Those who wade chest-deep into the world of the poor can end up being submerged in cynicism and suspicion, so intractable seem the social conditions that give rise to such inequity. And yet the cumulative effect of Tim’s stories is the realization that when we truly know that Jesus lives among and loves the poor, the more likely outcome of plunging into their world is the recovery of the gift of hope.
This gift of hope is not merely the naïve sense that everything will work out all right in the end. It’s deeper and richer. People who hope in the face of poverty and injustice know Jesus’ preference for the poor and have managed to muster enough confidence in his coming kingdom, a world of order, peace, security, justice and abundance. These hope-filled ones don’t deny the present disorder, with its confusion and distortion. How could anyone who walks the late-night streets of any big city deny the chaos? But they hope, watch, wait, pray and expect, knowing that Jesus’ scheme for the future is reliable and trustworthy. And they act upon it before it is fully in hand.
How do you act on the future before it is in hand? The hope-filled ones ask themselves: if Jesus’ future kingdom is secure, what needs to happen now? And the answer is: Jesus’ future kingdom is enacted now as neighbourliness. With hope as our guide, we are called to fashion traces of the coming kingdom right now, and one of the primary ways to do that is by the practice of good neighbourliness.
When asked which was the most important commandment, Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbour.” Have you ever noticed that, though he was asked for the most important commandment, he gives them two? It’s as if he’s saying, “You cannot have one without the other. With God you always get the neighbour as well.” Now we live in a society that wants to separate God from neighbourliness, but you can’t claim to love God without the neighbour. In Jesus’ vision of the world, they are a package deal. So, in a kingdom of neighbourliness the homeless, the widow, the orphan, the illegal immigrant, the poor and the disabled all count. They become agents of hope, opportunities for us to express our confidence in the coming kingdom, rather than threats or inconveniences.
Too bad that for many the people whose stories are collected in this volume are just that—threats and inconveniences. Too bad that there aren’t more people with Tim Huff’s bent hope who can see the opportunities for neighbourliness they represent. They are all citizens of God’s shalom. They count in Christ’s here-and-still-coming kingdom every bit as much as we do.
Tim quotes Emily Dickinson’s allusion to hope as “…the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune—without the words, / And never stops at all.”
And never stops at all! That’s quite a thing. Surely, the birdsong of hope sings in the soul of someone like Tim Huff. His simple but resolute choice to be a good neighbour to the poor of Toronto summons up the kingdom, bringing its future consummation forward into the here and now, creating foretastes of the fullness yet to come and flipping the bird to those who want to shape our present reality according to their selfishness, greed and fear.
Let me warn you that as you read this street journal it will dawn on you at some point that this is not a book on how to serve the poor, though it’s certainly written by a servant to the poor. It will also dawn on you that this is not simply a collection of snapshots of life on the mean streets of a major urban centre, though you will meet bag ladies, beggars and runaways. Let me warn you that if you read it correctly and this book works its way into your soul, you’ll realize at some point that this is a book about the beauty, the wonder and the holiness of all humanity, even the bent-out-of-shape ones. By revealing the refracted rays of hope that can be found among the “least of these,” Tim Huff shines light on us all. If hope can be found within the broken, the betrayed, the abandoned and the frightened, then where can’t it be found?!
My hope is that in reading this slim volume, you will not just see the poor afresh or your city afresh, but that you’d see yourself afresh, and that you’d follow the birdsong of hope wherever it might lead you, deeper into Jesus’ kingdom of neighbourliness.
Michael Frost
Michael Frost is the author of several best-selling books and one of Australia’s most widely recognized contemporary theological speakers in his own country and around the world, having spoken at some of the largest conventions and events throughout Australia, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Michael is the Founding Director of the Centre for Evangelism & Global Mission at Morling Theological College in Sydney and is strongly committed to leadership development, serving on the board of the Australian Arrow Leadership Development Program and as co-director in the establishment of Forge—a missional training network for young leaders based in Melbourne. Michael has also planted a missional church on Sydney’s northern beaches called Small Boat, Big Sea.
Prologue: The Hum of Hope
The stories in this book are stories of hope. Bent hope. But hope all the same. A couple occur outside of Toronto’s city limits and even across the Atlantic, but for the most part they are stories from a good city that unwittingly draws Canada’s largest pilgrimage of runaways, hideaways, castaways and throwaways, from small towns and large cities across the nation and even the United States. They are not stories of linear hope that point to magnificent and instant resolve. Not stories that look heavenward in anticipation of the sky cracking open and spilling angels to earth while harps play. But they are true stories of a miraculous finger-of-God hope that exists against all odds, only because the dear souls of these stories are survivors, and heroes and God’s own children—forced to seek out hope moment by moment. No more the stories of beggars, hookers and junkies than mine or yours should be.
The awkward truth can be packed into a single crass statement:
Either we are all beggars, hookers and junkies, or none of us are. There is no in-between.
At times—and for some, all the time—we all live with the cruel designations others have carelessly tattooed on us. Subjugated by what others think we are, and oppressed by what we feel stuck doing or being, while our hearts and minds long for release.
Every day I play the role of a beggar. I look to the charity of others, seemingly wanting something for nothing to feed my ego and the overwhelming need to belong. Every day I play the role of a hooker. I try to sell the words, ideas and actions I think might make me desirable to others, often against my own better judgment, in order to get the emotional validation I need to survive. And every day I play the role of a junkie. I feed my addictions, supplying relentless cravings with products, entertainment, daydreams and relationships that are bad for me. Thus, when rendered solely in vulgar human slang, I believe we are all beggars, hookers and junkies. And if raw humanity existed as the only gauge, I would know for certain that I am all of these.
But long before our biases and jaded opinions develop, long before we categorize people with labels and by issues, we all start in the same place, with the wide-eyed innocence and acceptance of childhood.
While this book is filled with gritty street stories, my desire is that no one would feel distant to its heartbeat. And so, it is in the tender memories of childhood that I begin. My own childhood comprehension of hope was similar to that of most children. Wishful and lucky—that’s hope. I was wrong.
It was while walking along the mom-forbidden railway tracks to elementary school that I best recall hope revealing itself to me in an entirely new way. I came across an orange tabby cat lying in a ball, thrown several body-lengths from the rails. Even as I approached from a distance, it was clear what had happened. One of the racing trains that crossed the rails had ended the life of someone’s dear pet. As a child, I approached it with that strange mix of emotions that stir inside most people as they view a calamity: the ridiculous and ugly combination of sorrow and curiosity.
Mesmerized, I stood over the