Learning Nonviolence Through Service (Ryan Hehman)
When I wrote to Ryan in the fall of 2012 asking permission to include his letter in these pages, he turned down the request. His letter of March 12, 2007, he said, was less than the full story of his work among the poor of Phoenix. I suggested he pull his thoughts together with another letter, one that would twin with the earlier one.
Generously, he agreed.
Colman McCarthy
October 11, 2012
Dear Colman,
In the summer of 2006, I entered a school of Christian love. For three months, I helped the homeless at a Catholic Worker hospitality center in Phoenix. It was shortly after my graduation from college and a year after taking your “Introduction to Peace Studies” course.
Our hospitality center was in an area nicknamed “The Zone,” a mostly abandoned industrial neighborhood near the railroad tracks. The Zone had a bad reputation, and we served people living on the streets there. They came to the neighborhood to buy drugs, “do business” (whatever that meant), and find help. The hospitality center offered free showers, laundry, clothes, phone calls, and dinner to almost 600 people every day. Many of our guests suffered from drug addiction or mental illness. Many suffered from bad choices and bad circumstances. All suffered from the heat, which rarely dropped below 100 degrees. The volunteers at the hospitality center were trying to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy for a pretty tough crowd.
When I arrived, I was eager to help the poor, and I firmly believed in nonviolence. It seemed to me that “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” were the most radical Christian teachings and the pinnacle of moral virtue. My experience in Phoenix would test that belief. To my surprise, the guests at the center were not initially happy to have me there. They jeered at me and told me to go back to the suburbs. One young woman even called me a chump.
I worked hard to be kind and patient with them, no matter how annoying, unreasonable, or belligerent they were. Helping the guests involved daily squabbles over a multitude of mundane things: t-shirts, soap, an extra serving of macaroni, and one’s place in line. At first, I found the work exhilarating. It demanded that I master my emotions, grow in patience, learn how to express myself clearly, return blessings for curses, and overall be more like Jesus. It was the hard, nitty-gritty work of love.
After only a few weeks, though, I became tired of the insults, thankless tasks, and inane arguments with the guests. In my former life, I had imagined myself to be a patient and virtuous person. My contact with the guests showed me that only the opposite was true. On a few occasions, guests had hit me. I didn’t hit back because I wasn’t allowed, not because I didn’t want to. At times, I was filled with just as much anger as they were, but I thought my anger was justified because I was the do-gooder.
Nonetheless, the intensity of my anger after these altercations bothered me. I felt lost because my emotions conflicted with my ideals. Each night, I wondered why I had flown 3,000 miles to be cursed, spit at, and insulted. Then again, what did I expect? A hero’s welcome?
The problem was that no one really cared how good I was being. Because of this, I realized that my desire to volunteer did not come from a love of God, or even a love of the poor. It came from a strange sort of pride. I considered nonviolence to be Jesus’ toughest teaching, and I wanted to see if I was up to the challenge. I wanted to be radical and different. I wanted to test my limits. This attitude made me more akin to an “extreme sports” athlete than a genuine Christian. I was so concerned with being peaceful that I was ignoring Jesus and actually missing the primary task of Christianity: following Him.
Only by getting to know Jesus personally can we know the type of peace He was talking about. It is a peace that we cannot manufacture for ourselves because it is a gift. Jesus did not want me to help the poor so others could recognize my goodness. He wanted me to help the poor so that I could recognize His goodness in others. Jesus counts Himself among the people I was trying to serve, and it was through them that I got to know Him. I eventually made a few friends among the guests, and this turned out to be the most valuable part of my experience.
Since I left Phoenix, I have been part of an inner-city ministry called A Simple House of Sts. Francis and Alphonsus. We are a small group of missionaries trying to spread the Good News through words, deeds, and friendships with the poor living on the streets and in project neighborhoods. We have two missions located in Washington, DC, and Kansas City, MO. My wife Laura is also a Simple House missionary and we have a seven-month old son named Joseph.
Peace be with you-