Be Afraid: The Great San Francisco Sleep-In

Dear people who think it's a liability risk to have a sleep-in event:

Thank you! The fact that you think it is unsafe for people to sleep on the streets, even when it is supervised, well organized, rehearsed with the police and led by leaders who have gone on street retreats for years - means you have the ability to understand how much more vulnerable it feels for 100's of thousands of people (and particularly the young adults) to sleep on the streets every night of the year.

Part of the reason that I'll be sleeping on the streets on May 14th as a part of the Great San Francisco Sleep-In and part of the reason I'm encouraging others to join me is not so we can feel comfortable - but so that you and others can worry about us and be moved enough to respond to homelessness. I imagine you will be inclined to do more than if we slept in our beds that night.

How would our country change if we truly understood the part we are playing in the homelessness of our brothers and sisters? How would our country change if we thought every person who slept on the streets was a liability risk and we decided to no longer stand for it?

Whenever I sleep on the streets people care and worry about me, in a way that they do not worry about the others who sleep on the streets each night. If enough of us sleep on the streets on May 14th, we can get the whole country worried about those sleeping on the streets. Join me in person, or virtually (I'll be blogging about this night on the streets). Even if you're busy, don't forget to worry about it - for the purpose of inspiring you to give money, speak out and make change!

You can also read my blogged experiences of some of my past street retreats.

Thanks again for being uncomfortable. Please never get used to me sleeping on the streets. Let's get un-numb to the poverty and homelessness in our country.

Blessings to you all whether you'll sleep in a bed or on cardboard tonight.

Pastor Megan.

Living Lutheran Post: World Malaria Day

The last time I visited my mother’s farm in Minnesota, I remember her laughing hysterically as we carried in the groceries, luggage and items we had just bought in town.

My mother and I were inching our way from the car to the front door, each trying to balance about 10 grocery bags in addition to rolling suitcases, when my mother turned and said, “We come from a long line of German women who refuse to take more than one trip from the car.”

We laughed for a long time wondering why we thought we needed to do everything all at once.

Read the rest of the blog post here.

Gaga Mass & Vanguard Tour

I'm excited to announce that the Lady Gaga Mass will be traveling to select locations along with the Vanguard Traveling Exhibit and Speaking Tour. With the Vanguard Talk at 7pm (featuring Joey Plaster Oral History Chair at the GLBT Historical Society and Mia Tu Mutch trans youth activist) and the Gaga Mass, arranged by Pastor Megan Rohrer (Executive Director of Welcome and co-pastor of the Community of Travelers) at 8 pm. The Gaga Mass offering will raise money for local LGBTQ youth ministries and shelters in the area of our tour.

We'll be adding tour dates, times and locations to this site soon. Start getting excited!

Washington DC - May 22, 2011: HRC Clergy Call
New York - May 27-30, 2011

• 7 pm: Saturday, May 28: Vanguard Talk at Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan
  
• 8 pm: Saturday, May 28: Lady Gaga Mass Fundraiser to benefit Trinity Place (shelter for homeless LGBTQA youth) at Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan
  
• 11 am: Sunday, May 29: Pastor Megan Rohrer preaching at Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan
  

Los Angeles - June 10-11, 2011
Portland - June 18-19, 2011
San Francisco - June 23, 2011: GLBT Historical Society Museum
Chicago - January 5-8, 2012: American Historical Association Annual Meeting

Copyright permission for the Lady Gaga Mass obtained through PERFORMmusic License#6400
Mad love to the Gaga!

Forgiveness Letters

On April 16th, I'm coordinating the first of six SF Refresh events. SF Refresh will provide free whole body care activities in community gardens throughout San Francisco. A number of art projects, created by Melissa Lareau and Ilyse Magy, will appear at The Free Farm, Hayes Valley Farm and the Growing Home Community Garden throughout the day (see the calendar of events). These projects are designed to beautify the garden/farm spaces, inspire wellness and to help us work towards more loving, peaceful, green lives and communities.

The We Forgive You Papers, is a project that I'm particularly excited about. On April 16th we'll be transforming the letters into pots for seedlings that will then be planted into the earth and will eventually compost into the soil. Check out the call for letters to learn how to participate even if you can't make it in person.

Here is my forgiveness letter:

Maya Angelou said, "you do what you can, until you know better."

I forgive myself for not knowing better sooner. I let go of the sense that I ought to have done more in situations where it was perfectly normal to just be a kid, to be afraid or to simply be human. I cherish the fact that I now have a voice and life that is strong enough to not only protect myself, but to speak out for others - particularly those thought to be the most vulnerable.

I forgive the angry men and women in my life who have created a sense in me that chaos is manageable and that I must carry more than is mine to carry. I understand now the systems of violence and generations of baggage that you are carrying. I do my best to not take yours on as my own and forgive myself when I walk the rutted roads of my ancestors that lead only to fear and shame.

I release myself from the useless debates in my brain that think: humility is opposed to achieving my dreams; trivial actions and speech are correlated to the amount of love I experience from the world and loved ones; about what life would be like without my disabilities; and the ways in which I stumbled the past.

I resolve to do what I can, until I know better.

I forgive you and I am forgiven.


Megan Rohrer
San Francisco, CA

In the News: NBC Bay Area

Urban Farming About to Sprout in the City

Tuesday, Mar 29, 2011 | Updated 10:30 AM PDT

Joe Rosato Jr.

Pastor Megan Rohrer helps plant vegetables in the Urban Farming community garden near San Francisco Civic Center. "Gardens are some of the most self-care devices that we have," Rohrer said. "It gets you kind of rooted to the environment."

