay couple holding hands. Image courtesy EpicStockMedia/shutterstock.com

In the realm of biblical arguments in support of same-sex relationships, I’ve always found one — “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality” — to be particularly weak.

After all, Jesus also never said anything about rape, molestation, bestiality, torture, cyber-bullying, insurance fraud or elaborate pagan rituals involving self-mutilation and child sacrifice. That does not, by default, earn any of those things the Lord’s unconditional seal of approval.

What’s more, I’m not sure if the argument’s underlying premise is even true. Because, in the Gospels, Christ may indeed have failed to specifically broach the topic currently preoccupying the American Evangelical church, but he did address the subject, in a manner of speaking, in Matthew 22 and Mark 12.

In those two brief, but pivotal, passages of scripture, Jesus captures the essence of the Christian ethic, mission, calling and faith in an incredibly simple and beautiful way. And he did so, interestingly, not as a standalone teaching, but in answer to a question from his critics.

It starts when a group of Pharisees, taking the tag from the Sadducees — who had been silenced in the previous back-and-forth — descend on Jesus, with the goal of ripping open a can of good, old-fashioned pwnage, first-century style.

Angela Denker 9-23-2014
Community gathered around online security. Image via Rawpixel/shutterstock.com

Community gathered around online security. Image courtesy Rawpixel/shutterstock.com

Yesterday morning at 5:30 I woke up to a disconcerting email:

Suspicious Sign-In Prevented. Please check your Google activity immediately.

In my half-asleep bleariness, I clicked the link and filled in my password.

Then I realized I'd been scammed.

"Recognize" was spelt "recognise" — and the account email was from Googlemail.com, not Google.com. Otherwise, the email was identical to those I'd gotten from Google in the past.

The next two hours were spent frantically re-securing my life. Changing passwords, adding two-step verification, application passwords.

I suddenly realized how much of my life was online. My Facebook page was a chronicle of my wedding, my jobs, my son's first 2 years of life.

Most people my age are the same way. Sometimes it's easier online.

The first people to find out about my pregnancy three years ago, besides my husband, were members of an online birth month group at WhattoExpect.com. Weeks before we told family or close friends, we shared intimate details about morning sickness, headaches, and faint lines on pregnancy tests.

Why do we do this? Somewhere, all of us, in Fantasy Football groups and pregnancy groups and dog lover groups and gluten-free groups: we're longing for Real Community.

Joe Kay 8-05-2014
Neighborhood concept, abeadev / Shutterstock.com

Neighborhood concept, abeadev / Shutterstock.com

Let me tell you about Steve the neighbor.

When my sister and her family moved some years ago, they quickly learned that they had a lot of retired people as neighbors. Steve lives next door, a former postman who had to retire because of a balky hip. Big and strong, a little rough with the language — all part of his charm.

Steve and two retired buddies on the street spend a lot of time together, grilling together, helping each other through the many challenges that come with getting older. And if anybody needs assistance with anything, they are there to help.

They often say: “We’re neighbors. It’s what we do.“

Steve knows when my sister’s children get home from school, so on snowy days, he’ll rev up the plow and clear her sidewalk and driveway so they can get through without getting stuck. He does it without prompting. Anything else I can help with? The garage door is shimmering? There’s a shrub that needs to be dug up? Be right there with my buddies.

You know those people who make you feel better just because you’re around them? How their upbeat attitude rubs off on you? You leave them with a smile on your face? That’s him.

As my brother-in-law puts it, Steve is a perfect neighbor. Concerned, but not nosy. Willing to help, but never pushy. No payment is accepted. The feeling that they’ve helped someone is thanks enough.

They’re neighbors. It’s what they do.

Joe Kay 7-07-2014
A United Nation. Image courtesy VectorShots/shutterstock.com.

A United Nation. Image courtesy VectorShots/shutterstock.com.

Listening to several Fourth of July discussions last week, I was struck by how many people think of freedom as the ability to do whatever they want. They think there should be few, if any, restrictions on what they choose to do or what they want to own.    

QR Blog Editor 5-09-2014

A coalition of United Methodists has decided not to host an event planned for the summer 2015 in Atlanta due to "racially offensive practices" of the Atlanta Braves.

The Love Your Neighbor Coalition consists of ten “official” and “unofficial” caucus organizations of The United Methodist Church, including the Native American International Caucus of United Methodists, Affirmation: United Methodists for LGBTQ Concerns, and Black Methodists for Church Renewal, among others.

The group sent letters to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s Communications Office received a letter (via email) from the Love Your Neighbor Coalition explaining why their coalition of ten United Methodist-related caucus groups have changed initial plans to hold an event in Atlanta in the summer of 2015. Members of the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Atlanta Braves Executive Offices also recieved emails.

The letters included this message:

“While we give thanks that the Atlanta Braves organization has changed its mascot from ‘the screaming Indian, Chief Noc-A-Homa’ to ‘Homer,’ we also note that they have not done anything to remove the offensive caricature of “Chief Noc-A-Homa” from screen savers and Facebook pages that still connect it directly with the Atlanta Braves. If recent news stories about racism within sporting organizations have shown us anything, it is that organizations can attempt to outwardly placate the public while systemically continuing to promote prejudice and racist attitudes through their words, actions and deeds. The use of the name Braves and the symbols of the tomahawk and ‘tomahawk chop’ do nothing but offer up racist and demeaning images and stereotypes of our Native American citizens and friends.”