The Light Within You

BY MELISSA MCGILL

PHOTOS BY MAUREEN SIMON

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I put my camera down and turned toward the voice. A man sat in the grass, with an old bicycle propped up next to him. He gestured toward the brick church building housing the Haywood Street Congregation and repeated his words.

“This place is beautiful. This is my family.”

As we settled in for a chat, I learned that his name is Eric and that he’s been on and off the streets for years. He now has an apartment nearby but found a home at Haywood Street long before that. He grew up in Charlotte, rattling off the names of the same streets I wander every day back home. He asked where I go to church, and while he hasn’t been in the sanctuary of my home United Methodist Church, he has been to an AA meeting there. As we continued

to find commonalities, I commented on how small the world is. Eric looked in my eyes and said with a slight smile, “No. It’s not.” He’s right – we found ourselves at this divine intersection on purpose. I came here to explore the intentional community of Haywood Street, a little out of my comfort zone but hopeful to encounter God. And I did – in Eric’s story, in his hospitality, in his love for this church family, in his grief for a beloved friend and even literally, in the tattoo of a weeping Jesus on his forearm.

“We do Church in all kinds of ways here, worship is just one of them,” says Executive Director Laura Kirby. A typical Wednesday at Haywood Street includes things like yoga, acupuncture, a story circle, a clothing closet, a Narcan clinic, prayer chapel and free haircuts, in addition to their popular community lunch and participatory worship service.

The Haywood Street Congregation is the juxtaposition of God’s extravagant grace in the midst of poverty and the dehumanization it causes. A far cry from a typical soup kitchen with rushed lines and Styrofoam, the Downtown Welcome Table is a multi-course lunch with stoneware plates, waiters and white-cloth tables adorned by vases of flowers. The homemade food is prepared by volunteers from one of Haywood Street’s 50 partner restaurants, led by Cúrate, an acclaimed darling of the Asheville food scene.

Rev. Brian Combs celebrates Holy Communion at the Haywood Street Congregation.

Maureen Simon

It’s intentional, backed by sound theology. Founding Pastor Brian Combs is very clear that Haywood Street Congregation is a church, not a social services agency concerned with the maximum output, sometimes at the cost of the individual’s sacred worth.

He explains, “Often, you’ll find old leftover food being served to this population but we do the exact opposite. If food represents Communion, which in the Christian tradition we believe, God’s grace is a banquet.” Likewise, food here is wellprepared, all-you-can-eat, and served family style.

The Downtown Welcome Table

Maureen Simon

Robert prepares vases of flowers for the Downtown Welcome Table

Maureen Simon

Haywood Street’s latest project is a fresco based on The Beatitudes in the gospel of Matthew. Portraits of community members will be woven into the art which will be 28.5 feet wide by 11 feet tall on the central wall of Haywood Street’s sanctuary. The project has been five years in the making and painting will begin this summer, taking around 60 days to complete. The fresco will be opened to the public this fall.

It would be easy to romanticize this mission and “the poor” it serves. But at Haywood Street, the truth is the most beautiful part, if you look close enough. Real relationship is messy, it is hard and it can often be ugly. But it is also holy. That’s what Haywood Street is about — seeing the humanity and honoring the dignity of each person who walks onto their campus, whether they are unhoused or they are shooting up in the bathroom or even if they are privileged, coming face-to-face with their own poverty perhaps for the first time.

My day at Haywood Street began with yoga in the sanctuary. The instructor, Annie Hammer, has been a companion, what the church calls volunteers, since last year. The gentle yoga class for the community launched in early May and Annie offers chair variations and modifications for newcomers or those dealing with injury or illness. As our group of four moved through the series of yoga poses, the noise and chaos of Haywood Street surrounded us in that sacred space. Most yoga classes end with the word Namaste, a Sanskrit word roughly translated to “the light within me honors the light within you.” And I can’t think of a more apt phrase for this embodiment of the Gospel in the heart of Asheville.

Yoga Instructor Annie Hammer leads a gentle yoga class in the sanctuary.

Maureen Simon

The Haywood Street Congregation

Maureen Simon