For people who don't know - I'm a Street Pastor. The most common question we get asked is "What is a SP?" Well there are 20 of us from different churches in the town. We undertook a 12 week training course covering CPR, counselling, sociology, rape crisis etc. etc. We have 2 teams of 3/4 people out every Saturday night in the town between 10 pm and around 3 am (sometimes it can be a bit later depending whether we're involved in a conversation or an incident). We are on rota every 3 weeks. We carry space blankets, flip flops for girls who take off their incredibly high heels and try and walk home barefoot, often there is broken glass so it can be dangerous. We hand out spikeys which girls can put in the tops of their bottles to stop them getting their drinks spiked. We have sharps containers and heavy gloves for picking up glass. We put any bottles or glasses we find into the bins so they can't be lifted in the heat of the moment and maybe used to assault someone. We are there to help, and to create a safer atmosphere in the town and we're there to listen to anyone who wants to talk to us. We're not there to talk about God, although if people do want to talk about God and faith and raise the subject with us, then we are happy to do this.
It's been 6 months since Street Pastors started in Dunfermline. I haven't blogged much about it because I'm conscious that we are talking to all sorts of people and they tell us all kinds of stories about themselves and I wouldn't want to compromise anyone's confidentiality. The response from people on the streets is overwhelmingly positive we could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many negative comments we've had (all of us) in the last 6 months. Women are really pleased we are there because we're someone safe and if they need us we're here. We get hugs and banter and they tell us about their night and thank us for the flip flops and when we hand out spikeys they tell us about times they or their friends have had drinks spiked. Sometimes they have things they want to speak about and we listen and we care. They sometimes split up from boyfriends and cry on benches and we make sure they're safe and listen. Sometimes they get comprehensively drunk and need someone to lean on so they get to a taxi and safely home. Young men are interesting because they too, randomly shout to us that they think it's great or give us the thumbs up when we pass by, but we've been struck recently when we've reflected back over the time, about how many young men want to talk about things that have happened or things they are worried about. Some of them are a bit taken aback at how much they open up to a stranger. We have serious conversations, nonsense conversations, deeply spiritual conversations, conversations which break your heart.
When I think about why I do it - it's about connection. Karl Rahner talks about everyone having a "pre-apprehension of being", the mind reaching out beyond any given object towards infinite being and therefore God. That infinity which we experience ourselves exposed to also permeates our everyday activities. He calls this transcendence. "A person can of course shrug his shoulders and ignore this experience of transcendence. He can devote himself to his concrete world, his work, his activity in the realm of time and space ...a person also has the experience of emptiness, of inner fragility and ...of the absurdity of what confronts him. But he also experiences hope, the movement towards liberating freedom". People might be so caught up with the everyday that they do not reflect on this at all, or they might be aware of it but decide never to explore it. We're not there taking God to people, because as I've said before, he is already there; but I think if I'm about anything at all - it would be to prompt through an action or a word people asking the bigger question of what exists beyond the horizon of the everyday.
