Not Far Off

by Michael P. Evans, MDiv, PhD

For weeks it felt as though the Fates had conspired against a January Night Ministry article. The Christmas-week atmospheric river discouraged me from my original plans to cover the Queer Multifaith Castro Christmas. My schedule at Stanford was unrelenting, and then I needed time to recover from minor surgery. The deadline loomed. I looked hopefully at the third Monday of January, the very day of my deadline and a night when Open Sangha was scheduled to meet, and I prayed that inspiration would find me. 

I arrived early, hoping for connection. Instead, I found emptiness. The dog park at Leavenworth and McAllister was deserted. The plaza felt loud but hollow: traffic, music, skateboard wheels, voices close enough to hear but not close enough to touch. One man approached, offered me tequila from a bottle, then drifted away.

In the summer, 6:00 is still daylight. But in January, darkness settles in early, and I felt how isolating a mid-winter early evening gathering can be. For a moment, I wondered whether Open Sangha was even happening.

Then the Night Ministry van arrived, carrying John Brett and Kate from the Zen Center. We set out chairs in a semicircle, arranging a small pocket of intention amid the noise. Once again, I marveled at the audacity of creating space for peace in the middle of all that chaos.
This week, there were no socks or supplies to distribute, because an abundance of holiday donations had already been handed out the week before. The van was cleaned out, and our hands were empty. And this evening there was only one participant beyond the three of us affiliated with Night Ministry.

Even the meditation was difficult. The guidance was soft, the surrounding noise relentless. I found that I couldn’t hear a word unless I opened my eyes and read Kate’s lips. Still, something happened. Not effortlessly, but intentionally. There was grounding. There was presence. There was community. 

Afterward, we distributed burritos, water, and oranges. But there were no crowds. A few people drifted through. John and I handed out multiple burritos at a time to those who asked, many explaining they wanted to bring food back to friends and family nearby. Kate took a basket of burritos and walked into the plaza to meet people where they were.

At Leavenworth and McAllister, they were not.
But they were not far off.

That, it occurred to me, is a perfect metaphor for spiritual care. The work is not about waiting for people to come to you. The work is about going toward them, wherever they are, as they are. If that means leaving the usual spot, then that’s precisely where you need to go.

When we finished, I said goodbye and walked to meet my spouse at Aunt Charlie’s, the Tenderloin’s last gay bar, four blocks away. The neighborhood grew livelier and grittier as I walked. And along the way, I began to notice something--people were eating burritos.

These were the burritos John and I had handed out. The burritos Kate had carried deeper into the plaza. The burritos people had taken to share with others. They had already spread farther than I could see from where I stood earlier that evening.

I arrived at Open Sangha worried I wouldn’t find a story. What I learned instead is that ministry doesn’t always announce itself. Often, its impact unfolds quietly, out of sight, long after we’ve stopped looking for it.

At Open Sangha, on a cold January night, very little happened. Yet somehow, something important did.