Praying with Our Feet

November 23, 2020
Krinks, an interfaith chaplain and cofounder of Open Table Nashville, a homeless outreach nonprofit, recounts in her sharp debut how she became an activist. After organizing protests over Nashville’s housing policies as a college student, Krinks volunteered at a homeless encampment and eventually felt a calling to work with the city’s homeless people. The memoir weaves deeply-held principles of Christian social activism—Krinks cites as inspiration Dorothy Day, Parker Palmer, Thomas Merton, and the Old Testament prophet Amos—with personal stories—often tragic and sometimes redemptive—of those she worked with. Krinks also discusses her family history of mental illness and admits to nervousness about seeking ordination, as she felt more committed to “people on the streets and in the abandoned, undomesticated spaces in our society” than to any church. Krinks can ramble and too often veers into connections to external events or personal details that distract from her primary work on homelessness. However, readers looking for ways to get involved in their communities will find plenty to motivate them in Krinks’s personal testament.