Last Sunday, Suzanne, our parish priest and my dear friend, delivered a very eloquent and powerful sermon. She did so in her own quiet and unassuming way that only makes her words more sterling. She spoke of that seasonal phenomenon known as the cathartic "Christmas cry".
It hits most everyone with a beating heart this time of year, that moment when the lump in the throat bursts open and the tears flow. It comes from nostalgia or regret or longing, it comes from exhaustion or disappointment or the inescapable charm of baby angels in a Christmas pageant.
I personally have never made it through "In The Bleak Midwinter" or "Silent Night" without the waterworks blinding me. Whatever the human trigger for this letting go, it is apparent that we need the healing and cleansing wash of our soul that only tears can offer. Perhaps the very core of this response is the fact that God came down as a homeless baby and slept in a barn on that first night. There is nothing more human than that, dear friends.
It has been a difficult year. Friends have died...two by suicide. Money is very tight, work is very hard. Sometimes I feel lonely and tired and I sing the blues. But, on this twenty-third night in December in the year of 2008, as I sit here among these fifty-seven sleeping homeless children of God, I feel only the magic and love of Christmas. Like all barns, this stable has it's own very earthy stench. The men have removed their shoes and parked them beside the blankets on the floor. Their socks are ripe, their feet are pungent. In a few hours, I will awaken them and offer clean socks and soap and towels for the shower. Tomorrow, it will be Christmas Eve.
I will prepare the gift bags for Christmas morning and go to church. We will sing the old, familiar carols. At some point, I will most assuredly weep. I will weep for my lost friends. I will weep for these broken, homeless people who must struggle so hard on these brutal streets. And I will weep for the sheer wonder and beauty and mystery of this human life...and for the huge and terrible love I feel in my red and hankering heart.
Merry Christmas, world. You are so amazing!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The frosty winds of pain
It is three-thirty in the morning, and I am sitting with thirty-five homeless people who are sleeping. There is gentle snoring and occasionally someone talks or cries in their dreams. All but six of them are men, so there is also the flattulance and mildly sexual moans that men seem to emit. It is twenty-five degrees outside, so we open the Community Kitchen to anyone with no where else to go. The missions are full. And the city has put out the vendetta on the camps.
So, here we are. There was a mentally ill man named Calvin here earlier. But, Calvin was having some difficulty with the forces that control him...those cruel phantoms of his mental illness. He started screaming and became very agitated and went off down the street when we called the police. The officers were incredibly kind and compassionate, but Calvin refused to go to the hospital or to the crisis unit, so he left. I pray that he finds a warm place to wait out the night.
Last week, my dear old friend Stanley, died of AIDS.
The Monday before, my life-long friend Robin killed himself.
The world seems infinite in its capacity to hold pain. So many are wounded, and the suffering seems endless. So, why do we continue to search the horizon line for any glimpse of joy?
I think it is because something so deep, so primal within us believes in the amazing love of God. And we truly long for mercy and grace and the first water.
In this deep and frosty night, the breathing of these homeless men is all the evidence I need of God. That is hope enough for me.
So, here we are. There was a mentally ill man named Calvin here earlier. But, Calvin was having some difficulty with the forces that control him...those cruel phantoms of his mental illness. He started screaming and became very agitated and went off down the street when we called the police. The officers were incredibly kind and compassionate, but Calvin refused to go to the hospital or to the crisis unit, so he left. I pray that he finds a warm place to wait out the night.
Last week, my dear old friend Stanley, died of AIDS.
The Monday before, my life-long friend Robin killed himself.
The world seems infinite in its capacity to hold pain. So many are wounded, and the suffering seems endless. So, why do we continue to search the horizon line for any glimpse of joy?
I think it is because something so deep, so primal within us believes in the amazing love of God. And we truly long for mercy and grace and the first water.
In this deep and frosty night, the breathing of these homeless men is all the evidence I need of God. That is hope enough for me.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
A January Night
It is three in the morning, the middle of January. There is a cold, icy rain coming down. I am sitting here, watching over twenty-one homeless men who are sleeping on the floor. There is the gentle rythym of different snoring, and the pungent smell of wet feet. It is the only place I would choose to be on such a night...looking after these refugees lost here in the American jungle.
Tomorrow, I leave for New York for a week with my Brothers. It will be a much needed rest and respite, but already I am missing these broken and exhausted people, who have so little, and who I love so much. This is a solitary life, in a lonely hour of a winter night. But it is a holy and good way to live.
Good morning.
Tomorrow, I leave for New York for a week with my Brothers. It will be a much needed rest and respite, but already I am missing these broken and exhausted people, who have so little, and who I love so much. This is a solitary life, in a lonely hour of a winter night. But it is a holy and good way to live.
Good morning.
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