Funny the Way It Is: Two Homes & Two Homeless Men

"Funny the way it is, when you think about it," sings Dave Matthews on his bands' newest CD. The chorus goes on to display the contrast between how one person can be enjoying a blessing that is related to someone else's sorrow. Kids might be playing outside, enjoying some of the most spectacular weather while the same sunny skies shine on someone's house burning down; "one kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out ... somebody's broken heart becomes your favorite song."

A friend of mine called me the other day--the tattoo guy. I like to use the word "friend" to describe him, but I am not naïve enough to think our relationship is a friendship. Perhaps we might be acquaintances, but mostly, our relationship is based in resources. We shoot the bull and catch up with each other, but only when he needs something or sometimes I feel guilty about not reaching out to him (hopefully I don't always reach out in guilt). Not the healthiest relationship, but it is a relationship nonetheless. We're trying, at least, and when at our best, we might fool ourselves.

I set myself up for this relationship. I gave him my phone number one night after he left the homeless shelter and he needed some food. I told him to use my number if he ever needed something. I never promised help, but I told him he should try and be persistent. He sends me text messages most often when he wants a ride to recovery meetings. He has also sent a few messages asking for financial help. Sometimes I can help him out, sometimes I can't. It was rough for me the first time he wanted a large chunk of change for his phone bill and I said no. I thought that might be the end of our relationship.

But it wasn't. He called me early this week. He told me things were bad. He had been staying with his girlfriend's family. And this friend of mine--I can imagine him being hard to live with. He has quite the temper, is vulgar, and doesn't seem to care too much for the lives of others. He told me the family was yelling at him and he couldn't take it anymore, so he left. I have heard this story before, just with different people yelling at him.

He was staying at the place where the recovery groups meet, because he has a key. His girlfriend showed up soon after. I don't know if he intended for her to come or not. He might have meant to leave her.

She is pregnant. Very pregnant. I wouldn't be surprised if she had the baby since I spoke with him earlier this week. He said she couldn't go to the homeless shelter, because they feared the baby would be taken away.

He never asked for anything from me during this conversation. I think he intended to ask, though. It doesn't matter either way. I was just glad he called and opened up to me. When I mentioned I was in West Virginia for the summer, he said, "Oh, shit, well," and then continued talking about how he didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either. Perhaps I should have called DSS. Who am I to say the child will live a better life adopted or in foster care?

After speaking with this friend, I thought of another guy I met at the shelter. I've mentioned him before, calling him Romeo. I sent a text message to Romeo to check up on him. He said things were going so great for him. He had moved to South Carolina where he was living with his new girlfriend.

I was happy for Romeo, but unnerved by the contrast between him and my other friend. Over the next couple of days Romeo continued to send me text messages. The relationship became rocky. I got updates of ups and downs, so many that I stopped responding. I wasn't annoyed, but I simply had nothing to say. Today I learned he is back in town where he started. He goes back and forth on whether or not he'll be with this woman again, a lot depending on "when she finds herself." He thought he had a place lined up to stay. The last message I got said he has nowhere to go. I suggested the shelter, but he thinks he has too much stuff with him to go to the shelter.

I have an apartment on campus at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. Right now only my fish and cactus occupy it, because I am living in a trailer Fayetteville, WV for a summer internship. I have two places to live and I know three people (maybe three and a baby) with no place to live.

Funny, the way it is.

Well, I'm not sure funny is the right word to describe it.

I'm an Enabler

This morning I may have encouraged people not to go to church.

It started when I went to the homeless shelter in Shelby to volunteer. I have not been to the shelter in a few weeks and the only person expecting me was the night worker. I was met with mixed reactions to my presence Sunday morning.

A few of the men were excited to see me. A few ready to leave for church were confused about why I would come in on Sunday morning instead of Sunday afternoon. Another couple expressed they were no longer planning on going to church, since the shelter would be open. In the past, one of the men told me I enabled the men to not attend church. That morning, I wondered if this enabling was good, bad, or even true.

