Good Neighboring in Diverse San Francisco

The Scriptures center the vulnerable: the widows, strangers, and orphans. In the New Testament, Jesus flips the script from the powerful, the well-read, the trained, to the vulnerable and the outcast. Jesus, the suffering servant embodies this mission, and demonstrates how to be a good neighbor to those we’d least expect. How many times did the learned, the “externally qualified” think, “Does Jesus even know who He’s talking to?” Good Neighboring is the way of Jesus. And when done well, we are ushering in a heaven where the people you’d least expect will be joined together in solidarity. Current U.S. policies are increasingly doing the opposite, raising the thresholds for our vulnerable, making for example, long-term disability insurance even more fragile for those who need it most. More than ever before, we need to learn how to be Good Neighbors.

Kingdom Rice does not directly serve the most vulnerable directly in SF’s neighborhoods known for unhoused neighbors. Yet, people in those ‘hoods offer the most explicit models of how to practice good neighboring well, in a way that I can translate to my residential hood, in a way where even my friend who drove in from a place that seems the direct opposite of San Francisco (rural white, Republican Idaho), can apply. That’s because in the end, Jesus’ ways are not tied to political parties nor DEI programs. Being a good neighbor is relational, it is reciprocal. It strengthens, building mutual trust between two parties, and in so doing, it strengthens and heals communities. That said, when key Kingdom Rice associates traveled into San Francisco, I envisioned a learning experience learning from the best guides who are practicing “good neighboring” in the way of Jesus in the Tenderloin, the Mission, and in the Haight.

Our Kingdom Rice entourage consisted of me, Kristin Caynor (who is a community chaplain herself in Phoenix; we’re in the middle of writing a book together), Marc Harm (writer and long-time Kingdom Rice supporter) and Felicia Larson (Kingdom Rice board member). Along with a few other leaders, we set out, some by bike, some by car, to be led by our guides, well-loved chaplain figures from their own respective ‘hoods so that we can learn from their model of how to be “good neighbors.” Here are just a few keys that stood out as we watched our guides exercise good neighboring.

1. Staying present and centered. I’ve witnessed many who serve unhoused neighbors and run organizations but with little regard to the internal life of the soul. But not Steve Binnquist of YWAM. “Just because I’m serving the poor and the marginalized doesn’t mean that I can’t pay attention to what’s going on internally and how I need to change how I need to work. Ministry is not just what I do in the ‘hood; ministry is everything. So I need to be just as present here in my neighborhood as I am with my kids, as I am with my wife, as I am as a child of God– to be present to Him and to the people around me. Spiritual direction has opened that up, because I think to engage in a place like this, the more centered we are, the more we can engage and not get sucked into things. I think when you’re doing any kind of justice, advocacy, justice, whatever work you want to call it, it’s easy to make that “the thing” as opposed to, I am a child in the father’s house.”
2. Employing a Spiritual approach that’s connected to neighbors: In the words of Mark Scandrette of ReImagine.org “We’ve developed a more direct, embodied approach to spirituality over the years. Instead of just having abstract ideas about Jesus’s teachings, we tried them out in our lives and saw if they worked. That’s basically what we do now. As I got older, I realized we’d stumbled upon something that’s similar to how human beings work on a neurological level. Everything is connected.”
3. Knowing the History of a place that helps us imagine a future: For me living in San Francisco, it’s acknowledging that I’m a guest on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. It’s naming that the 1846 raising of the U.S. flag at Portsmouth Square in today’s Chinatown came after Spanish and Mexican occupation, that 1848’s announcement of gold, also at Portsmouth Square, drew thousands of people looking for opportunities and put San Francisco on the map. IT’s naming my ancestral people, the Chinese were one time welcomed at Portsmouth, before being seen as a threat, and that Chinese settled around Portsmouth Square because they could not go anywhere else…as dark as this 150 year old story of racism is in Chinatown is, Chinatown is also an archetype that helps us imagine a future where unfamiliar peoples join together. This has happened on large national scale, like when thousands across ethnic lines formed a human wall to prevent the eviction of Filipino and Chinese residents from the International Hotel SRO. But this also happens everyday when people of all backgrounds cram like sardines into the 1-California bus
4. Offering everyday practical needs: I was touched walking around the Haight with our guides, John S. and Alec G., who regularly open their homes for unhoused neighbors, or Mark S’s wife who gets groceries for a senior across the street. Or more graphic, I’ve heard Mark S. several times tell the graphic stories of how many times he’s had to stick a T-shirt into the back of someone’s head who’s been shot.

I don’t have as many homicides nor unhoused neighbors in my “Outer Richmond” neighborhood in San Francisco. But learning from these guides have served to strengthen how I practice these keys in my own context, motivates me to practice them in greater degree, and offers new windows to find new ways. I may not have the food and clothing ecosystem of the Mission where Marc can sport clothing that comes entirely from the streets. But we have our own ecosystem in the Richmond that stretches across different spaces. When I celebrated my birthday in April, folks from neighborhood chipped in with music, drinks and service. And when my family was going through the worst of times (our family was separated by CPS), neighbors clothed us, cleaned our toilets, provided food, offered rides, and advocated for us in court. But on a day by day basis, my neighborhood experiences a lot of reciprocity…not just food, but practical needs. One day for example, a neighbor noticed I had a flat tire. The next morning, I found a spare tube on my doorstep. But things we’ve traded have included car repair, plumbing, caulking and household repairs, karaoke, drinks, parties, and much more. All these things bring shalom to our hood.

Cities like Los Angeles boast a greater diversity of peoples, yet LA is much more spread out and ethnic/social/economical lines are less likely to be crossed. But in San Francisco, its sheer density, the fact that its mass transit serves everyone, makes for natural third spaces where lines are crossed on a daily basis. With Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Google buses as the second largest bus system in the city after SFMTA, we’re more stratified than ever; yet, there’s plenty of space for unfamiliar communities joining together, in our parks, esp the new “Sunset Dunes” park along the waterfront. When I walked with our guides, people on the street KNOW them. But people will say the same thing about me in my hood. We are an army of shalom-catalyzers.

I’ll be honest though…there is a whole other, deeper layer of shalom seekers in our hoods, whose contributions are not often named. The stories are so intricate, intimate, and sensitive, they are not easy to share. Naming our experience with CPS is just a portal, for example, that points to whole space of shalom in the context of a broken system. I only see windows through others, but enough to know they are there. Similarly, the Gospels are extremely redacted, because there would not be space for the volumes that could have been recorded.

San Francisco invites crossing of cultural boundaries everyday…perhaps from sitting next to someone with the pungent smell of durian on the bus. All these experiences invites opportunities to discover new aspects of yourself that you didn’t know existed in your native space.

Immersions into different ‘hoods are a normal rhythm for Kingdom Rice to expand our imagination for a better future. Mostly, these are done in my ‘hood in the Richmond (the first Asian settlement outside of Chinatown) and Chinatown itself. And much of those are tied to immersions in other ‘hoods. Through these immersions, we discover new facets of God that we normally may not see in our home culture. Christian faith tends to favor whiteness in all its facets (e.g. individualism, guilt-based, power, etc.), and these set up unnecessary (and sometimes racist) thresholds financially, emotionally, and culturally. Immersions illuminate these thresholds so that we can name them, remove them, thus facilitating anyone’s path to God without needing to go through another culture.