The Contributor: December 7, 2022

WHO WE ARE

The Contributor is a nonprofit social enterprise that creates economic opportunity with dignity by investing in the lives of people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Starting in 2019, our C.O.V.E.R. Program (Creating Opportunity for Vendor Employment, Engagement, and Resources) was the natural expansion of our mission of removing obstacles to housing. We now offer full case management, assistance with housing and rental expenses, addiction recovery, health insurance, food benefits, and SSI/SSDI assistance. We see the onestop-shop team approach radically transforming a vendor's image of self and their place in community.

Since we started in 2007, more than 3,200 different vendors have purchased $2.3 million worth of The Contributor and sold over six million copies, generating over $15 million in income for themselves.

Take the paper, change a life. Read the paper, change yours.

Contributor Board

Tom Wills, Chair Cathy Jennings, Christine Doeg, Demetria Kalodimos, Kerry Graham, Amber DuVentre, Jerome Moore, Drew Morris, Andy Shapiro

Contributors This Issue

Linda Bailey • Amanda Haggard • June P. • Jen A. • Wendell J. • Daniel H. • Harrison Smith • John P. • Ridley Wills II • Justin Wagner • Judith Tackett • Norma B. • James V. • Joe Nolan • Mr. Mysterio

Contributor Volunteers

Christine Doeg , Volunteer Coordinator Joe First • Andy Shapiro • Michael Reilly • Ann Bourland • Laura Birdsall • Marissa Young • Matthew Murrow • Gisselly Mazariegos • Tyler Samuel

Cathy Jennings Executive Director

Tom Wills Director of Vendor Operations

Carli Tharp SNAP Specialist

Ree Cheers SOAR Manager

Rachel Ternes Housing Navigator

Amy Holt Housing Navigator

Mary Margaret Weatherford Housing Navigator

Jesse Call Operations Consultant

Raven Nye Director of Housing Initiatives

Arnita Carson Recovery Specialist

Justin Wagner Resource Coordinator & Reporter

Barbara Womack Advertising Manager

Amanda Haggard & Linda Bailey Co-Editors

Andrew Krinks Editor Emeritus

Will Connelly, Tasha F. Lemley, Steven Samra, and Tom Wills Contributor Co-Founders

Editorials and features in The Contributor are the perspectives of the authors. Submissions of news, opinion, fiction, art and poetry are welcomed.

The Contributor reserves the right to edit any submissions. The Contributor cannot and will not endorse any political candidate.

Submissions may be emailed to: editorial@thecontributor.org

Requests to volunteer, donate, or purchase subscriptions can be emailed to: info@thecontributor.org

Please email advertising requests to: advertising@thecontributor.org

The Contributor P.O. Box 332023, Nashville, TN 37203 Vendor Office: 615.829.6829

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Nashville architect Henry C. Hibbs designed many of the area’s buildings

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

Nashvillians tend to remember William Strickland from the 19th century and Edwin Keeble from the 20th century as Nashville’s premier architects. There were others you should remember. One of those was Henry C. Hibbs. Born in Camden, New Jersey in 1882, he was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. After working in Philadelphia and New York, he moved to Nashville in 1914 as the local head of Ludlow and Peabody, a New York architectural firm. Henry Hibbs supervised the construction of the George Peabody College for Teachers, designed to resemble The Lawn' at the University of Vir ginia, according to texts written in the Ten nessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture by Jim Hoobler.

After finishing his work on the Peabody campus, Hills went on to design the Obstet rics and Pediatric Building at Meharry Medi cal College, the Fisk University Library (paid for by Andrew Carnegie), the Sunday School Building at the First Presbyterian Church, the Nashville City Market, and the American Trust Building.

In 1929, Hibbs won the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal for his design of Scarritt College. Hibbs also designed build ings on the campuses of Middle Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University and Ward-Belmont College.

Hibbs additionally designed buildings in the neo-Gothic style for Davidson College near Charlotte, North Carolina; Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas; Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia; Southwestern University in Memphis, and the University of Tulsa. Grad uates of Southwestern (now Rhodes College) will notice the similar architectural style of their alma mater and that of Scarritt. Harriet Hall Cates, Hibbs’ granddaughter, oversaw the rehabilitation of the library at Fisk University — Cravath Hall — in 1998.

Hibbs also designed two hospitals in West Tennessee — the West Tennessee Insane Asy lum in Bolivar and Kennedy General Hospital in Memphis. When boys in small West Ten nessee towns misbehaved in the 1940s and 1950s, their fathers sometimes threatened to send them to Bolivar.

Bradley Boyce knows the value of being seen

STORY AND PHOTO BY BY JUSTIN WAGNER

“When so many people walk by you and they just don’t even acknowledge your exis tence, it starts to make you feel obsolete. Like you don’t exist, like you aren’t even human anymore,” said Bradley Boyce, on-and-off Con tributor vendor since 2016. “And that hurts.”

Boyce recently earned his permanent badge with The Contributor, but he first signed up to vend in 2016. After bouncing around between places, he’s back selling in Nashville for the first time in six years — but it’s not the extra cash nor the familiar faces that keep him going.

After all, vending is more than waving people over and making sales. Sometimes, it’s a victory to simply be seen. And it’s those moments, where regardless of any words being exchanged, a pair of strangers can acknowledge any hurt the other might silently carry with them, that keep Boyce going, he said.

