Boylston Street Letter #11

Still backtracking ... see Boylston Street Letter #9.

The week of April 2-6, 2007

I witnessed the dying of a religious symbol here on Holy Thursday.

The ritual of foot-washing, which has its origins in the account of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper (John 13:1-20), has been performed here for many years, I am told. All who work in the shelter are invited to participate, and all the guests are welcome. This year I was invited to give the reading from Paul recounting of the institution of the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Karen LaFrazia, the executive director of St. Francis House, would wash the feet. I was looking forward to a beautiful re-presentation of Jesus’ consecration of servant leadership, as fine a sacramental ritual as the Church possesses.

Only the guests weren’t buying into it.

It took some coaxing from Karen and staff to bring several guests into the large classroom of the day center for the prayer and ritual. As I understand it, some guests balked at joining the foot-washing service because the shelter already provides foot care daily in the clinic, including soakings, massages, and pedicures, as well as the provision of clean socks. What more could this religious service do? Ironically, as staff approached the hospitality desk to make another announcement about the foot-washing over the public address, one of the foot care volunteers got to the microphone first to advertise the podiatric services in the clinic! Once we had several guests assembled with staff, we began our service, proceeding quickly to the foot-washing. Several staff persons and volunteers removed their shoes and socks. However, I noticed that none of the guests removed their footwear. Karen had finished making her rounds with her pitcher of warm water and plastic basin, and none of the guests had participated in the washing. Then, at last, one guest changed his mind. B.K., whom I know to be Catholic and must be in his late fifties or early sixties, moved from the back row to the front. He sat down to my immediate left and said, “Okay, I’m doing this on behalf of all of the guests here in St. Francis House.” Then Karen washed his feet lovingly, even gratefully. And B.K. thanked her with words of blessing. The service was over.

I have many theories as to why the guests did not choose to participate in this ritual. First, there is the matter of the redundancy with the foot care in the clinic. Our guests would be absolutely right to judge the “real” ministry to be occurring daily in the clinic, and I would not fault them for viewing the Holy Thursday service as a pale shadow of the former, a thing staged more for the benefit of the staff, seeking to assure itself how benevolent it is. Second, these are homeless people who have very little to their name except their dignity and pride. I can imagine that, in their position, to take off your shoes and present your feet for washing would be humiliating instead of empowering. Even to suggest gently to our guests that they remove their shoes can be construed as an affront to their dignity. Third, I don’t know how many guests are familiar with the origins and meaning of the ritual, but I surmise that even if they did, the guests could not believe that Karen was truly humbling herself by washing their feet. After all, Jesus was a genuine servant leader who surrendered his authority and his equality with God to be on an equal level with his disciples, if not lesser. On the other hand, when the foot-washing ritual was over, Karen would still be the executive director of the largest daytime shelter in New England, and the homeless would still be homeless.

What can you do when a symbol, a sign-act, loses its meaning? Well, I think you need to smash the symbol to pieces and reconstruct the symbol in a different way. Maybe the symbol of foot-washing never had any significance for our guests in the first place. We have ways of finding out what the symbol “does” to them. Robert Neville would interrogate the broken symbols like this: 1) how do we interpret the symbols being used; 2) what are the practical consequences of using these symbols; and 3) what is the state of the soul of the one affected by the symbol? I think the preceding reflections have addressed the first two questions; as to the third, I remain lost in contemplation. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever “know” the soul of the homeless. Touching the sacred with them is a delicate undertaking. I pray that, in the five weeks I have left at the shelter, I may gently share in our guests’ stories and traditions and all the things that give their life meaning. Perhaps we may discover a common, holy ground and remove our shoes together.