RISKING MERCY:
Catholic workers resist hunger in Albuquerque

By Chelsea Collonge

      I live in a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for the homeless residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Trinity House belongs to a 75 year-old movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, whose practice of performing the Works of Mercy while resisting the Works of War continues to inspire more than 100 Catholic Worker houses around the world.
      For two years Trinity House has facilitated a community picnic on Sundays, creating a free lunch for hungry people as well as a space for people of all class backgrounds to gather together and enjoy God's gifts. Over the past year, we have faced increasing opposition from propertied neighbors, the police, and the parks department, who do not want us serving food in the downtown parks because it encourages homeless people to congregate there.
      With community support we are continuing to serve every Sunday, despite the cops' belief that we are serving illegally and could therefore be arrested. We have also chosen to engage with the city's process for getting a permit to use the park, to see if everyone's needs could be met.  Entering into negotiations with our opponents has been a challenging experience—there are pockets of good intentions on all sides, and the issues quickly proliferate: food handling safety, responsibility for combating crime, neighborhood safety and property values.
      In this article I want to focus less on the "issues" than on the spiritual implications of this struggle. Liberation theology says that our theological reflections always exist in conversation with what is happening in the world around us. In 2007, this happens to be a world where political and corporate leadership exploits or neglects the poor, in Albuquerque and everywhere else. As nonviolent activist and theologian Jim Douglass indicates in Resistance and Contemplation, in the real world, as opposed to my world, people are being fed upon. Systems of privilege isolate me, a white middle-class Christian, from this real world, but I can travel into it via the road of Gospel nonviolence and solidarity. . .

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Chelsea Collonge, a full time volunteer at the Trinity House Catholic Worker in Albuquerque, New Mexico,  received her BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.  Chelsea is from San Jose, California.

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