“Some of these people that do the good deeds, that do acknowledge us, most of those are the ones who have been there, who have been at the bottom, who have seen the hard times,” he explained. “Not everyone who walks with a cane gets a check every month… they understand what I’m going through.”

It’s a powerful phenomenon when you’re struggling to get by — more powerful than people may realize, even when they’re the ones offering it.

“It’s just saying, ‘I see you.’ It’s saying, ‘you are valid, you exist,’” Boyce said. “I was sitting out on a freeway exit ramp one day selling pa pers, it’s like a four-lane exit ramp, and this old guy gets out of his truck from, like, the third lane and walks over to hand me a five dollar bill and tell me things will get better.”

As the stranger returned to his car, Boyce explained, he countered the sound of blaring horns from impatient drivers with a swift ex pletive before driving off.

“That right there, going out of his way to do a good deed and not giving a crap about what anybody else thought… that made my day. That one moment right there.”

It’s difficult to be seen when you’re a man of few words, as Boyce said he is, noting that

he only speaks when he feels there’s some thing that needs to be said. But behind it all, there is still an individual — and he’s a firm advocate that everyone deserves to be seen as such, he said.

“Not all of us out here are the same,” he said. “We get judged as a category, not an in dividual. You can see it in people’s eyes.”

So while Boyce is a foster kid, a Contributor vendor, and a man looking for a home, he’s also a prankster at heart, a writer, and more than a label is fit to express. Things a stranger passing by can’t see.

In fact, if there’s one thing Boyce has held onto in dark times, it’s his sense of humor. It can provide an immediate catharsis when one tends to, “chase the rabbit,” as Boyce put it; in other words, to indulge depressive tendencies and spiral.

“Overall, I believe humor is one of the greatest medicines,” Boyce said. “I was always a clown, always the class prankster. I’m always trying to make people laugh … it’s OK to feel depressed, but we want to see you feel better.”

“I even went to a high school, we had prank week. It was an event we had every year, and for three years in high school… I was the reigning champion. And nobody was off limits unless they had a sticker,” he said. “They could go to the office and get this little sticker they put on their shirt [saying they did not want to par ticipate], but if they did not have that sticker, they were not off limits. Our principal never wore that! And it was his idea. He was one of the few principals I actually liked.”

Whether reflecting on childhood or consid ering his life today, he thinks of those humorous moments like “lights in the darkness.” Little reminders that every struggle eventually ends.

“This is a saying I tell myself almost every day, because it’s true: ‘it doesn’t matter how dark today is. Eventually, the sun has to rise.’”

But whether it’s his or another vendor’s words printed inside, Boyce just wants to see them shared, he said. It’s powerful, after all, being seen.

“I just want the readers to, after they read

the paper, pass it on. If you know somebody who doesn’t read the paper, or hasn’t had the opportunity, don’t throw it away. Pass it on to somebody so they can see what the paper is.”

“There’s far too many people out there — and not that I’m complaining about people

walking up to me and handing me money — but there’s far too many people out there who want to donate but they don’t want a paper… so pass it on. Maybe they’ll like what they read, and they’ll come find a vendor and they’ll come get one.”

Learn More About: Encampments

Prioritizing

This year, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a Special Notice of Funding Oppor tunity (SNOFO) that called on communi ties to apply for grants to address outdoor and rural homelessness.

In response, the Mayor’s Office and contractors working for the city have worked with the Metro Homeless Impact Division, the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA), and the Continuum of Care Shelter Committee including people with lived experiences on developing a comprehensive outdoor homelessness strategy.

The document aligns with the Mayor’s current focus on encampments, which Metro backed with the $50-million Amer ican Rescue Plan (ARP) investments. All of that is commendable, especially since the SNOFO has the potential to provide $4.8 million in grants to nonprofit providers over the next three years to assist address ing outdoor homelessness in Nashville.

After that, a third of the total award (up to $1.6 million) could be added to Nash ville’s annual Continuum of Care funds.

Nashville has learned that to increase federal funding our community has to apply for every additional funding op portunity that comes our way and work with HUD technical assistance providers to include a systems improvement focus and process.

In other words, after years of stag nantly low Continuum of Care funding from HUD, our community was able to increase those federal grant amounts from $3.2 million in 2017 to $7.1 million in 2021, which represents a 120-percent jump. The caveat is that ultimate funding levels are still dependent on congressional appropriations to the federal Continu um of Care program. I applaud that the Nashville-Davidson County Continuum of Care continues to go for every available resource.

However, after all this praise, I would like to take a critical look at how the city is approaching its encampment strategy. To be fair, in the end, the argument can justi fiably be that regardless of prioritization and the political discourse around that, people who need housing will be in hous ing. The counter argument could be, if we do not prioritize our limited resources to the most vulnerable and house people in a sustainable way with the services they need, we will not solve homelessness in the long run.

In other words, strategy matters for sustainable solutions. There are advan tages, of course, to either approach.

Let’s start with my top pros for en campment prioritization. This strategy:

BY JUDITH TACKETT

• Acknowledges that encampments, especially large ones, are extremely taxing on people’s health and on the environment;

• Sends a clear message that the city does not sanction encampments (something I support);

• Recognizes that encampments can be highly visible and often disruptive to communities in certain neighbor hoods/parks; and

• Shows that politicians are under a lot of pressure when neighborhoods organize and complain. Focusing on encampments first, allows for quick wins, because it is publicly visible when encampments are closed.

