An inside look at an interfaith program for the homeless in New York City, including in-depth stories of those who have graduated and made new lives. In a metropolis like New York, homelessness can blend into the urban landscape. For Susan Greenfield, however, New York is the place where a community of resilient, remarkable individuals is yearning for a voice. Sacred Shelter follows the lives of thirteen formerly homeless people, all of whom have graduated from an interfaith life skills program for current and former homeless individuals in the city. Through interviews, these individuals share traumas from their youth, their experience with homelessness, and the healing they’ve discovered through community and faith. Edna Humphrey talks about losing her grandparents, father, and sister to illness, accident, and abuse. Lisa Sperber discusses her bipolar disorder and her whiteness. Dennis Barton speaks about his unconventional path to becoming a first-generation college student and his journey to reconnect with his family. The memoirists share stories about youth, family, jobs, and love. They describe their experiences with racism, mental illness, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Each of the thirteen storytellers honestly expresses his or her broken-heartedness and how finding community and faith gave them hope to carry on. Interspersed are reflections from program directors, clerics, mentors, and volunteers, including the cofounder of the program. While Sacred Shelter does not tackle the socioeconomic conditions and inequities that cause homelessness, it provides a voice for a demographic group that continues to suffer from systemic injustice and marginalization.

Named a Gift Book for the Discerning New Yorker by The New York Times In a metropolis like New York, homelessness can blend into the urban landscape. For editor Susan Greenfield, however, New York is the place where a community of resilient, remarkable individuals are yearning for a voice. Sacred Shelter follows the lives of thirteen formerly homeless people, all of whom have graduated from the life skills empowerment program, an interfaith life skills program for homeless and formerly homeless individuals in New York. Through frank, honest interviews, these individuals share traumas from their youth, their experience with homelessness, and the healing they have discovered through community and faith. Edna Humphrey talks about losing her grandparents, father, and sister to illness, accident, and abuse. Lisa Sperber discusses her bipolar disorder and her whiteness. Dennis Barton speaks about his unconventional path to becoming a first-generation college student and his journey to reconnect with his family. The memoirists share stories about youth, family, jobs, and love. They describe their experiences with racism, mental illness, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Each of the thirteen storytellers honestly expresses his or her brokenheartedness and how finding community and faith gave them hope to carry on. Interspersed among these life stories are reflections from program directors, clerics, mentors, and volunteers who have worked with and in the life skills empowerment program. In his reflection, George Horton shares his deep gratitude for and solidarity with the 500-plus individuals he has come to know since he co-founded the program in 1989. While religion can be divisive, Horton firmly believes that all faiths urge us to “welcome the stranger” and, as Pope Francis asks, “accompany” them through the struggles of life. Through solidarity and suffering, many formerly homeless individuals have found renewed faith in God and community. Beyond trauma and strife, Dorothy Day’s suggestion that “All is grace” is personified in these thirteen stories. Jeremy Kalmanofsky, rabbi at Ansche Chesed Synagogue, says the program points toward a social fabric of encounter and recognition between strangers, who overcome vast differences to face one another, which in Hebrew is called Panim el Panim. While Sacred Shelter does not tackle the socioeconomic conditions and inequities that cause homelessness, it provides a voice for a demographic group that continues to suffer from systemic injustice and marginalization. In powerful, narrative form, it expresses the resilience of individuals who have experienced homelessness and the hope and community they have found. By listening to their stories, we are urged to confront our own woundedness and uncover our desire for human connection, a sacred shelter on the other side of suffering.

Thirteen formerly homeless New Yorkers tell their life stories, describing their joys as well as torments, their broken-heartedness and faith. At a time when national homelessness is on the rise, and when the discriminatory and punitive social conditions that create it are getting worse, Sacred Shelter celebrates the personal dignity of each and every individual and insists on our communal need to listen to each other.

What if the soul-safe space you long for turned out to be what God most longs to give you? What if your crisis is the portal that takes you there? The world is broken. Wars shake the earth, natural disasters upend communities, crises hit our marriages and families, churches crumble under moral failure, sickness wracks our bodies. More than ever, we feel the effects of living in a fallen world. When crisis hits, our instinct says retreat. But have we considered where we’ve been hiding? Is it in a flimsy shelter of our own making? What if you could find a place where you feel “soul-safe,” where even the worst that life dishes out cannot shake your faith or steal your peace, but “steels” your peace? A place so deeply rooted in the presence and love of God that nothing can move you. In the pages of Sacred Refuge, meet ten modern and ten biblical women who stare in the face of homelessness and hunger, life-threatening illness, the loss of a child, debilitating sin, life-altering rejection, and untimely death. Across space and time, author Lynne Rienstra invites you to join this sisterhood and learn from their fears, mistakes, and triumphs. To enhance your journey, she adds biblical teaching, ten Transforming Truths, application questions, encounters with Jesus, and a study guide. Step out of your isolation—as these women did—and into Christ’s sheltering embrace. Learn how to live there as your permanent dwelling place. Invite others to share this sacred refuge. And begin to change the world.

Presents an overview of Western religion and folk traditions regarding home protection, purification, and sanctity, as well as the four archetypal design styles and how to combine them with the reader's unique style to create a space that nourishes the soul.

SOMETIMES THE WORLD SEEMS LIKE A VERY DARK PLACE. In this angry world, I have seen a glimpse of light. I have seen kindness, love and hope at a homeless shelter. Siloam Mission is named after a pool where, in Biblical times, Jesus healed a blind man. In this tradition, the Mission has a medical clinic, and I have had the privilege of working there. The homeless men and women I have met at Siloam have taught me profound lessons about perseverance through suffering, expressing joy in dire circumstances, and the rewards of service to those in need. I want to share those lessons with you.