Living the Gospel in Different Places

I helped a friend move into his new apartment today. I saw him at church on Thursday morning. He was there to be served a meal. I was there to volunteer my hands and ears. He asked for my ears first.

He excitedly told me he finally got his apartment. He had been talking about this event for a while and it was finally here. He is no longer homeless. He is another of the wonderful men becoming "(un)sheltered," moving from the shelter to a shelter of his own.

A few weeks ago he moved out of the shelter, because his time was up. He could have come back on the winter nights program, but he reaped the generosity of one of the other men who recently moved out. So, he became the Parson's roommate for a while. After he left the shelter, I offered me and my car to help him move things.

We had put his worldly possessions in a storage unit. It was probably a 5' x 10'. I saw all of his worldly possessions fit inside a storage unit, and with room to spare. A lot of room.

Last month I helped a friend of mine move from North Carolina to Washington state. She and I probably have a similar amount of possessions. I watched her sell things, give things away, mail multiple boxes, and then purchase a roof bag so the two of us could cram into the car with all her earthly possessions (excluding her cats, which flew separately) for the cross-country trip.

We really packed things into her car. I consolidated boxes, making as much room as possible. We stuffed items around her spare tire. We piled items high, giving us barely enough space to see out the back window, and the roof bag was far from empty.

When we we moved Romeo's stuff in the storage unit, there was no art to it, no skill needed. We took the trash bags full of his belongings and tossed them randomly into the 5' x 10'. His clothes on hangers remained on hangers and were laid on top of a box. He didn't even cover the bottom of the unit. He only took a few changes of clothes with him to Parson's. When we moved him into his apartment, we haphazardly filled up my back seat and put a few items in the trunk, leaving probably half of his possessions in storage.

His apartment is a two bedroom. I only saw the downstairs, which consisted of a barren kitchen and a living room with a pull-out couch he sleeps on, a coffee table, some sort of table with cabinets, and a chair. I didn't think about what the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator looked like on the inside. I assume Old Mother Hubbard would feel right at home though.

I offered him an egg crate cushion a friend gave me to offer one of the less-fortunate people I encounter. Then I saw a twin-size comforter in my trunk and he received it, noting how he had been wondering what he would do for a blanket. I had taken the blanket when school ended last year and one of my residents apparently decided he didn't need it and it would do well to be in the trash. He noticed a roll of toilet paper cluttering the floor of my back seat and sheepishly asked if he could have it.

While at the shelter later that night, I compared the carloads of my two friends: one a formerly homeless, white male in his forties; the other a 25-year old, single, white female with two master's degrees. I don't think either of them are where they wish they were. They probably never hoped they would be where they are today.

Was one in a better situation than the other? Which one am I more like? Where will I be when I graduate with my two master's degrees? Where will I be when I am in my forties? Where do I hope to be in either of those situations?

Then I reflected on my purchasing habits. My kitchen cabinets are full of food. If I am in the mood for fruit, I'll buy a few cans of fruit along with some fresh fruit. The fresh fruit goes bad, because my fruit mood doesn't last long and the cans stay in my cabinet until my next mood swing. Now I want vegetables and rice, so I buy all kinds of frozen, fresh, and canned vegetables. Then I want pizza, so I buy frozen pizzas. Cereal is next. Toast. Sandwiches. Casseroles. Pastas.

I don't feel like Jesus when I'm home. I felt like Jesus when I was giving away a blanket, since I have more than I need. I was living the Gospel in that moment. How often do I live the Gospel when I'm hungry or at the grocery store? Just before writing this reflection, a resident came to my door highly upset and in need of things I could not offer, something he knew too well. I had no clue what to do. I wanted to embrace him, but I didn't know what he wanted. He was scared for a loved and for some mistakes he made the previous evening. Did I live the Gospel then? And now I sit here, on my new, university-purchase furniture, full on cereal, writing, thinking, and praying, not that I can necessarily delineate between those three occurrences at the moment.

Can I live the Gospel at home? Do I go check on that resident? Do I sit by myself and surf the internet more? Could I do my homework? What if I read my Bible or a novel? Can I socialize and live the Gospel? Can I drink? Eat?

It is easy to live the Gospel in the face of need. A man needs a blanket, so I give him one. Another needs medication and has no chance of getting any help until Monday, so I buy it for him. Easy. But how do I imitate Christ and honor the imago Dei when I'm face-to-face with no one other than myself?

Making Truth Beauty and Beauty Truth: Thoughts Away From the Shelter

In the. city, you see a lot of diversity. In Seattle, I saw people in business suits; in chic jeans and fancy shirts; in tight, tight clothes; people in lots clothes, people wearing barely enough to keep warm; lots of tattoos, lots of piercings, and lots of dyed hair--the "acceptable" kinds and the stick-it-to-the-man, counter-cultural sort. I bought sushi from an Asian woman named Penny who spoke perfect English with an American accent and a vegetarian-style hot dog from an older Russian lady who expected me to know the soundtrack to a "classic S&M" movie.

Cities house diversity.

This (un)sheltered human kept noticing an underside to even this diversity, greatly influenced by the thought of my friends in the shelter. Amidst all this diveristy exists a sameness (indeed, all diversity yields some sameness somewhere, however minute or near-meaningless). The sameness I noticed was privilege. No matter the race, the gender, the style, or the language, the people I described earlier had some level of privilege.

They bought their clothes. They had a home. They chose their hygiene products, even if they had to keep their belts a little tight. And Ifit right in amongst this diversity and privilege.

The city also houses the other side of this privileged diversity: the very poor and the homeless. They drew my gaze, but not because they were the other to my level of privilege, the hungry to my full, the cold to my warm. No, they demanded my gaze because of their beauty.

Sometimes their beauty contrasted starkly with the city's beauty. An intriguing statue of Christopher Columbus stood over the jacket of the homeless man sleeping behind it, beauties of two different kinds, beauties that, perhaps, don't belong together.

I watched a bag lady pushing her cart slowly around town, aimlessly wondering for lack of anything to do, anywhere to go. The lines on her face made her look old, although she may have weathered more years than she's lived.

An old man in the Seattle Center sounded like he was coughing up his lungs as he sat next to his hiking backpack. He sat in the empty chairs of the mostly closed food court. I wonder when he was kicked out, forced into the cold rain.

I passed by a man on the street corner with a sign stating his predicament: a homeless man in need. I was on my way to find the vegetarian hot dogs. I stopped in front of a place that sold cookies for three dollars each. Looking at the cookies, I could only think of that man on the corner. I didn't buy any cookies.

All three of them were beautiful in their own ways. All humans are beautiful, all humans carry the image of God. I think society could benefit from looking away from their own beauty, turning from navel-gazing to gazing upon the beauty of the Other, of all others. When our gaze turns from ourselves, we can appreciate the other's beauty and complement it with our beauty, the beauty of our creative powers to take the beauty of others out of oppression.

And we can take them out of oppression if we can break the bonds of guilt and fear.

Shake off guilt. Replace it with acceptance of what is and a desire to change it. To make truth beauty and beauty truth.