A Menagerie of Neighborly Thoughts: My Cow Died and I Don't Need Your Bull!

ISBN-13: 9781499739282 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 66 str.

Bruce W. Spangler; Volunteer Minsitry Center Staff

Opis

The Volunteer Ministry Center (VMC) is dedicated to the assertion that homelessness is an unaccepted experience for anyone and committed to the bodacious vision it can be ended For those who cross any threshold of VMC, they are greeted, received, and treated as our "neighbors" by both paid and volunteer staff. Neighbors are welcomed with a hopeful hospitality. More importantly, we believe that between the joint efforts of neighbors and staff, the experience of homelessness or near homelessness will be confronted and overcome. Leading the organization through momentous changes over the past eighteen years, including the construction of a new campus and the renovation of condemned building that now is home for 57 individuals, Ginny Weatherstone demonstrated a principle of compassionate accountability for herself, VMC staff, and those served by VMC. For years, Ginny contributed to her bi-weekly column in the Metro Pulse entitled, "What's a Nice Girl Like Me Doing in a Place Like This?" Though intended to echo the sentiments of a client of VMC some years ago, the title of the column has been a place for Ginny's insights and perspectives to be worked through and shared. Her columns include many vignettes about the neighbours of VMC. Her writings always highlighted the humanity of those often experiencing a "social death." In telling the stories of our neighbours and putting a "human face" on the experience of homelessness, her columns are proverbial and metaphorical "resurrection" stories. Creating, sustaining, and maintaining relationships made Ginny both an effective leader and advocate. She would never foreclose on a relationship. In essence, people are important to her. To celebrate her work, staff members have pulled together a menagerie of sayings that have come from some neighbours through the past years. Many neighbors come relaying and sharing their insights of life and twists of language that reflect either a coping mechanism or just a view of life that is tinted with their distinct existential lens. Though some are quite humorous, the intend is not to lampoon or make a parody of those quoted. It is intended to give any reader an opportunity to think about a subject matter from a different slant or perspective.