THROUGH THE NIGHT

Seven a.m., standing in the hallway that stretches down from the church lobby to the kitchen I watched a tiny, little old man carefully sorting through a large box of sample size toiletries. He filled a zipper pouch on his back pack with tooth paste and tooth brushes. We talked; he was upset someone had taken all of the dental floss. He was clean, hair combed, dressed better than his peers. His shirt was a child size button up that I had sorted and put on a hanger rack the night before. The smell of fresh coffee and food from the kitchen changed the subject. His focus shifted with a smile, “That must be breakfast.” I nodded, “You missed with the floss but you are not too late for breakfast. Don’t miss out on the sausage and quiche.” Before he moved on he asked if it was Friday. I said that it was Friday, Valentines Day. Moving away he said something about vagrants being like family; “Valentines Day, we all need someone, don't we!” 

He and 52 other homeless humans had taken shelter for the night in our church warming center, slept on the floor under borrowed blankets. Outside the lobby windows, snow blew as the temperature fell to 2 degrees. Men outnumbered women by a large margin but the little old man was right, they were cut from the same cloth. I’ll not make a case for the plight of homeless people. If you don’t already know, you probably don’t want to hear it. Bitter, deadly cold makes a desperate situation not only unbearable but also hopeless. On those nights, homeless shelters fill up early, too many people, not enough beds. When the forecast predicts a low temp of 10 degrees we notify a network of organizations that we will be open.

At All Souls last night there were 27 volunteers working three shifts. Some worked through the night with only catnaps. For two nights in a row we opened at 7:00 and signed out the last guest by 9:00 a.m. I was there both nights, all night on Thursday and the late shift on Friday, 4:00 a.m. to 10:00. The Warming Center project was not an easy sell. For more than a year our congregation discussed and debated. Even with volunteers, the operation is expensive. We get some support from local thrift stores on clothing, markets on produce and foods near the must sell date but unexpected expenses add up, the laundry bill for blankets and abandoned clothes is substantial. 

If you’ve never put yourself in a role where your client’s needs are profound, unable to sustain a residence, you might not want to put yourself in that hard-place. Like climate change deniers the easiest way to save face is denial (Get a job!). Joseph Campbell said, “You can’t cure the world of sorrows but you can chose to live with joy.” I take that to mean, “Fix what you can and take comfort in that.” What I come away with is a large serving of gratitude and humility. My life has been blessed with good karma and good fortune. Whenever I’ve fallen there was a soft place to land. When I’ve failed there has always been a path to rise up and try again. I’m sure there are pilgrims who accept extreme hardship as their way of life but they are few and far between. 

Homelessness and poverty are the Siamese twins of the underclass. The whole ugly mess is easy to ignore, all one has to do is look the other way. Granted, my charges from the last two nights may be better off than Syrian refugees in leaky boats, fleeing death squads but finding consolation there is the denial I spoke of. I know I’ve worn out my mother’s words but she was so ‘On the mark’. “There but for the Grace of God go I.” Not selling religion but certainly attesting to the frailty of blessings and good fortune. You don’t have to be lazy or stupid for your world to implode. Wrong place, wrong time, even a random stranger’s bad timing; any of those can launch you down a path of life’s undoing. 

While in Warming Center mode, volunteers wear a tan apron with the All Souls logo on it and the 1st principle of out mission statement. “We recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” One of the last campers to wake up yesterday was a middle aged, wild eyed man with bushy red hair and beard. He needed to be reassured that he was awake, that he hadn’t frozen to death in the night. He came in long after lights out, barely able to walk, couldn’t hold a pen to sign his name. I watched him toss and turn on the floor, watched him struggle to his feet. After some coffee and a speed wash in the restroom he went to every volunteer thanking them personally for saving his life. Whatever his story may be he is someone’s son, probably someone’s brother and somewhere there is a good chance that somebody still loves him. What he got from us was, he got through the night. That was all we could do and I can live with that.