A Visit to the Open Door Community
(www.opendoorcommunity.org)

When I arrived, I was glad that my boyfriend J. came up to the door with me, for a tiny part of me was scared that I’d walk in and people would make me feel heartless and inadequate. What if I were exposed as a flakey fake? You’re not doing enough, you’re not being enough, and you’re full of prejudice and ignorance!  But—while that may also be true—my hosts did not point it out. Maybe they knew that the experience of being at the Open Door would cause me to ask hard questions of myself, questions about right action, and prejudice, and awareness, without extra prompting--and I know they were also welcoming me as they welcome any stranger, whether from the street or from a house: with smiles and hospitality. They were excited to have a guest from Koinonia, and asked many questions about life in our farm community these days.

I was shown by Lauren to a small bedroom in the basement. It was called the Gandhi room and had a picture of the Mahatma on the door. Every time I went down the hallway to the bathroom a hand-written poster confronted me: “Stop Criminalizing the Poor.” I thought about that every time I had to pee. Probably a good habit. I unpacked, and by then it was nearly suppertime.

“You’re coming to the foot clinic tonight, right?” a few people asked me at supper, sounding excited. “It’s a special Christmas party this time.” “Of course,” I replied, and showed up at seven to help. I must have imagined a simple, first-century basin-and-towel routine, because I was surprised at the 21st century technology that awaited us. We lined up colored gift bags containing lotion, powder, foot-warming packs, and state-of-the-art wicking hiker’s socks from REI. We prepared sterilized nail files, clippers, pumice stones, apricot and walnut-scented exfoliating scrubs, wooden sticks for nudging cuticles, lotion, baby powder, and electric, vibrating foot-basins with hot, antibacterial, Epsom-salted water. Hannah, the coordinator, even brought a Dremel tool for the hardest jobs! But after all, this was Atlanta, and these were its homeless humans.

I was assigned to apprentice with Peter, a man who works at Coca-Cola by day… ironically, one of the big Atlanta corporations that contributes to making life even harder for so many people on the street. Peter himself was a kind and pleasant man who taught well and clearly felt connected with the people whose feet he touched.

The clinic began and guests filed into the waiting chairs. A man with a massage table offered his hands to those not yet ready for the washing, and others waited in the lounge. Murphy circulated, welcoming friends and passing out mugs of steaming, mulled cider. The hallways were fragrant with cinnamon and apple, and to be polite I accepted a mug, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink. Instead, I worked on keeping my lip from curling, my brows from scrunching, as I watched Peter touch the feet of a quiet, hefty man named Alan. Peter lifted Alan’s soaking, gummy, damaged left foot from the hot water onto a terry towel draped on Peter’s knees. He examined with nonchalant (though latex-gloved) fingers each thickened corn and blister, overgrown toenail, patch of loose skin, each toe smashed against the others, and the man’s legs constricted from many layered socks and too much time upright. But after massaging with exfoliating cream, rinsing and drying, it was amazing how much better the foot looked. I watched Peter (and Hannah, for the more involved parts of the treatment) finish Alan’s feet, then Dennis’s, and I even drank some cider. Maybe I was beginning to see not only the pain but also the potential in each foot.

Peter had to leave midway through the evening, so when Baird sat down opposite me and removed his shoes and socks, I set his feet to soaking in a fresh basin of water, and then gently scraped away dead skin, blotted dry waterlogged patches, and cleaned around the nails. The challenge transformed from masking disgust to seeing how much better weary feet could feel, how much healthier, more whole, renewed, even if only for a short time. Talking with Baird and listening to the conversations around me, a small room in my heart filled with mourning, for feet should not be tormented thus, in wrong-sized shoes and cold and rain, in moist heat never drying, in ice storms, swollen and frostbitten, unable to wash or air. I learned that this had actually been a good week for feet: dry and not too cold. It could have been worse.

But in the temporary spa in this big house, people chatted like people while the Christmas music played, ate cookies and Hershey kisses, and touched, and were touched.

Later that night, I tended to my own feet after showering. I blinked and saw them anew; they looked like the feet of a baby, untouched, unworn, pink and soft and whole. The feet of a housed person, the feet of a comfortably shod person, the feet of an untested and indoor person. And the next morning, when I woke up to the sound of rain, a gentle and persistent rain which I recall accompanying my sleep all night, I also for the first time thought how this beautiful-sounding rain had affected the people I met last night, and all those who lived in it without refuge. I thought of the three men I’d nearly tripped over trying to get into Eckerd’s as they unfolded their bedrolls under the awning of the closed store. I thought of their night, the rain gradually shrinking their triangle of dry concrete in an onslaught of moisture that soaks the sleeping bag from toes to knees to torso until sleep is defeated and retreats.

The morning of the New Year’s Day meal, I looked out onto the yard. The men were wet. The shoulders of their coats gleamed with rain. (There were only one or two women, and they were invited into the lounge because it is hard to be the only female around so many men. Lauren said that homeless women will be raped, beaten, often by homeless men, that it is not a matter of if; it will happen.) When the people came through the door, I could see them shake off the world as they walked up those stairs.

They walked up the stairs, and into a warm and warmly-lit room… a table for six with holiday cloths, a lit candle, red beads, placemats, salt and pepper, vinegar, and hot sauce… vitamins, a plate with two thick slices of ham, and a choice of desserts… family-style dishes with steaming collards, black-eyed peas, rice, cornbread, and onions… and water, hot coffee, sugar and cream. Dishes were replenished before they emptied, the tables wiped with soapy hot water between guests. And afterwards, for any who wanted, a ride downtown, to the area with most of the shelters.

Behind the scenes were forty volunteers and community members. Under Melvin’s tutelage, we had been making cornbread all weekend. A basement crew arranged desserts on trays and dumb-waitered them upstairs. A cadre of servers, refillers, washers, dryers, bakers, cooks, spill-mopper-uppers, wranglers, and general-hands-on-deck served in every other capacity. After the guests ate, we fed ourselves: 305 guests, plus forty workers, but there was plenty left over. Afterwards we sat around the table and exchanged stories. The community members were relaxed, clowned like family, compared babies and made jokes, both dirty and clean. And I thought, It feels good, what has been done here today. It feels good to have served so many people, if only one hot meal, with dignity and beauty and appeal to the senses. But the presence of that dignity only makes me long for more—for permanent dignity, permanent respect, permanent love for each one who lifted his or her feet across the threshold. When I left the Open Door, I was headed for another warm house, and a fresh pair of socks. I knew well the difference between my exit and that of so many others.

            This trip to the Open Door reminded me that hospitality can be radical if carried out completely, and also that I must not neglect acting upon what I believe about justice and love and hospitality.