Excerpt from Uncovering Your Path: Spiritual Reflections for Finding Your Purpose By Charles Lattimore Howard (Morehouse Publishing)

There was a defiance and a fragility about the small backyard garden that Mary Ellen Graham led my daughters and me to. We descended the three or four steps off of the rear of her beautiful row home in the museum district of Philadelphia and found a master’s work. It was subtly inspiring. Not powerful like a sweeping five-hundred-page novel. More like a beautiful haiku, one that makes you want to go home and write one yourself. And because of its accessible holiness, you can.

We sat in Mary Ellen’s backyard. She was the founder and first executive director of My Place Germantown, a community-based permanent housing residence for men who are navigating being unhoused in the City of Philadelphia. It is a small effort to care for a maximum of twelve men who are particularly vulnerable because of physical or mental challenges, addictions, or any of the array of causes that lead to and keep people in the complex cycle of homelessness.

Mary Ellen was eighty years old and had recently retired from her day-to-day role with My Place Germantown. We chatted about work, her journey, her faith, and her garden. “When people bring me flowers or plants, I never turn them away. I always try to plant them here in the garden. I don’t know whether they will take hold, whether it will work out or not, but I have to try,” she said.  

This radical hospitality has been one of the marks of Mary Ellen’s life. When telling the story of My Place Germantown, she doesn’t begin with its launch in 2007. Instead, she begins the story almost six decades ago when she was a single mom taking care of six children.

“The sheriff came to my home with a notice saying that we had twenty-four hours to move out. And I didn’t know what to do. My oldest was around fourteen and my youngest was just three. I suppose I would have brought the kids to the steps of Saint Genevieve’s . . . but a red-headed Irish attorney intervened for us, and we were allowed to stay in our home.”

As she spoke, I wondered if that “red-headed Irishman” knew that his kindness would affect the lives of so many others in the coming years.

“I became attuned to the importance of space, to the importance of safety . . . and autonomy. I soon gained a reputation for taking people in,” Mary Ellen said. She then relayed story after story of how. . .she would invite those who were without a safe place of their own to stay with her. A teenager who got kicked out of her house. An abandoned divorcée. Stranded international travelers. Missionaries. Students. Immigrants. “I never turned anyone away. There was always someone staying with us.”                                           *

I first heard of Mary Ellen’s vision for My Place Germantown in the early 2000s, in a diner on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, which was just a few minutes from where the residence was to open a few years later. I had just finished working for Project H.O.M.E., the city’s (and one of the nation’s) largest care providers for unhoused individuals. I was a street outreach worker engaging individuals every day and trying to get them into shelters, detox facilities, mental health institutions, or offer them whatever they might need that day.

I walked into the diner and found Mary Ellen sitting in a booth. At that point she was sixty-five years old, the age most people are when they are winding down their professional careers. This woman was just getting started. She shared with me her vision for a permanent supportive residence for unhoused men, not simply a shelter. At that  time most programs for unhoused men, according to Mary Ellen, had “certain barriers to admittance and a brevity of time allotted for recovery.” 

This, too, was my experience.  Shelters were often just that—a place to come out of the rain and little more. The better facilities could be difficult to be admitted to, and there was often a limit to how long one could stay. The worst spaces profited off of the Social Security or disability checks of their residents, while providing minimal and, at times, cruel care.

The My Place Germantown model of not turning anyone away and not having limits on how long residents could stay was, at the time, controversial. Now it has become the norm. Mary Ellen got pushback from neighbors who “didn’t want a homeless shelter in their backyard.” She understood their hesitations but saw this as an important win-win opportunity.

“One of the points of My Place Germantown (along with providing a safe supportive space off the street for men) was to break down stereotypes about homeless men. Rather than being a threat, these men would be a benefit to the community, bringing their  unique gifts, their diversity, and more. . . .Society believes that men should just be able to ‘pull themselves up’ when they are down and that if they are homeless this happened because of their own mistakes and bad decisions.” 

I left our booth after our first meeting knowing that she was going to get this—her late-in-life calling and path—done. She’s a tough lady who follows a tough God that never lets go.*

Down the road, about a half-mile from her home, large, lush gardens full of beautiful flowers and statues run from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the iconic Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River. These curated green spaces with budgets from the city are far larger than Mary Ellen’s small garden. It’s difficult not to see the parallel between this garden and the contrast between the work of larger multi-million-dollar agencies that have helped thousands of people over the years and My Place Germantown, which houses only twelve.

And yet, while sitting in her garden, it’s not clear to me which one is more beautiful: the stunning gardens that are a destination for couples getting photographed on their
wedding days or this little garden with its diverse array of flowers.

“I come out to the garden every morning and again every evening. To be successful in this work, it takes attentiveness. I don’t think one can go into gardening and think that every flower you plant will flourish and make it,” she said. Mary Ellen then told a story about a rose that she received for her birthday. While planting the rose, she found that a plant she recently received and brought into her garden didn’t make it. She then pivoted to tell the story of one of her residents. 

“At My Place Germantown there was a wonderful older gentleman. He was the best storyteller. He was also an addict. Our team just loved him. But he informed us that he was going to be leaving. His addiction led him to make some destructive and self-destructive decisions. I implored him to stay, trying to do so without putting too much pressure on him. But he left and moved in with a friend or relative in a space that would allow him to use.”

Her grief over the one “flower” in her garden that didn’t make it at first made it seem as if she was giving too much attention to the “failures” rather than the success stories. There are several men whose lives have been changed by My Place Germantown and a garden full of flowers that wouldn’t have lasted a week without being planted in this soil. 

So what? What does this small story about a small woman with a small garden and her small shelter have to do with discernment? 

There is a kind of holy trust in believing that the right flowers, plants, and seeds will come to you, and that they will arrive at your doorstep at just the right time. And yet, it is more than just trust. There is a radical love involved in the receiving as well. Mary Ellen doesn’t turn any flowers away. She doesn’t turn anyone looking for shelter away. And she didn’t turn any calling away either.

Very often when we are discerning which way to go,we are looking for or choosing between possibilities that we desire. Mary Ellen’s garden trusts that whatever flower comes to our door is for us. I am also thinking about just how small her garden and shelter are. One of the marks of contemporary capitalism and success culture is the expectation and need for continuous growth. After we conquer one milestone or achieve one goal, we are often asked, “So, what’s next?” or “How might you scale this up?” Sometimes small is just right. Sometimes small is beautiful. Allow your path and your calling to come to you. Even if it is just a small flower, plant it. Maybe it remains small and only blesses a few. Or maybe its seeds grow into a large garden, multiplying and growing each spring.
Whatever comes to you will be a gift. A beautiful gift.

Charles Lattimore Howard is the University Chaplain and Vice President for Social Equity and Community at the University of Pennsylvania. This article is adapted and excerpted from Uncovering Your Path: Spiritual Reflections for Finding Your Purpose (Forthcoming from Morehouse Publishing, 2025). It is available from Bookshop.org.

Image credit: Morehouse Publishing