Marginalia
To the Least of These
faces of the invisible
Friday, Sept. 25
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 26
9:00 a.m.- noon
@ Vanderbilt Divinity School
411 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37240-1121
** REGISTER NOW **
Speakers will include: Tasha French, Jeannie Alexander, Laurie Green, Charles Strobel, and others.
Tasha is a photographer in heart and graphic designer in profession.
She became interested in homelessness in 2002 upon moving to
Nashville and working downtown. She has since shadowed various
outreach workers, photographing and interviewing homeless
individuals and looking for God. This project can be found at:
www.sanshouses.com. With the help
of a couple of good therapists and some fine friends, she hopes to
one day find faith, peace of mind, and wings.
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Jeannie
is a co-founder of Amos House–a homeless Catholic Worker community
in Nashville, a pastor, a homeless outreach worker, an ex-lawyer, a
Christian anarchist and Catholic, who hangs out in tent cities and
monasteries, and she can be found most days roaming the streets of
Nashville looking for Jesus. Most recently she spoke at the Jesus
Radicals conference on Christianity and Anarchism in Memphis, TN in
a presentation entitled Revealing the Kingdom in the Midst of
Empire: Reimagining Citizenship, Reimagining Economics.
Raised next to a Trappist monastery in Conyers, GA, Jeannie holds an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, a Masters in Religious Studies with a focus on Christian Ethics, and a Juris Doctorate from Cornell. After obtaining her undergraduate degree she entered law school in an attempt to effect the changes she wanted to see in more “concrete” ways. After graduating from law school she spent 4 years practicing law and clinging to the naïve hope that social equality and human flourishing could be realized through the institutional mechanisms of the legal system. Disillusioned, she left the practice of law, and after a year of contemplation (mostly at a Trappist monastery) she became active in the Catholic Worker movement where she began a new life working in solidarity with those on the margins of society, the homeless, the addicted, and the mentally ill. From a spiritual perspective she has come to believe that a Christianity that accommodates itself to the dominant culture in order to become more acceptable, and a Christianity that does not seek true solidarity with the least among us, is no Christianity at all.
For the past several years her work has consisted of serving her brothers and sisters on the streets, and visiting her brothers and sisters in jail and on death row. She teaches ethics and religion and lectures on poverty, social justice, and Christian anarchism at divinity schools, universities, and conferences. She can also be found preaching at any church or event brave enough to invite her. She and her husband Brian currently reside in Nashville, TN with two awesome dogs named Tess and Jack and an out of control pumpkin patch.
Laurie
Green has been involved in animal welfare work for 30+ years now,
with 15 of those years being hands on in shelters. She started out
in the beginning with pure animal rights, so her background with
animals has included all aspects of what it means to be an animal
advocate. She co-founded a local group back in the early 90's,
Nashville Coalition for Pet Protection, that was responsible for the
overhaul of our local Metro
Animal Control from one of the worst in the country to one of the
best.
Since 2001, the group she founded in 1996, the Southern Alliance for
Animal Welfare <www.fixyourpet.org>
has been focusing on caring for pets belonging to homeless people
and those who live at or below the poverty level.
A rule of thumb I have learned is that owning a home does not make
you a good pet owner, and the lack of one does not make you a bad
pet owner. Judge each only on their merits and actions, and
not their situation.
Charles Strobel—Founding Director of Room In The Inn and its Campus for Human Development
Charles is a native Nashvillian. He graduated from St. Mary’s College in Kentucky with a BA in Philosophy, Xavier University in Cincinnati with a Masters in Education, and Catholic University in Washington, D.C. with a Masters in Theology. He received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois.
After his ordination to the Catholic priesthood in 1970, he served five years in Knoxville as the Associate Pastor of Immaculate Conception parish, an instructor at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Human Services, and opened the office of the National Conference of Christians and Jews as its first Executive Director.
He returned to Nashville (1975) as Associate Pastor of Holy Rosary Parish in Donelson and later as Pastor of Holy Name Catholic Church in East Nashville where he began working with the homeless in 1977. While there, he organized Loaves and Fishes Community Meal (1983) and helped to organize St. Patrick’s Family Shelter that has now become Safe Havens Family Shelter. In 1986, he founded Room In The Inn, a congregational based shelter program now involving 150+ congregations. He helped spin off from Room In The Inn a homeless shelter for working men, Matthew 25, in 1987.
Presently, he is the Founding Director of Room In The Inn and its Campus for Human Development (1995), a comprehensive single site of services for the homeless. In addition, he founded The Guest House (1991), as an alternative to jail for the publicly intoxicated that is now part of the Campus, as well as other programs that evolved there, such as the Respite Center for the medically fragile homeless, a Day Services Center that offers emergency care of food, clothing and personal hygiene services and long-term services such as education, job counseling, and alcohol and drug counseling. The Campus serves more than 300 persons daily at its 532 8th Avenue South location, in partnership with the United Neighborhood’s Clinic for the Homeless next door.
He has served on various boards and commissions over the years, including the boards of the Nashville Coalition for the Homeless, Centennial Medical Center, The Comprehensive Care Center, the Nashville Consortium of Safety Net Providers, Nashville’s Table, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission, the Board of Commissioners for Metropolitan Social Services and the State Legislature’s Committee to Study the Death Penalty.
Also he has been part of the organizing of the Nashville Association of Rabbis, Priests and Ministers, the East Nashville Cooperative Ministry, the Urban Ministers Coalition and Second Harvest Food Bank.
Presently, he serves on the Board of Magdalene, the Board of Backfield in Motion and the Mayor’s Homelessness Commission.
Over the years, he has been recognized by the community with several honors. In 1989 he received the Human Relations Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews and in 2002 the Catholic Charities Annual Service Award from the Diocese of Nashville. The Nashville Scene named him the 2004 Nashvillian of the Year and the The Tennessean recognized him as one of ten people designated as the 2005 Tennessean of the Year.
Register Today!
Registration is free, but since space is limited we are asking that each person attending register for the event.