FAIRFAX, Va. -- Six mornings a week, a call for quiet stills a day center for homeless people in Northern Virginia, and those so inclined gather to thank God, read scripture and ponder its message for their tribulations.
They come from shelters and tents under bridges. They come hungry and sick. They seek meals, showers, clothes, jobs and connections to health care and housing -- all of which the Lamb Center provides with no religious message or test.
Some also come to talk about God.
The center's Bible study group recently pondered the kingdom of heaven: Why does Jesus compare it to hidden treasure so precious that the man who finds it would sell everything to buy the surrounding field?
One man scoffed: He would not sell his possessions unless heaven were guaranteed. Then a woman who said God had sustained her through nearly a decade of homelessness raised a hand.
"When you discover that God is real and taking care of you -- that's the hidden treasure," Kate Brady said. "And it's worth any price!"
Religion is often overlooked as a source of resilience among the poor, but the Lamb Center's Bible study is in its 33rd year, and seats can be hard to find. Some people come to listen, some to vent, some to mull the parables through fogs of addiction or mental illness. They seek hope, but even when hope proves elusive, the gatherings can provide a sense of community missing on the street. In Bible study, no one is treated as an outcast or even a client. Everyone is a child of God.
"There's no 'us' and 'them' around that table -- just 'us,'" said Tara Ruszkowski, the center's director. "There's such a richness to the faith lives of our guests. To have faith when so much is working against you is to have strong faith."
Celebrating the faith of the poor makes some advocates for people in need uneasy. Proselytizers have used aid to coerce professions of belief. Some calls for religion can be covert attacks on government aid.
But the center's Bible study is voluntary and prized by those who join. It offers a reminder that people labeled "the homeless" are not an undifferentiated mass but individuals with inner lives and needs that go beyond survival to the search for meaning.
"When I tell people that I study the religious lives of unhoused people, they're usually surprised to hear that unhoused people have religious lives," said Susan Dunlap, a Presbyterian minister who taught at Duke Divinity School and volunteered as a shelter chaplain.
Few Lamb Center clients have undergone a faith journey with as much energy as Brady, 67, who filled her journals with hymns, scripture passages, prayers and professions of belief before the center helped her find housing.
Her suffering might have shaken another person's faith, but Brady said hers grew and helped her persevere. "I didn't understand why God allows bad things to happen," she said. "But I could feel his hand taking care of me."
Gathering for Support
The Lamb Center started humbly three decades ago with space above a pawnshop.
Now it has a $2.9 million budget and 20 staff members. It offers free breakfast and lunch, dental care, showers, laundry, subsidized jobs and case managers to help clients find housing and health care. None of those services impose religion.
But the center treats Bible study as equally vital, if not more so.
Few clients express class anger or ask why God permits their suffering. They are more likely to praise God's immediate presence.
After a rain, Rommel Cariño thanked God for a dry tent: "The water, instead of flooding, flowed around!"
Tim O'Connor, a volunteer Bible study leader, said hardship makes clients feel a special need for God. "Their faith is raw -- it's part of their survival," he said.
Mindful of the shame many unhoused people feel, O'Connor emphasizes a relatable Jesus who suffered setbacks, as he did in returning to Nazareth where he was chased from his hometown.
The idea that faith can aid the afflicted finds support in a growing medical literature, summarized in an 1,100-page volume called "Handbook of Religion and Health."
"Religious practices and beliefs can be very powerful in helping people cope with mental illness and addiction," said Dr. Harold Koenig, a Duke University psychiatrist and the lead author.
Faith does not help everyone, he noted, and it is less a cure than a source of strength. Still, it offers meaning and purpose, role models from scriptures and community. Moreover, no one needs a prescription.
Few studies have focused on homelessness and faith, but one followed nearly 600 chronically homeless adults entering the services system. A year later, only about a quarter reported increased religiosity. But that group claimed better mental health, less substance abuse and a higher quality of life.
The study could not determine whether faith promoted recovery or recovery promoted faith. Still "a lot of people experiencing homelessness draw on religion as a source of strength," said Jack Tsai, a psychologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, an author of the study.