After a few hours, one of the men came to the office to talk to me. This man is changing because of his homelessness. He is losing hope, he is getting angry, and he is turning somewhat neurotic from living in the shelter instead of a home. He told me he plans to go sleep under the bridge, expecting the streets to be more favorable than the shelter. He said he is thinking about returning to smoking marijuana and drinking, because life is too much.

Somehow the topic of church came up. When he goes to church, he goes because of a few people. I remember he used to attend one church religiously because of a family that was sharing their meals, transportation, family, and home with him. The family was a married couple and their few young children and they shared their lives with the late-20s, homeless man.

He went to church with them, because they went. He did not go to church because he liked church. He summarized for me what he heard from preachers and churches in general: “It’ll get better.” He heard this message continually and was continually sent on his way, with the exception of this one family. One day something happened between that man and the family and I never discerned what, but their connection and their shared lives were severed. He was once again sent on his way. But, it will get better. Right?

I was uncomfortable with the idea of being the man enabling people to avoid church. That is, I was uncomfortable until that last conversation. Instead, I was uncomfortable with the church.

How can anyone ever say something will get better without trying to make it better? Perhaps some things a person cannot impact, but Christ’s followers are called to be Christ’s body. When I pray for God to do something, I often expect God to move through me, to perfect the divine strength in my weakness.

And what was I doing for this man? I was providing shelter for him at a time when most small-city, Southern places are closed. I was saving him from the broken gospel of so many churches. I was an ear, listening. But I still felt so impotent. I still feel so impotent. I never want to work against the church, for we can find power in community and numbers, especially when it comes to problems of poverty and homelessness.

I wonder where the church was that morning. I could have left the shelter and passed a lot of steeples with a lot of cars surrounding it. But I wonder where I would have found the church. The church is not me. One young man can neither be nor know the church. I might not know what the church is or where it is, but I know I have yet to experience its fullness.

I do not know what to expect for this fullness, either. I hope it involves a spectrum of generations. I hope it involves things getting better, because the whole span of the generations are committed to making things better. I hope it involves love and care of the body and love and care of those outside the body. I hope it realizes and balances love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self in a way I cannot even begin to comprehend.

Easter 2010: Serving Instead of Attending a Service

This past week, I started making plans for Resurrection Sunday. To a friend, I mentioned a desire to eat with a few formerly-homeless people I know. I wasn't sure if everything would work and this friend noted we could make food for the whole shelter.

Come Sunday morning, instead of getting up early, dressing to the nines, and going to some sort of "service" in which I wonder who exactly is being served, I played the harmonica in a rocking chair on the porch before I started peeling potatoes.

Instead of going to a service, we served. We cooked a few hams; three, large green bean casseroles; around 15lbs worth of mashed potatoes; 10lbs of carrots; corn; and rolls. Well, we didn't make the carrots, corn, and rolls, but we did prepare them.

After the food was ready, we delivered and shared in a meal with the homeless people (due to the nature of the women's shelter and our demographic, we only ate with the homeless men, although we delivered food to both). What joy! The men are such a pleasure to visit with--I wish more people would experience the joy of their company.

In essence, we shared the Eucharist. Earlier in the day, three of us had wine and bread, remembering Christ in cultic repetition, symbolizing our unity with Jesus and each other in suffering and resurrection, becoming the body and blood of Jesus. But at the shelter, we also had Eucharist, although there was certainly no wine involved.

Although we did not consume the elements, we were the elements. We thank God for that communal experience, embodying the word "eucharist," which means "thanksgiving." Not only did we give thanks, but we gave a reason for others to give thanks--taking a blessing and making it a blessing for others.

This Easter was the best Easter I've had since I spent part of the day as a quadriplegic when I had my bout with thyrotoxic periodic paralysis 10 years ago.

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.

We Ain't Your Family

There is a small man at the shelter who is the same age as my mother. They call him Littl'un. I had the privilege of filling out some paper work with Littl'un one night and we talked a lot.