And here is my list to support an over all countywide outdoor strategy that does not focus on prioritizing individual en campments, but instead prioritizes people based on their vulnerability to avoid as many deaths as possible:

• All the pros mentioned above could be implemented in an approach that drives down the overall outdoor pop ulation across Davidson County. It is even possible to divide the county into regional areas that each receive attention to create a more equitable effort and serve more neighborhoods and council districts.

• A more comprehensive outdoor strat egy takes politics largely out of the forefront and shifts to a focus on the needs of people we are actually trying to serve. In other words, this approach does not focus on the loud est voices that get the city’s attention; rather, this strategy includes the quiet voices of people who live outdoors whose needs have been easily over looked, particularly when they are not part of a large encampment that a neighborhood organization fights.

• An overall outdoor strategy feels less rushed and reactionary; and there fore, can ensure that the actual per manent housing is lined up to serve people. This will reduce the potential of displacement of people once an encampment is closed.

• Finally, it avoids pitching one neigh borhood against another as they po tentially learn to compete by having the loudest complaints in order to remove people they don’t desire in their area.

Metro has heavily modeled its encamp ment approach on Houston. The problem with that is that Houston has been a prior itized community for HUD support since

at least 2012. This has allowed Houston to implement a systems approach for years with critical and significant federal re sources that were funneled to Houston. Houston has learned how to utilize federal funds in disaster responses like Hurricane Harvey, which then benefitted that city when it quickly developed a more sus tainable housing response based on the temporary COVID funds in 2020.

I have long admired and followed Houston’s progress. Actually, when any one (including this Mayor’s Office) asks what cities are doing it well, I am likely to include Houston in my response.

However, it is not healthy for Nashville to just pick up a draft of another city’s en campment plan and base its own strategy on that without first truly exploring the available permanent housing resources our city has to implement such a strate gy. In essence, the best outdoor plan (as well as the best encampment approach) is actually a housing plan.

As far as I can see, Nashville’s current focus is mainly on temporary housing, which is something I support as long as there is a quick overall path to perma nent housing that does not negate a di rect path from outdoors to permanent housing. Having said that, I am aware that city leaders are pushing, pressing and cajoling to find permanent housing units for 50-plus encampment residents within the next few weeks in order to start dis mantling the meanwhile famed Brookme ade encampment in West Nashville near Wal-Mart and Lowe’s off Charlotte Pike. I also expect officials to quickly move on to an encampment in the South Nashville area. But until some of the $50 million in ARP funds are divided up and contracts in place, staff hired, etc., I predict we’ll see a slowing of any encampment closures.

The city doesn’t seem ready for an encampment prioritization effort and is appearing to struggle right now to create sufficient permanent housing destinations in the short run without a clear transpar ent long-term plan behind it like Houston seems to have. In addition, the $50-million investment is insufficient to sustain the housing effort that’s been underway and has already been increased with tempo rary COVID funds since 2020. Thus, the political response in Nashville is hasty and a little backward in comparison to other cities’ responses.

But there is a glimmer of hope, as the Tennessee legislature and governor’s of fice are interested in investing heavily in homelessness statewide, including in Nashville, over the next couple of years.

Finally, I am convinced that, for any effort to be sustainable, and to avoid get

ting slapped on the wrist by the feds, it is essential to include a racial equity lens to how we prioritize whom we serve. I am unsure how Metro is doing that by prioritizing individual encampments at the cost of an overall effort. As local homeless outreach providers would tell you, people in Nashville’s encampments are predominantly white. Yet, our annual Point In Time Count tells us that about 44 percent of people experiencing literal homelessness (sleeping outdoors, in shel ters, in cars, and other places not meant for human habitation) identify as Black or African American. That’s hugely dis proportionate to our general population where about 27 percent identify as Black or African American.

Metro has pulled together a team of service providers to help evaluate and prioritize one encampment over another. But from my observation point, that en campment selection process is set up in a way that Brookmeade will be one of the top priorities. That’s where the political focus has been when it comes to encamp ments. If Metro wants to dismantle certain encampments, it would be more honest to just announce that decision, and then meet with service providers to implement a collaborative effort that leads to hous ing for every person in that encampment. Metro would have the support from neigh borhoods and the general public.

And while advocacy groups and others like me are speaking up against such an approach, we could all at least respect local leadership a little more for being transpar ent about the decision-making process.

In case I have not been clear, I am against sanctioning encampments. En campments are unhealthy places and not meant for human habitation. I sympathize with all neighborhoods and have spoken to many of them in the past assuring them that we have ultimately the same goal — let’s get people off the streets. I also rec ognize that, if done right, both approaches I described here have the potential to help people in a collaborative effort to obtain permanent housing with needed support.

But after careful consideration and talking to experts in other cities and at the national level, I fully support an overall outdoor homelessness strategy that drives down homelessness numbers and leads to encampment closures in a more sustainable way as part of a community-wide housing strategy. Prioritizing one encampment over another at the cost of a comprehensive out reach approach is clearly a political quick fix approach that’s, once again, reactionary rather than sustainable.

For Nashville’s sake, let’s hope I am wrong.

Encampments at the Cost of Reducing Overall Outdoor Homelessness

It began when Harris was in a tem porary housing situation, set up in a motel. One night, a violent altercation almost turned deadly.

