San Francisco is My Home

20
Dec

Family Link and a friar’s belt

Author: kris, Category: Charity, People, Seen

I saw the friar again today, still in his robe and baseball cap. He was coming out of a door on Castro Street that I’d never noticed before next to a sign that said Family Link.

A few minutes of internet research later, I learned that The Family Link is a non-profit that serves people with AIDS in an interesting way: by offering hospitality to their visiting friends and family members. It provides a space for people to come and have some coffee or a meal, talk to others going through a similar experience, and decompress a little in a nice atmosphere.  An admirable way to find a very real need and fill it, I say.

I’m fascinated by this friar, who I imagine works with Family Link in some capacity. As the newspapers flare up with stories about the Catholic Church denouncing the good-doing Sisters of Perpetual Mercy, and books like The End of Faith and The God Delusion become best sellers, it’s interesting to find the places where religion is still being a help and comfort like it’s supposed to.

I’m also fascinated by the friar’s belt, which looks like rope but I think is not actual rope, not the kind you’d use to tie something up on a ship or lead a mule to market. I’m sure the rope belt began as actual scraps of rope, because the friars had taken vows of poverty or whathaveyou and were just using whatever came to hand to tie their robes together. But I wonder if in the modern world you actually buy your rope belt from a manufacturer who makes you a nice smooth synthetic version or something.

None of this should be taken as any reflection on the friar, whose supportive presence at LGBT rallies and AIDS charities makes him one of our unsung local luminaries in my book. I’m just curious about the rope.