He never made it to high school and I didn't bother to ask why. He never got his GED, either. The older guys at the shelter don't think there is any use, because "who would hire someone my age?" Littl'un had a job at a local plant, but was part of a number of layoffs. He also got kicked out of the house when his wife found out he had been sleeping around.

Homeless. No job. No wife. Littl'un drinks and I'm not sure I can blame him. The other night he got "permanently evicted" from the shelter because he came in drunk. Had I been there, I might have let him in. When Littl'un came in drunk, he would stumble onto one of the couches and you wouldn't hear anything from him until the morning.

But the shelter has rules for reasons. You never know when a drunk person will become dangerous. This winter night, Littl'un was rightfully told to leave. Since Littl'un and I talked about the incident, I get the feeling Littl'un felt belittled. Supposedly he wasn't even going to stay in the shelter, he was just going to stop in and say he was too drunk to stay in. Who knows if that story is true. I have no reason to disbelieve Littl'un; I think him an honest man. But we all know a drunk man's plans don't always turn out the way he planned. I suspect Littl'un would have tried to stay at the shelter that night. Who knows?

Littl'un told me the nighttime worker put on an attitude and was throwing around his authority. I imagine Littl'un felt the worker was like a bouncer puffing out his chest (and let's remember, these are the interpretations of what I heard from a man telling of a story when he was drunk, reality may be skewed). Feeling offended and cornered (so I interpret), Littl'un said something about kicking the young man's ass. Later that night, Littl'un was placed on the "permanent eviction" list. He cannot enter the normal program again. He cannot even enter the winter-nights program.

I let Littl'un in before I understood the nature of his eviction. I helped Littl'un file a grievance concerning the status of his eviction. I let Littl'un into the shelter on a number of occasions and the other night I noticed a note saying he was not to be let into the shelter. I read that note too late, too.

One night, Littl'un came into the office and told me he was worried about me not going to Maine to be with my family for Christmas. He asked me what I was going to do and I told him I was going to spend the day with him and the rest of the guys. There are two kinds of family, anyways.

I told Littl'un he and the rest of the guys would just have to be my family on Christmas. Enough of the guys in the shelter have family in the area they won't be spending time with for various reasons. But for some reason Littl'un and the gang still see me as different from them, as an other. And I am. I have two jobs, an education, a home, and lots of food. They eat whatever I am given to serve them. Most don't have steady work if any. They are only allowed to get drunk during the day, in public, if they want a place to stay the night.

Littl'un told me, "We ain't your family. We might be your friends, but it isn't the same," or something to that effect. I still get choked up writing about it. He said "friends."

You're alright, Littl'un.

Since writing this piece, I received a call from the ER while at the shelter. The lady from the hospital asked if I had any space for Littl'un that night. I said I was not allowed to let him into the shelter. And for a moment, I was proud that I had followed the rules, the rules that rightly and effectively protect the safety of the men in the shelter. That pride didn't last long. The lady told me she was looking for some place for Littl'un to go, since he told her he had nowhere to go once she released him. He was taken to the ER earlier that day for alcohol poisoning.

I miss you, man. I hope you'll be OK

A High School Senior Enters

The other night an 18-year old checked into the shelter. He was a high school senior. He only had a backpack with him. He recently made some bad decisions, he told, including marijuana, alcohol, and suspension from school. He told me, because his dad told him he needed to start being honest. His dad told him this at some point before kicking him out of the house to teach him a lesson. He said his dad told him he would end up on the streets later in life if he didn't straighten up. The kid only needed a place to sleep for a few nights, so I entered him into the shelter's "Winter Nights" program, which means he could have some amenities and food if we had enough, but he was only there for a warm place to sleep.

I've met some people green around the edges, but this kid was green all the way through. He looked nervous and scared, but not enough to lose his composure, at least not this early in the night.

I explained as much of the program to him as I could. I was as kind to him as I am to everyone else, although I perhaps took extra care with this kid. I wanted him to learn a lesson, because I didn't want him to ever end up on the streets for good, but neither did I want him scarred for life.

