Table and Street
This fall brings a change at Open Cathedral. Minister Liz Muñoz has retired after years of leading our Sunday congregation at UN Plaza, and Night Minister Katie Laurence now steps in as lead Open Cathedral minister and program manager. Contributor Michael P. Evans spent a Wednesday evening on her rounds in the Castro. His piece follows.
By Michael P. Evans
The fellowship hall at Most Holy Redeemer is full.
It’s a Wednesday evening in the Castro, and people are seated at a dozen large round tables, along the walls, and up on the edge of the stage at the front of the room. Volunteers in orange aprons move between tables, bringing food. The meal tonight is a salad, ground beef with mushrooms and greens, roasted potatoes, and cookies. The cookies, I’m told, are something of a highlight. One woman named Trish tells me the peanut butter ones are best. The room smells good and sounds good. Multiple conversations run at once, and different pockets of community find each other across the noise.
In the middle of it all, wearing a San Francisco Night Ministry jacket, Night Minister Katie Laurence stands in deep conversation with an older woman. She doesn’t notice my arrival. She’s listening.
Wednesday evenings at Most Holy Redeemer became part of Katie’s Night Ministry circuit about a year ago, after Open Cathedral regulars invited her to join them. The church is one stop in a citywide network of free meals, whose schedules are shared at gatherings such as Open Cathedral, Open Sangha, and Open Shabbat.
I find myself warmly welcomed at a table full of familiar faces from Open Cathedral. Others are scattered throughout the room. There’s also someone new. Jamie has only recently discovered Open Cathedral but is already devoted to it. And, he makes clear, he loves Pastor Katie, who is one and the same with Night Minister Katie.
Minister Liz Muñoz wasn’t there that evening, but she was present in the conversation. Her impending retirement came up more than once. People spoke of her with affection, and there was a wistfulness in the room about the changes ahead. Her leaving will make a mark.
After about an hour, the hall clears efficiently, and the gathering moves outside. On the sidewalks in front of the church, fellowship continues. Jamie tells Katie that his favorite book is Where the Red Fern Grows, for the dog. He loves classic literature. Nearby, Vincent pulls up images on his phone of the geographic center of San Francisco, which sits just a few blocks away on Corbett Avenue. He uses a wheelchair, and he’s been thinking about the city’s hills. The terrain of the city, it turns out, is not particularly accessible, and the geographic center of the city is not easy to reach.
We walk slowly through the Castro, a neighborhood I know well but have rarely moved through in a chaplain context. The evening light is still good. Katie and I eventually make our way up to Jane Warner Plaza, where she’ll catch the F bus toward the Tenderloin to continue her shift.
She could take the train, she says. It would be faster. But the F streetcar, she’s found, tends to generate conversation, the kinds of encounters that could be missed if she took a more efficient route. So she takes the F.
Night Ministry, it seems, sometimes means choosing a slower path because of who you might meet along the way.