“I got into a situation where I almost killed a man,” Harris said. “There was this man who lived next door to me. I had saved this man from getting his tail whooped over a drug issue or whatnot; he got in a fight with this one particular guy… I had pulled the man who was beating him up off of him.”

The police were called, and the man was taken to the hospital. Hours later, the assailant returned to Harris’ apart ment, drunk and demanding a fight.

“He had come beating on my wall, beating on my door, telling me to come out and fight him like a man,” said Harris.

Harris found himself harried by strangers and the police in equal mea sure. The next day, he got a call from The Contributor. Worried about him — and the potential loss of the roof over his head — staff at The Contributor counseled Harris to receive rehabili tative care.

“They were gonna put me into a psychiatric evaluation,” Harris ex plained. “So I had to stay in a psych ward for two days so they can see if I had any sort of mental problem or

anything.”

Harris wasn’t concerned about his mental faculties, knowing the fight re sulted from a need to defend himself. Still, the evaluation was an opportunity to show good faith and get help where he could — so when he was placed into a 45-day recovery program wherein he’d have to stay away from any drugs or alcohol, he agreed. Regardless of the situation at hand, Harris had struggled with alcohol in the past.

“I ended up completing the pro gram, I was off alcohol for that time period there, and then I had moved to a halfway house and got a job,” said Harris. “I stayed there for like a month or so. In August, that’s when I found out they had my Section 8 voucher.”

BY JUSTIN WAGNER

Getting a voucher was a huge step toward getting an apartment, but the wait wasn’t over. And soon, things took a turn for the worse; when Harris re connected with a high school friend and smoked weed for an afternoon, his building found out and sent him to another, stricter halfway house.

It was a stressful few months of waiting, sobriety, and uncertainty. But just before the year ended and the voucher might have been close to ex piring, he finally got a room.

“I had to attend a bunch of meet ings, stayed from October to the end of December,” he said. “It was Dec. 13 on my sister’s birthday that I found out I got the apartment that I’m in now.”

Two days later, he moved in. The rent was paid and he finally had a bed that was his, and his alone. Paying rent every month was not easy — but even that burden was finally eased with the help of Ree Cheers, who works with vendors through SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery, or SOAR.

Cheers explained: “SOAR is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and is a national program designed to increase access to the disability income benefit programs administered by the Social Security Administration for eligible

adults and children who are experi encing or at risk of homelessness and have a serious mental illness, medical impairment, and/or a co-occurring substance use disorder.”

“Many people who are experienc ing or at risk of homelessness also suffer from disabling mental illnesses, co-oc curring substance use, trauma, and/ or other medical issues. Accessing the income and health care benefits that SSI/SSDI provides can be a critical first step on the road to recovery.”

Recovery is necessary for many, but often inaccessible to those who must prioritize survival. Working in this field for over two decades, Cheers has seen how this has made some fights seem unwinnable — but in the case of Wil liam Harris, it was as if the stars aligned.

“As a human services advocate of 25 plus years, I have witnessed several outcomes for the population served,” Cheers said. “But with SOAR and hous ing navigating working together, the success rate hit different in favor of the unhoused.”

For Cheers, this was a social ser vices victory where cooperation be tween different teams paid off in a huge way.

For Harris, it marked the end of so much struggle.

“I paid my rent all the way from December … summertime of this year is when I found out I was gonna get my social security, my disability,” Harris explained. “Ree has been A1 on every thing. She told me I was gonna get my disability, she told me how much I was gonna get … lo and behold, it came through.”

It had been a difficult, long fight for Harris to retain some level of comfort, whether with the strain of rehabilita tion or of simply finding somewhere to sleep day to day. But now that his expenses are accounted for, Harris can just live.

“This is the first time in my life that I have actually lived somewhere. From the time that my father passed and I had to leave home, I’ve had apartments, staying with people, staying with girl friends, staying with friends, a few times I’ve camped out, I’ve had to pay for hotel rooms constantly. I’m talking all the way, constantly.”

“This is the first time I’ve had the feeling of security, you know what I’m saying? It’s been a hell of a ride. It’s been a hell of a ride … having my own bedroom set, having my own kitchen. Having my home. This whole year of ‘22 has been an eye-opening experience for me. It’s like I won the lottery.”

Volunteer Spotlight: Marissa Young

BY NORMA B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

Contributor readers, do you know what time it is? You guessed it, time for another Volunteer Spotlight!

Meet Marissa Young, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, and now a Nashville resident.

She was a regular customer of John Henry, who sells The Contributor in front of Libscomb Academy, as well as Johnny Gentry, who sells the paper at the intersection of Woodmont and Hillsboro. She purchased papers from them for three or four years.

So what prompted her to become a vol unteer after all that time? A couple of factors came into play.

Her youngest child started kindergarten, so she called her friend Cathy Jennings who happens to be The Contributor ’s executive di rector, and asked if she had any space available. (Knowing Cathy as I do, I’m certain she jumped at the chance to bring her friend onboard!)

Marissa has been volunteering at The Con tributor for the past two years, working every

Wednesday, and filling in for others when she can. She says it is the highlight of her week!

Why does Marissa enjoy spending time at The Contributor? She likes meeting people from all over, and hearing different stories. (Well, believe me when I say, she’s definitely come to the right place for that, we may have all experienced the same thing (homelessness), but the stories of how we got here are as different as night and day!)

More importantly, she loves the mission of The Contributor, which gives each vendor what they need to establish their own micro business!