He was definitely surprised by a lot of the goings on of homeless people. The shelter closes during the day and he asked me what he was supposed to do during the day. He asked me where the people in the winter nights program sleep when they aren't at the shelter. He asked me questions with pretty obvious answers, but answers outside his realm of experience, answers many people are afraid to ask, because they don't want to know the obvious answers.

One of the younger guys (just 18 or 19 himself) this 18-year old under his wing. He made sure the kid got what he needed and they hung out a lot. I let them chat loudly and longer than I am supposed to, because I wanted to hang out with them. I wanted to counter the things the other gentleman was saying, things encouraging this kid to get out of his father's house. The kid was sent to learn a lesson, but I saw him having fun at the shelter by someone he thought could be his friend and being encouraged to do the things his father didn't want him to do.

I countered what I could, but what really could I do? I could have made them stop talking. Maybe I should have, but I couldn't stand the thought of that kid lying on a lumpy couch in a dark, unfamiliar place, reflecting on his past, present, and future in tearful solitude.

Obviously my imagination had taken off. I didn't know what the kid would do in any situation, since I had only met him a few hours earlier and let him loose in the shelter after filling out paperwork (I had others to attend to, after all). And who was I to take that kid's moral education into my hands that night? I'm certainly no authority on moral education, let alone how to handle any teenager. Still, I had trouble focusing on anything after all the residents went to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about that kid, wondering how he was doing, considering things I might say to him in the morning. Would I take him aside and debunk the myths he was told last night? Would I continue to be nice to him or purposely ignore him? Would he be OK?

He didn't come in the next night. Or the next. He hasn't been in since. I don't know if he's been with friends, on the streets, in jail, with his family, or alive.

Upon reflection, I'm reminded how self-centered I am. Granted, I have been generally worried about that kid, which is by no means self-centered. But I felt sorry for myself after I left the shelter the next day. I thought of how little work I got done as my attention was given to possible ways to help that kid. I told this story at first because I thought it was a story people needed to hear. Now I wonder if I tell this story because I let it weigh heavy on my heart and mind. Is that why I tell any of these stories? Is all of my storytelling about the storyteller? Perhaps I want people to look at me with their eyebrows curved in slightly as they let out an almost instinctual, pitying "Oh." Maybe I just want praise and attention.

I want them to think about that kid prayerfully, but maybe for me, too.

I didn't realize it at first, but I've been presenting that kid's story completely from my perspective, which is the only way I can tell it. But in doing so, my emotions come out and I implicitly ask people to praise me and feel sorry for me. They praise me for helping out that kid and feel sorry for me as I obviously pretend the weight of others' problems are upon my shoulders.

Or I am projecting: I praise and feel sorry for myself, so I assume others are when I tell them stories.

Last night I thanked a group who donated goods to the shelter. In turn, a few of them thanked me for working at the shelter. I'm no hero. The heroes are the guys living in the shelter, trying to get back on their feet while society sweeps them under the rug, tosses them in a corner, or simply ignores them. They haven't killed themselves and some tell me they don't think about suicide (I have to ask). That's heroic.

I'm no hero. Don't thank me for anything. I have trouble handling knowledge of their suffering and oppression. They live with it daily.

In spite of my fear of projection, of pity and self-pity, of praise and self-praise, I'm not going to stop talking about that kid or any of the other men in that shelter. The shelter purports to be a guiding light in the darkness, trying to give hope and direction. But the shelter is not that light, the men are. They are guiding lights in the darkness. They are angels I get to entertain while fully aware. They are unsung heroes and I must tell their stories, reflecting their light. Whether by intention or not, too many are ignorant of their light and stumble in the darkness. If you cannot or will not see their light, perhaps I can lift my voice, pointing to them. I can only tell their stories as their stories become part of mine. But it is with their light that I can see enough to read my story and tell it to you.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

--Joan Didion

"Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these [...], ye have done it unto me."

--Jesus, according to Matthew's Gospel

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Hebrews 13:2