On Sacred Ground

There’s a choice we make: do we step toward our neighbors in need, or do we walk by them? Do we outsource caring relationships to transactional charities, or do we build bridges into the relationships that are beloved community?

Religion has proven very effective at creating tribes and reinforcing castes of comfort. So we acknowledge that when we say Green Mountain Justice is a “ministry,” we run the risk of alienating some. But stay with us—because the space we entered yesterday (and hundreds of days and nights before), the space where our marginalized neighbors live, can only be described as sacred ground.

Complexity theory calls it “the edge of chaos”—that unpredictable, highly charged space between order and disorder. This isn’t a comfortable place. It’s the space under bridges, in emergency shelters, at the intersections where multiple systems fail simultaneously. But it’s also where suffering and emergence happen together, where small gestures of solidarity can lead to unexpected transformation. It’s where the most profound human connections become possible.

We didn’t enter this space to deliver charity or to “fix” anyone. We entered to be present. To listen. To accompany. To witness the extraordinary resilience of neighbors navigating perpetual instability—what researchers call “phase transition zones”—where enormous energy is required just to survive each day.

This week, as many of us gather around tables overflowing with abundance, neighbors living at these edges will face another Vermont winter without warmth, without dignity, without the basic human connections most of us take for granted.

Here’s what Green Mountain Justice believes: The foundation for beloved community can never be laid through transactions—not through forms filled out, not through looking into computer screens instead of the eyes of someone in need, not through the comfortable distance that contemporary privilege creates between “helpers” and “helped.”

This is why we’re a ministry. Ministry isn’t something we do FOR people—it’s something we do WITH them. It’s the relational technology we use to help neighbors find purpose and meaning, to help them create healthy relationships and detach from unhealthy ones, and to help them connect more deeply with that which is transcendent—with values, with the sacred, with Love that excludes no one.

Real transformation emerges from the whole web of relationships, not from individual transactions or institutional interventions. It requires us to leave our comfort zones, to enter the edge of chaos where our neighbors live, to be present in the uncertainty rather than managing it from a distance. To stand together on sacred ground.

As we enter our winter campaign, every gift you make goes directly to this work:

• Supporting neighbors in their search for dignity and belonging
• Creating spaces where authentic relationships can form (like our Neighbors’ Table gatherings)
• Providing EMPWR coats through our Warmth with Dignity campaign
• Connecting neighbors with the Neighbor Care Network—volunteers who walk this journey WITH them
• Amplifying marginalized voices through our “Voices from the Edge” podcast

Your donations don’t just provide services—they fuel relationships. They fund the time it takes to sit with someone who’s been invisible to most of the world. They make possible the phone calls, the rides, the presence that says: “You matter. Your story matters. You belong.”

This Thanksgiving week, we’re grateful for every neighbor who’s taught us what resilience really looks like. We’re grateful for our volunteers who choose proximity over comfort. And we’re grateful for supporters who understand that justice isn’t something we achieve—it’s something we practice, together, one relationship at a time.

Will you step forward with us?

Support our winter campaign | Learn about our Neighbor Care ecosystem

Working towards a beloved community of communities through the liberating power of Love.