Perhaps best of all, is the fact that she’s NOT keeping her love of The Contributor to herself — she’s teaching her children to love it too!

She brings the three of them with her when she volunteers in the summer: Leaf, age 14; Alice, age 11; and Charlie, age 8. Like their mother, they enjoy it too!

California Time Keepers

BY DANIEL H., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

Growing up on the East Coast, most of your time is spent around either an ocean or the woods. It is usually a place to visit for vacations. Woods are magical to a small child. There you can play with your friends or read books as you sit against a tree where no one can find you. As you get a little older, trees take on a different type of fun. Now you are close to or just turn ing into a teenager, and the trees seem to get a little smaller. You are a cub scout or even a girl scout exploring, fishing and taking walks with your friends and talking about your studies or your boyfriend/girlfriend. At this age, family camping is a time-honored tradition.

Think back to your favorite memories, and I will bet you the woods holds some of those memories. Want to hear a secret? The woods also remember you. How, you say? Well, every time you walk into an area of trees you effect everything around you. The woods keep track

of what you have done. From the deer you saw or the the wood you chopped or found for a fire in your camp.

Now, you have grown and gotten more mature. The woods have a familiar feel. A place you may have visited many times, and as we get older we get caught up in work or family. The woods are used for camping or maybe long walks, like hiking, another time-honored tradition.

What does California have to do with me living in Tennessee? After all, we have woods, and places to visit like Gatlinburg. Remember our ancestors traveled West to start a new life.

Like Davey Crockett and Daniel Boon. We have extended family who the woods provide food, shelter and a new home.

As we traveled West, we left our mark and reminded others how brave we were. The Northern California Redwood (Sequoia

Semperviren) trees have paid witness to this. As people move in the woods have shrank or caught fire from individuals who have not taken

Why

BY JAMES V., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

the same care or concern as those who have come before them. We must respect everything around us and use it wisely or it will dissappear.

I met a Contributor volunteer named Andy Shapiro who has a sequoia tree tattooed on his arm. It drew my attention, so I asked him the story of it. He wears it to honor California Firefighters that he used to be a part of for 40 years. It was his favorite tree. I painted a tree so that the readers can get a feeling of how beau tiful the trees are and their importance to the environment. I am asking anyone who shares memories of trees or wants to give back so an area that has been wiped out of so many trees due to fires. Help give a future to the people that have not yet seen what trees can give us. (Learn more about these trees and donate to their preservation at www.sempervirens.org.)

Please share this story with friends, family, and coworkers. Anything you can do will make a difference to so many people, and thank you.

I dedicate this story to Andy Shapiro along with the men and women who served beside him in sacrificing their lives so we can have a future.

As the world turns distracted with family as the holiday season approaches, from a distance I hear the muffled words of a question that has made me shutter more then once. Why do you do this? Now at 43, I'm homeless with no family to occupy my time these holidays and I find myself at the library contemplating this very question.

This is truthfully the answer I found. Hear ing the sound of a sheriff's cuffs clinging to gether fading down the block halls harmoniz ing only with the echo of the steal door shutting

behind me I lay face down on a cold concrete floor of a cell in isolation, and I realize I'm not going anywhere for a while. Again I failed .

Here's the funny thing. Suddenly the ten sion leaves my body and the anxiety Satan blanketed me with lifts off of me, and flies away. Then, quiet peace comes over me and I fall asleep.

Why? Like a dog that fights his whole life to escape his cage only to find himself return ing from the fear of uncertainty before the night's out.

One day they will drag me right down the same hallway and throw me back to the street. And call it freedom. Before the sun has a chance to hit my face, the fear and anxiety will consume me. Hopes will be high. Fam ily wanting the best for us. While gone, life moves on without you. Once home you try to find your place, but from ever probation appointment to every job interview you take and disrupt something or someone else. From one setback to another you see the smiles turn to frowns, and frustrations build. That's when

I withdraw, not being able to take the letting down of the people around me. That's when being desperate I make bad choices. I push and then I run. Finding a way to crawl back into my cage.

Because laying face down on a cold con crete floor failed, alone, is somehow better then walking the street failing in front of everyone.

I can only speak for myself. But as you come close to family this season try to remember you might not understand, but your love ones in the street have a "why."

Marissa Young with her children Leaf, Alice and Charlie. PHOTO COURTESY OF MARISSA YOUNG.

BY JOE NOLAN

In December, the Belcourt Theatre is opening its Holiday Classics series with a sprawling slate of 17 films that vary from the best Christmas movie of all time to a frosty flick that features more Satan than Santa. Here are the highlights:

Dial Code Santa Claus finds Thomas at home with his grandfather while Thomas’ mom is working late at the office on Christmas Eve. Thomas is French, but he’s a lot like Ameri can kids in the 1980s: He loves computers and role-playing games and his trusty pooch, but all of the kid stuff gets interrupted when a mania cal Santa bounds down the chimney. Thomas is forced to vanquish the Creepy Kringle with nothing but an arsenal of toys and all the wits an inventive little nerd can muster. This de scription might remind you of Home Alone, but Dial Code Santa Claus (aka 36.15 code Père Noël) was released a year before Kevin took on the Wet Bandits, and it opens the Belcourt’s Holiday Classics series with more fake blood and Rambo references than we ever got from White Christmas Dial Code Santa Claus is the Midnight Movie at the Belcourt Theatre this Friday night, Dec. 9.

Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia’s second film features a priest, a record store clerk and a TV psychic doing battle with the antichrist. And even though this sounds like the set-up for a dumb joke, Screen Anarchy called Day of

the Beast “a classic of modern Spanish cinema.” What does all of this have to do with Christ mas? Well, the Antichrist is going to be born on Christmas Eve, of course. Iglesia decks all this seasonal blasphemy with his signature dark comedic style, and won six Goya Awards for being Satan’s — I mean Santa’s — very best boy. Day of the Beast is the Midnight Movie at the Belcourt Theatre this Saturday night, Dec. 10.

The Fly is David Cronenberg’s best film. That

said, Eastern Promises is my pick for runner-up. Eastern Promises is one of the great gangster flicks, and somewhere between the tattoos, gloomy London vibes, Russian accents and naked bath house knife fighting, this is also a movie about that bittersweet yearning for home and family that’s unique to winter the holidays.

Let Eastern Promises shine down upon you like a solstice sun when it screens at the Belcourt Theatre on Wednesday, Dec. 21.

It’s a Wonderful Life is the best film of all time. It’s also the best Christmas film of all time. Weep at the wonder of moving images synced to sound this holiday season. See It’s a Wonderful Life at the Belcourt Theatre Tuesday, Dec. 20 – Sunday, Dec. 25.

This holiday series extends beyond Christ mas into the run-up to New Year’s Eve when it all comes to a chaotic end with Klaus Kinski and a terrified monkey stalking a sinking raft in a mad reverie of tyrannical reigns and incestu ous dynasties. I don’t remember Nat King Cole singing this verse. Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God boasts some of the best opening and ending sequences in all of movies, and this bonkers story features an incendiary title char acter turn from Kinski who once wrote and performed a one-man show in which he cast himself as a modern Jesus Christ (“Jesus Christ Savior”). Stare maniacally at Aguirre: The Wrath of God when it plays at the Belcourt Theatre on Wednesday, Dec. 28.

Read about the rest of the titles in this inventive holiday series, and find times and tickets at www. belcourt.org

Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/ songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.

HOBOSCOPES

SAGITTARIUS

Gratitude is hard to find some days, Sagittarius. I look around at all the beauty around me and all the grace that holds up my life and yet all I can think about is how my toenail is caught on a loose thread in my sock and it’s pulling in a weird way that makes it uncomfortable to step on the inside of my foot so I’m putting all my weight on the edge and it hurts my ankle and if it’s going to be like this all the time why don’t I just give up? Stop right where you are, Sagittarius. Refocus. Notice the clothes on your back, the ground you’re standing on, and the mind you use to perceive it all. Maybe there’s some gratitude in there somewhere.

CAPRICORN

I finally packed everything back in the cardboard box labeled “Hallow een” and took it down to the basement. I came back up with the box labeled “Christmas.” It feels like life is just a series of trips down into the basement to get the next box until one day you go down there and you just don’t come back up again. The seasons fly past and the winter coat is back on the hook on the door and where does the time go, Capricorn? Well, today the time will go to unpacking this box of decorations and putting them around the house. Maybe put on some seasonal tunes and make a cup of hot cocoa. You can’t stop time from flying, Capricorn, but you can be where you are for a while today.

AQUARIUS

It is my astrological duty to inform you that The Stars are under new management. As you may have heard, the new ownership is laying off two-thirds of the night sky and only keeping the highest-performing constellations. Fortunately, your corner of the Zodiac will remain intact for now, (although Libra and Gemini are being merged into a sin

gle department and I heard Taurus has been terminated without severance.) I know you were hoping for some more encouraging astrological wisdom, Aquarius, but sometimes it’s best to just keep doing what you’re doing and stay quiet until this all blows over.

PISCES

Missed connection: You were the Pisces reading the paper. I was the amateur astrologer writing it. What was missed was not a potential future, but an actual pres ent. The connection is the one between the earth and the sky. The thing that links every person to every other person. The good news is, you can connect at any point. You may have missed it before, but you don’t have to miss it now. Look up.

ARIES

I cracked into this box of Christmas decorations and I don’t know who packed this thing up last year (it was me) but I’d like a word with them. For one, every string of lights is basically just wadded up in one ball. I’m not even sure if these work, and now I have to put in some time untangling them enough to find out which is which. It reminds me, Aries, that you’ve got some untangling to do this week. My only piece of advice is that if it doesn’t light up when you plug it in, throw it out today, don’t pack it up for another year.

TAURUS

I’ve never understood clothes, re ally, Taurus. I mean, I know how to wash them and how to put them on well enough to not get kicked out of Walgreens at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, but I still think I’m missing something (Maybe a sock?). You, on the other hand, look like you’re dressed just for this occasion. You’ve got the look, Taurus, just step in with confidence and you’ll probably get the offer.

GEMINI

There’s a Santa hat on the roof of the car in front of me in the drive-thru line. I wonder how they make it stay up there. It’s probably magnetic. I’ll bet it leaves a little scratchy circle in the paint that stays all year. I’ll bet they didn’t think of that when they stuck that Santa hat up there. Still, Capricorn, if what you want is to bring a little joy to the world, it might be worth the scratchy consequences.