By Sajid Farooq

Farms in San Francisco? It's about to happen.

Technically it has been happening for a long time but the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is about to take the next step in urban farming.

Mayor Ed Lee and board President David Chiu are pushing a a measure that would update zoning regulations in the City allowing residents to apply for permits to grow gardens anywhere.

The measure would allow residents to not only grow fruits and veggies across the City with a permit but also sell the food.

The City is hoping the measure will promote residents' access to healthy, locally grown food.

Reposted from: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/the-scene/food-drink/Urban-Farming-About-to-Sprout-in-the-City-118851314.html

In the News: SF Examiner

San Francisco urban farms closer to legitimacy
Linked by Michael Levenston



Pastor Megan Rohrer helps plant vegetables in the Urban Farming community garden near San Francisco Civic Center. “Gardens are some of the most self-care devices that we have,” Rohrer said. “It gets you kind of rooted to the environment.” Photo by Joe Rosato Jr.

“Our legislation would place San Francisco at the forefront of urban agriculture policies nationwide.”

By: Brent Begin
Sf Examiner Staff Writer
Mar 28, 2011.

Reposted from: http://www.cityfarmer.info/2011/04/03/san-francisco-urban-farms-closer-to-legitimacy/

The Board of Supervisors is one step closer to turning the phrase “down on the farm” on its ear.

“Urban agriculture” legislation sponsored by Mayor Ed Lee and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu would update zoning regulations to explicitly permit gardens in all areas of The City and allow for the sale of produce from those gardens.

The legislation breezed through the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee on Monday.


“Urban agriculture not only increases people’s access to locally grown, healthy and sustainable food, but it also converts unused land to productive green spaces, revitalizing neighborhoods and creating green jobs,” Lee said in a statement.

“Our legislation would place San Francisco at the forefront of urban agriculture policies nationwide,” Chiu said in a statement. “My hope is that this is the first of many changes The City makes to increase the viability and scale of urban agriculture in San Francisco.”

The proposal allows for gardens of less than one acre, while gardens one acre or larger would require a special Planning Commission exemption.

The full board will vote on the legislation April 5.

Story here.

In the News: Indie Stories

Sunday, March 20, 2011

MAKING HISTORY: "VANGUARD REVISITED" HAS A CONVERSATION WITH THE PAST

In San Francisco, the "Vanguard Revisited" project is doing some of the most exciting work in community history that I've seen in quite some time. Initiated by oral historian and radio producer Joey Plaster, and activist minister Rev. Megan Rohrer, the project "resuscitates the history of the 1960s queer youth organization Vanguard and explores the ways in which its history is embodied in the present," according to the new project magazine. Programs in oral history, youth development, and other areas may have a lot to learn from the model of "Vanguard Revisited." Besides, the project's magazine, blog, audio program, and walking tours are just plain fun, vital, and provocative.

Let's step into the way-back machine for a moment. As far back as the 1960s, San Francisco's Tenderloin district has been a hangout spot for runaways and street youth, many of them LGBT or queer. Queer youth had flocked to San Francisco because of its growing reputation as a haven for outcasts. And the Tenderloin district was where many of them would gather; not coincidentally, it was also home to the "Meat Rack" area for young sex workers, the offices of the early "homophile" organization the Mattachine Society, an urban ministry in Glide Church, led by the Rev. Cecil Williams, and more. It was here in the Tenderloin in 1966 that queer street youth formed "Vanguard," a group for fun, socializing, and mutual support. They held street protests, put on weekly dances, and produced a magazine that covered sex, drugs, theology, loneliness. A 1966 statement protested police harassment, economic exploitation by adults, and drug problems to which adults seemed willfully blind. A hostile letter to the magazine (with the oddly affectionate salutation of "Darlings") said that the writer had "bought your filthy magazine from a street seller much to my dismay. I find it is nothing more than a rag for low-grade perverts, dope addicts and pacifists." At least he was in agreement with Vanguard youth. An underground 'zine that same year, 1966, ran a story headlined "Young Rejects Form Own Organization." The kids were doin' it for themselves!

Until fairly recently, this group -- which disbanded in name within a year or two -- was just a memory for surviving members to recount, and some faded papers in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. But that organization's oral history program coordinator, Joey Plaster, learned of the group, and saw a special resonance with today's youth. He joined forces with local minister Megan Rohrer to put the past in conversation with the present.

It would be a perfectly nifty little project to, say, republish one of the old "Vanguard" magazines. But what distinguishes "Vanguard Revisited" is that the history duo teamed up Larkin Street Youth Services and other local organizations to assemble a group of today's queer youth, who then submitted their own stories, poetry, and art in response to the contents of the original magazine. In "Vanguard Revisted" magazine, content from the 1960s "Vanguard" is paired with writings and art from today, often on similar themes. There's also a project blog, a series of oral histories, walking tours that feature clips of oral histories from original Vanguard members, and an upcoming tour to other cities.

Instead of simply delivering history to queer youth, "Vanguard Revisited" actually enlists today's queer youth to quite literally make history -- to document history, and become a part of it. Youth draw a historical (or, in a sense, genealogical) line from themselves to homeless youth of the 1960s and before, perhaps even to the outcasts in the Bible. And in time, today's queer youth may become the ancestor's of tomorrow's fighters, writers, poets, and preachers.

Intrigued? Go visit the project website, where you can listen to an audio documentary with clips from oral history interviews of original "Vanguard" members, and download the "Vanguard Revisited" magazine. Also be sure to check out the project blog, with video clips of Tenderloin walking tours, and more.