Priest pitches tent as atonement

By Young Chang
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

BRIAN CASSELLA / THE SEATTLE TIMES The Rev. Lawrence Minder is living at Tent City 4, partly to atone for inviting the camp without giving much notice to neighbors.

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It also has a lighter side: The sign on his tent reads "The Rectory." He's got a glow-in-the-dark cross next to his sleeping bag. And when he enters the homeless encampment in jeans and an old sweat shirt, without his collar and black suit, the tenants remind each other to watch the foul language.

But otherwise, Minder, 43, is just another guy in a tent.

It's been a month since he started his 90-day stay in the nomadic community that moved to St. Brendan Catholic Church in mid-May.

At the camp, they call him everything from "Larry" to "Padre."

He plays pinochle at night — "they're cutthroat pinochle players," he says of the tent-city folk. He does litter duty, shares the bathrooms and sleeps in jeans and layers of shirts just like everyone else.

	BRIAN CASSELLA / THE SEATTLE TIMES "A priest has a very comfortable life," says the Rev. Lawrence Minder, who is living among the homeless for three months in the Tent City 4 encampment near St. Brendan Catholic Church.

When Minder says people ought to get to know the homeless, this is what he means.

He pitched his tent so people would "stop being afraid," and as atonement for inviting the encampment to 2 acres of St. Brendan land without much community notice.

Despite the controversy surrounding his decisions, the self-proclaimed shy man has been careful about defending himself and the church. The former Benedictine monk said his monastic background has made him accustomed to quieter circumstances. In the face of a lawsuit from the city of Bothell, he avoided making public statements for fear of distracting from what he calls "a Gospel mandate to help the homeless."

"But there are times, I think, when we all need to affirm our values," Minder said.

The city's lawsuit claimed the church was violating municipal zoning codes by hosting the tent city without a permit. Bothell sought a preliminary injunction. Church officials said they were in accordance with constitutionally protected religious activity.

But with court rulings in the past week that determined the homeless could stay at St. Brendan for two more months under a special permit being drafted by the city — and in accordance with a set of conditions — Minder said in a recent interview that his decision to help the homeless was a "no-brainer."

"It is an extension of the church's 2,000-year history of helping the most vulnerable people in our society," he said. "We are called to love and support them."

"A human emergency"

Minder learned of the tent city's plans to move to St. Brendan three hours before Bothell city officials did.

What began as a general offer to host a tent city at the church in the future became an urgent matter in mid-May when about 50 homeless people from a Seattle tent city needed a place to move to. A previous plan to host them on county land had drawn loud community opposition and appeared to be falling through.

Tent City 4 organizers accepted Minder's offer three days before the encampment was scheduled to move to the Eastside. Bothell filed its lawsuit the day the homeless arrived.

Minder says he was faced with a "human emergency."

"If it ever comes down to a church deciding between the value of life or the value of process, we're gonna go with life," he said.

The weekend before the move, hundreds spoke against the tent city moving to St. Brendan. Minder said he got a glimpse of what the controversy might really be about: "I felt that the behavior and amount of emotional outrage had to be not just about the political process of the decisions," he said. "And the tone and level of discussion, in which it was no longer a matter of private and public, confirmed a suspicion that I had: that this really was about a fear of homeless people in Bothell."

Homeless for 90 days

Minder says he has never known true desperation.

He was raised in an upper-middle-class family on the Sammamish Plateau. He attended seminary in high school, became a Benedictine monk for 16 years and earned four master's degrees. His twin brother also is a priest, in Rome.

"A priest will never have to worry about going hungry," he said. "A priest has a very comfortable life."

And Minder knows that sleeping among the homeless, and being awakened by tarp flaps pounding on the side of his tent at night, isn't enough to learn what it's like to be without a home.

In fact, camping at the tent city has been, at times, pleasant. With community donations of food still pouring in, the encampment has regularly enjoyed hot dinners. Minder, who doesn't really cook at home, said that's something he doesn't normally get every night.

He uses the full bathroom in his church office to shower.

"People have an expectation that we're showered every day and that my hair is combed," he said of priests in general.

With the price of gas nowadays, Minder also jokes that staying at the tent city saves him the commute from his Kenmore home.

"I'll never get the kinds of remarks and looks and stares that these people have to put up with every day," he said.

Minder considers the tent-city residents his "parishioners, Catholic or not."

"We're called to be good shepherds. Staying with them, I thought, was a way of the shepherd not abandoning his sheep," he said.

Sue Bailes, a tent-city resident, has had breakfast with Minder and served on the same security shift at the camp's entrance.

"When he's at church, he's the father. When he's at camp, he's just one of the campers," she said. "And he seems to be enjoying our company. I know we enjoy his."

But the friendships have not come easily, as the tent city is "a population of people who have been hurt a lot," Minder said.

He has also met challenges from area residents opposed to the encampment's arrival.

Denver McKelheer, who lives 100 yards from St. Brendan, was surprised when the tent city moved in. He said Minder's gesture, though noble, doesn't change the fact that the community was not notified.

"I can understand what he's doing, but it's just unfortunate that he took it upon himself to make a decision for the entire community," McKelheer said.

For his part, Minder considers it necessary both to live with the homeless and to deal with the opposition.

"No one likes opposition, but no one can live the Gospel authentically without experiencing opposition," Minder said. "I'll leave it at that so I don't get preachy."

Young Chang: 206-748-5815 or ychang@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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