The Lamb Center's Bible studies reflect Christian teachings, but all are welcome, and the sessions have drawn Muslims, Buddhists and atheists. A Muslim women's group has sent kitchen volunteers.
"We're not trying to convert anyone," said Dave Larrabee, the pastoral director. "If anything, we're happy to strengthen them in their faith."
Part of the Lamb Center's appeal is social. The gatherings let people accustomed to vigilance model a gentler self. "I love you," Larrabee tells his guests, and some tell him the same.
Perhaps the welcoming atmosphere explains why the sessions often attract people with obvious mental illness, whom Larrabee calls "modern-day lepers" for the scorn they endure. "Even if you're really out there, you can feel like you're being heard," he said.
While the sessions can lead to services, sometimes they just showcase pain. One day, a woman named Amna said she could not stop talking to herself on the street. "I go cuss myself out," she said, and in response, people attack her.
"We love you," another guest said.
"You look at me on the bus like I don't even exist!" Amna shouted, at an audience in her head. "My ankle is broken. I've gotten punched in the face!"
Homelessness came suddenly to Brady at 53. She grew up middle class but abused, she said, beaten by a father who said he did not love her. She married and divorced, raised three children and enrolled in community college after her father offered to pay her bills, perhaps hoping to make amends. And then he died. Brady struggles to explain how quickly she lost everything, from her apartment to her bearings. Perhaps the death, ending all chance of reconciliation, resurfaced childhood trauma. "I had panic attacks, depression -- just constant crying," she said.
She lived in her car until it was repossessed, and then moved into the woods. Her ID was stolen, making it hard to get aid. "I just had a psychotic break," she said.
Homelessness is especially dangerous for a woman. Brady found a room in a Maryland boardinghouse in exchange for cleaning, but another resident broke her nose and left her in a wheelchair. She said she still grappled with the trauma of being raped in the Virginia woods.
But "strange as it sounds, my faith grew," Brady said. "I needed to believe."
She memorized scripture. She sang hymns in her tent. She turned her journal into a running talk with God.
"I don't understand why u let this happen," she told God. "But I thank u for y're Love, mercy, goodness, loving-kindness, helps, provisions."
She asked God to quiet the inner voice, left by her father, calling her unlovable. Her journal reflects what she took as God's response.
"I am loved by God, that's who I am."
While faith strengthened Brady, it did not cure her. "I just didn't understand why it was taking so long for God to work things out," she said.
The Secular and the Spiritual
When Dunlap, the theologian, held services for the homeless, critics warned that religion encouraged them to accept injustice. But her book "Shelter Theology: The Religious Lives of People Without Homes" argues that faith helps the downtrodden push back.
"It empowers people to resist dehumanizing stereotypes and to step into the identity of someone beloved by God," she said.
So it did for Brady, who spotted herself one day in a missing persons alert. Her family was looking for her. In calls, she agreed to accept help if they found a Christian social services group, and an internet search led to the Lamb Center.
She spent nights at church shelters and days at the center, with Bible study an anchor. A caseworker performed mostly secular tasks -- he helped her enroll in food stamps, Medicaid, and mental health services, and join the list for supportive housing.
But when Brady asked, he prayed with her, too. "I was treated like a whole person -- my body, soul and spirit," she said.
Sicker than she knew, Brady was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and Lyme disease. Her needs moved her up the housing waiting list. In six months, she had a subsidized apartment, with a caseworker.
After being certified as a "peer recovery specialist" to help others with similar needs, Brady helped run a day center for the homeless. She left last year for medical reasons and now volunteers at the Lamb Center.
She was volunteering at the Bible study recently when it considered the biblical parable of the prodigal son. The parallels to her story were inexact, but it did not take a theologian to guess why the tale of a happy homecoming pleased her.
Once lost, now found, Brady offered the closing prayer as the smell of meatloaf promised lunch for the faithful and faithless alike. "Heavenly Father, I'm just so thankful that you love us," she said.