Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Rutba House community here for good

BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN

dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563

DURHAM -- After seven years in Durham's Walltown neighborhood, the roots of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Rutba House are firmly implanted in the ground. And they won't be uprooted anytime soon.

Wilson-Hartgrove is a leader in the new monastic movement that focuses on prayer, engagement with the community, hospitality, relationships with the poor and living cooperatively. Jonathan and Leah Wilson-Hartgrove live wwith their children in one of two homes of the Rutba House community, named for a town in Iraq where the couple spent time during the war. Others who live in the house are a single woman and two single men. A family of four and a single man live in another house nearby. Everyone gathers together for morning and evening prayers and dinner together. Some came simply because they like the idea of living in a Christian community, Wilson-Hartgrove said. One member is an Episcopal priest from Sudan. Since Rutba House was founded seven years ago, 47 people have lived there.

While some come and go, the Wilson-Hartgroves are part of a core group of five adults here to stay. They made a vow of stability, a covenant to live the rest of their lives in the Walltown neighborhood, a historically black community of modest homes. Some houses are in good shape, some aren't. Rutba House residents invite friends and neighbors -- regardless of their means -- to dinner or prayer time. Developing relationships and making a difference takes time. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes about it in his new book "The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture."

"After seven years, we've got a good start," he said. He has learned that neighborhoods like Walltown were formed by institutional racism yet include a real sense of self-help and a sense of value and community, he said.

The Wilson-Hartgroves met in college in Philadelphia, and while tutoring kids after school, learned firsthand about racial justice issues in communities.

"I learned the only way to make a difference is to spend decades in a place," Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove said. He grew up in rural North Carolina, and in high school went to Washington, D.C., to be a Senate page for Strom Thurmond. He was pretty conservative when he left home, he said, and had a clear sense of religious calling to use American power for good in the world. But an encounter with a homeless man burst that bubble, he said.

On the way to lunch at Union Station one day, a man asked him for change. Wilson-Hartgrove didn't know what to do. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to give what people ask. So he raced back to his dorm, got some money, brought it back to the man and started a conversation. In D.C., everyone is always rushing, he said. The homeless man slowed him down.

"I started asking questions. It set me on a different path," he said. From D.C., he went to Germany on a federal student exchange program, and there also engaged homeless people on the street, listening to their stories as he learned to speak German. Back in the States, he liked the idea of Christian communities sitting down at the table together with people off the streets.

Since moving to Durham, Wilson-Hartgrove has earned his master of divinity from Duke Divinity School. He did his internship at St. John's Baptist Church on Onslow Street. St. John's is part of the Walltown Ministries group of churches -- including Watts Street Baptist and Blacknall Presbyterian -- involved in community outreach. The membership at St. John's is predominantly black. Wilson-Hartgrove is white. He and his wife were welcomed at the church and eventually built trust. He wanted them to know that they weren't there to start a program or do a research project, but to just be part of the community.

The Rev. Robert L. Daniels has been pastor at the Missionary Baptist church for 25 years. He said that Jonathan and Leah Wilson-Hartgrove have been a natural fit in their commitment with the Lord and the people of Walltown in particular.

"Both have worked diligently and been good people for the church and community," Daniels said. "I feel like this is where the Lord destined him to be and make change and strengthen this community."

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is an associate minister at St. John's.

"We're called to work together," Daniels said. "God is not hung up on color the way we allow ourselves to be hung up on color. We're brothers and sisters in Jesus."

Wilson-Hartgrove talks about climbing the ladder in "The Wisdom of Stability," which some people think is the path to success. "What's deceptive about the ladder is the assumption that where you make a difference in the world is at the top. I think Jesus turns that system on its head when he said that whoever wants to be the greatest should be the servant of all," he said.

Really serving people means paying attention to them, Wilson-Hartgrove said. And that takes time.