CANCER

I forgot about most of the orna ments in this box. There’s the one I got at the truckstop where Rudolf’s nose lights up and the one I made out of clay and noodles in 2nd grade. I’ve even got one with a picture of you in it, Cancer. It’s from the time we stayed at the diner too late and or dered cheese sticks and you told me about your uncle’s farm and helped me fill out my application to astrology bootcamp. I took your picture and put it in the green star from the diner menu. I laminated it at work and now I get it out every year and smile. Pull out some old memories this week, Cancer. You’re still all the people you’ve been.

LEO

I’m not sure what I think about the afterlife, Leo. Sometimes I imagine that when my days on earth have ended, I’ll suddenly wake up in the freezer section of an enormous and unpopulated grocery store. I’ll get up off the pristine floor, blinking in the fluorescent light and I’ll make my way through each aisle, looking for something or someone to explain it all. I’ll pass the Twinkies and the peanut butter and then I’ll see you, Leo, lining up watermelons in the produce section and joyfully smashing each with a sledgehammer. If there’s something you need to destroy, Leo, do it while you’re still alive.

VIRGO

When I was a kid I used to watch a TV show about a girl who could stop time just by touching the tips of her fingers together. When things got too chaotic she would freeze the scene, think through the situation, and put everything in place to reach a satisfying conclusion. You could sure use a superpower like that right about now, Virgo. But time just keeps going and the chaos keeps piling up. What you can do, Virgo, is give yourself a time-out. Get alone, get quiet and imagine, for a few minutes, that everything has stopped. How much of the chaos can you turn off

LIBRA

I used to buy a tree every year and put it by the sofa and decorate it and try to keep the cat from stealing all the ornaments. Then I’d forget to water it one time and my floor would be covered in dead pine needles by Dec. 10. These days, I just decorate the jasmine plant that I’ve somehow managed to keep alive for the past four years. Your traditions don’t have to be like other people’s traditions, Libra. And they don’t have to mean what other people think they mean. Decorate whatever you want however often you want for whatever reason you want.

SCORPIO

A lot of people don’t realize that these horoscopes are generated by an algorithm that tracks your purchases, your search-history, your conversations, and your sleep-patterns to bring you targeted life wisdom and keep you reading. I hope it’s working, Scorpio, because the advertisers keep calling and I keep not listening to the messages. In any case, you can use the fleece bathmat you’ve been eyeing as a towel in a pinch. Everything is multi-purpose these days. You might think you know what the thing you're standing on is there for, but there might be another reason.

Mr. Mysterio is still not a licensed astrologer, a trained CEO, or a registered ornament appraiser.. Mr. Mysterio is, however, a budding intermediate podcaster! Check out The Mr. Mysterio Podcast. Season 2 is now playing at mrmysterio.com. Got a question, just give Mr. M a call at 707-VHS-TAN1

ABBY

The New Christian Year

Selected by Charles Williams (1941)

also

Lacking a proper degree unlike his fellow Inklings, this

2nd Wednesday in Advent

FAITH, therefore, is never identical with 'piety', however pure and however delicate. In so far as 'piety' is a sign of the occurrence of faith, it is so as the dissolution of all other concrete things and supremely as the dissolution of itself. Faith lives of its own, because it lives of God.

Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

ALL faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in lust and in grace.

Pascal: Pensées.

2nd Thursday in Advent

. . . WHEN a soul is truly troubled about the mighty burden of his stony heart interposed, hindering him from coming to Christ; I say, when he is seriously and sincerely solicitious about that impediment, such desiring is a doing, such wish ing is a working. Do thou but take care it may be removed, and God will take order it shall be removed.

Thomas Fuller: A Wounded Conscience.

THOU, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.

Leonardo da Vinci: Notebooks

2nd Friday in Advent

WE are further required by this consideration of Christ cru cified to work out our own salvation; for God himself, so exalted (and so far removed and strange unto us), did use such diligence in obtaining our redemption and salvation that it is our bounden duty to take heed for ourselves and our salvation and to further the will of God, showing peni tence for out sins.

Angela of Foligno: The Book of Divine Consolations.

COME and come strong, To our conspiracy of spacious song.

Crashaw: Hymn to the Name of Jesus.

2nd Saturday in Advent

THIS therefore is a certain truth that hell and death, curse and misery can never cease or be removed from the cre ation till the will of the creature is again as it came from God and is only a Spirit of Love that wills nothing but goodness. All the whole fallen creation, stand it never so long, must groan and travail in pain, this must be its purga tory till every contrariety to the divine will is entirely taken from every creature. Which is only saying, that all the pow ers and properties of nature are a misery to themselves, can only work in disquiet and wrath till the birth of the Son of God brings them under the dominion and power of the Spir it of Love.

William Law: The Spirit of Love.

Third Sunday in Advent

HERE is opened to us the true reason of the whole process of our Saviour's incarnation, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven. It was because fallen man was to go through all these stages as necessary parts of his re turn to God; and therefore, if man was to go out of his fall en state there must be a son of this fallen man, who, as head and fountain of this whole race, could do all this, could go back through all these gates and so make it possible for all the individuals of human nature, as being born of Him, to inherit His conquering nature and follow Him though all these passages to eternal life. And thus we see, in the

Cockney-speaking author,

and playwright was eminently well-versed in both philosophical and theological writings of the remote past as of the present day (the mid-20th century) and used this familiarity to good effect in his poetry, supernatural fiction and his lesser-known devotional selec tions designed for the spiritual benefit of the faithful in the Church of England. This series of profound quotations, encompassing all walks of life, follows the sequence of the themes and Bible readings anciently appointed for contemplation throughout the church's year, beginning with Advent (i.e., December) and ending in November, and reaches far beyond the pale of the philosophical and theological discussions of his day. It was under his hand, for instance, that some of the first translations of Kierkegaard were made available to the wider public. It is hoped that the readings reproduced here will prove beneficial for any who read them, whatever their place in life's journey. — Matthew Carver

strongest and clearest light, both why and how the holy Jesus is become our great Redeemer.

William Law: An Appeal.

3rd Monday in Advent

OUR relation to God is unrighteous. Secretly we are our selves masters in this relationship. We are not concerned with God but with our own requirements, to which God must adjust Himself. Our arrogance demands that, in addi tion to everything else, some super-world should also be known and accessible to us. Our conduct calls for some deeper sanction, some approbation and remuneration from another world. Our well-regulated, pleasurable life longs for some hours of devotion, some prolongation into infinity. And so, when we set God upon the throne of the world, we mean by God ourselves. In 'believing' on Him, we justify, enjoy and adore ourselves.

Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

3rd Tuesday in Advent

HE enters by the door, who enters by Christ, who imitates the suffering of Christ, who is acquainted with the humility of Christ, so as to feel and know, that if God became man for us, man should not think himself God, but man. He who being man wishes to appear God, does not imitate Him, who being God, became man. Thou art bid to think less of thyself than thou art, but to know what thou art.

St Augustine: On the Word.

3rd Wednesday in Advent

GOD promises union, and this union is himself. St Ignatius: Epistle to the Trallians.

LOVE does not make you weak because it is the source of all true strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.

Léon Bloy: Letters to his Fiancée.

3rd Thursday in Advent

IN moral actions divine law helpeth exceedingly the law of reason to guide a man's life, but in supernatural it alone guideth.

Hooker: Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

IT seldom happens that Zion's travelers are qualified to salute each other, even in a thorny difficult way, but the immortal birth in some degree leaps for joy.

Sarah Grubb: Journal.

3rd Friday in Advent

FROM this temple, which is the body of Christ, everything that is irrational and savors of merchandise must be driven away, that it may no longer be a house of merchandise . . . And everyone who is of this nature, Jesus purifying him (John xv, 3), puts away things that are irrational, and things that savour of selling, to be destroyed, on account of the zeal of he Logos that is in him.

Origen: Commentary of John.

IT is to be feared, lest our long quarrels about the manner of his presence cause the matter of his absence, for our want of charity to receive him.

Thomas Fuller: Good Thoughts in Bad Times.

3rd Saturday in Advent

THOU that art among many bodily, thou mayest be solitary and alone ghostly if thou will not and love not these world ly things that the comunalte loveth and also if thou despise and forsake the things that all men commonly desire and take. Also, if thou flee strifes and debates, and if thou feel not with sorrow thine own harms and have not in mind wrongs done to thee for to be avenged.

The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, tr. by Nicholas Love.

YOU have no questions to ask of any body, no new way that you need inquire after; no oracle that you need to consult; for whilst you shut up yourself in patience, meekness, hu mility, and resignation to God, you are in the very arms of Christ, your whole heart is His dwelling-place and he lives and works in you as certainly as He lived in and governed that body and soul which He took from the Virgin Mary.

William Law: The Spirit of Love.

Fourth Sunday in Advent

THEY do greatly err who acknowledge that the flesh of man was taken on Himself by Christ, but deny that the affections of man were taken; and they contravene the purpose of the Lord Jesus Himself, since thus they take away from man what constitutes man, for man cannot be man without hu man affections. Whence could I to-day recognize the Lord Jesus as man, who's flesh I see not, but whose affections I read of—whence, I say, could I recognize Him as man, if he had not hungered, thirst, wept? But He is known by these things to be man, who by His Divine works is accounted to be more than man. He assumed the affections of man from His mother, that He might take on Himself our weaknesses.

St Ambrose: On Psalm 61.

GOD hath nothing in him that is best, but he is altogether one entire best.

Donne: Sermons

4th Monday in Advent

THE positive relation between God and man, which is the absolute paradox, veritably exists. This is the theme of the Gospel, proclaimed in fear and trembling, but under pres sure of a necessity from which there is no escape. It pro claims eternity as an event.

Barth: The Epistle to the Romans.

THERE are only two kinds of men: the righteous who be lieve themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.

Pascal: Pensées.

4th Tuesday in Advent

WITH the baggage of this present world was I as sweetly overladen, as a man uses to be in a dream: and those thoughts with which I meditated upon thee, were like the struggles of such as would get up; who being yet overcome with a deep sleep, fall into it . . . Nor had I anything now to answer thee calling to me: Arise, thou that sleepest, and stand up from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light: and whereas thou on all sides showedst me, that what thou saidst was true; I had nothing at all to answer for myself, being convinced by that truth; but certain lither [sluggish] and drowsy words only: Anon, see I come by and by: let me sleep a little while. But my now and anon had no measure with them, and my little while drove out into a mighty length.

St Augustine: Confessions

Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886–1945), the editor of the following selections, is today probably the third most famous of the famous Inklings literary group of Oxford, England, which existed in the middle of the 20th century, and which included among its ranks the better-known and longer-lived Oxford Dons J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis—but he was arguably the most precocious and well-read of this eminent and intellectually fertile group. He was

known to have influenced Dorothy Sayers, T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden.

genius

editor, critic,

Sponsored by Matthew Carver, publisher