People are Beautiful- 4 Stages

Just when I needed it, I was reminded that people are so beautiful. Life and people can be very ugly, but this ugliness is so often accompanied by beauty. And beauty by ugliness. They are wrapped up in each other. People are probably the most disgusting and wonderful examples of this relationship.

So today we met some our friends at the park by my house. Loren had the shakes pretty bad. I asked him what was wrong and tried to get him to eat. He wouldn't eat anything but a couple small bites that I practically forced on him. He told me later that he didn't want to eat because he would throw it up. He didn't have enough alcohol in his body. "I'm a fool," he told me many times. His dad died at age 44 from cirrhosis of the liver. Loren is 38.

He told me a lot of things. He saw Tombstone on TV a while ago. He saw the scene where the people dressed up to go to a funeral. He watched them lower the casket into the ground and he remembered his fathers funeral. "I don't want to do that to my family." He spent a night in the hospital with his father when he was dying and saw his abdomen distend before his eyes.

He remembered when he first started living on the streets. He hated it at first. There weren't any resources. He didn't know how people lived. He called this the first stage. The second stage set in when he got used to it. And finally, in the third stage, he had begun to like it. He told Nik and I he has the opportunity to get treatment. He was fed up with himself for accepting the life he had, so I asked, "Is there a fourth stage?"

"Death." I felt my body freeze. And after a pause, "Death...Jail...A bad accident."

I was hoping he would say, "Change" or "Getting into the respite center." He knows there's help available to him. He just mentioned a way out! But death seemed more likely.

How disgusting! How beautiful! How honored and humbled I was to hear what he had to say. When people open up to you, show you their open wounds, you should recognize that you are being honored.

He talked about all the beautiful things he had seen in this county. A lightning bolt that shook the windows of a house and the thick hail that followed seconds later. A sunset when be clouds burst and the sunlight shot through. Four rainbows at once during El Nino seen through a jail window.

A lot of the time he had tears in his eyes. And another homeless friend gave us each a tangerine that he and Loren had worked together to pick.

It's Been Awhile

So it's been a few weeks since I've feed and hung out with the people on Union street, four to be exact. The other day I was sitting at Dagny's minding my own business when I saw John riding his bike on 20th street passing Dagny's, so i quickly got up ran outside and yelled his name. He stopped, turned his head and noticed it was me who called him. John and I talked for a few minutes exchanging greetings and whatnot when he asked me if I could help him with something, so I told him yes. He told me there was a perfectly good computer in a dumpster behind Pepboy's on 24th street and he needed me to drive there help him get it out and load it into my car then meet him at some guys house, who is actually interested in buying this computer from john, on Union and 17th. I met John at Pepboy's helped him load the computer and a children's bike with no seat attached to it into my car, which this thing was filthy but I guess that's what soap is for, right. After delivering to the two items to this guys house John thanked me and hugged me and blessed me, he even offered to split the profit with me. I told him that he should keep all the money and I don't mind helping out friends for free, the look on his face made me want to cry. He seemed so blessed that someone was helping him just for the sake of helping him. Upon our departure I prayed for him silently and wished him the best.

Why we ride bikes and some other thoughts

Nik and I ride bikes from my house on wednesday nights. We both have cars but we ride bikes on purpose. We do several things to make ourselves not seem "higher" than the people we spend time with. A car is a symbol of power; wearing nice clothes is too; so is bestowing food or other goods on another person. We make a conscious effort to not display these things in an effort to make the boundaries between "us" and "them" less and less apparent.

So we ride our bikes, we don't wear our nicest clothes, and we ask if we could join them for a meal. We don't drive by in our cars, wearing our "sunday's best," graciously pass out food to the poor and leave. Homeless people see that plenty, not that people who can't sit down with them shouldn't still feed them. Homeless people need food. However, when possible, take take off some the trappings of affluence so as to be with them even if it is just for an hour. Again, I am not suggesting that if you are already feeding homeless people, you stop until you can ride a bike and spend an hour or more with them. But if you can, you should.

Other pluses about riding bikes include:

We don't have to pay for gas and we don't create any pollution. My house is so close to Union that there is really no need to get into a car.

We show up at different times depending on how our schedules change, and being that the people we hang out with do not have homes in the usual sense, they may be anywhere. So sometimes we have to ride around for a while looking. This would be way less convenient in a car. We couldn't make all the turns we do and cross streets where their aren't actually crossings, etc. Being in a car would actually take longer.

Riding bikes is fun!

Another thing I should stay about creating less and less of a division between housed people and homeless people...I don't suggest everyone become homeless in order to relate. Because if you stop working and your life becomes as chaotic as theirs are, you may not be able to help them. Then again, do what you feel is right. If you think you really need to become homeless to reach homeless people, then perhaps that is what you should do. If you think you want to spend time with homeless people keep one thing in mind: Fespect. Treat homeless people as people. Like adults if they are adults and children if they are children.

Pretty Amazing

The previous two wednesdays I haven't really felt like going out to Union. I have been tiered and really just wanted to stay in my house and relax. But this wednesday (8-26-09) I had a better attitude. I was looking forward to going out and didn't mind leaving my house. It was a good thing I did because if I hadn't, I could have missed out on what may turn out to be one of the most meaningful experiences in my life.

I was talking to John about his daughter who died a little over a year ago of cancer. In the three months leading up to her death, John didn't see her. He found out about her death the day after it happened. She had two children who now live with there aunt. I asked John if he ever saw them. He told me there aunt didn't like him coming around. (John is addicted to alcohol.) I told him my mom did the same thing with my dad who is also an addict. As we continued to talk about my dad I told John that I loved my dad very much but that it made me sad that he wasn't a part of my life. I think it will be easier when he is dead because while he is alive, there is always a hope that he will get better and be my dad. But he doesn't get better and that makes me very sad. When he is dead, that will be the end of it. Nothing can change and I can mourn and put the whole thing to rest.

John asked me why I keep on hoping for something that will never happen meaning my dad getting better. I told him I thought my dad really did want to get better because whenever I am around him he's always apologizing. By this time John was already teary eyed from talking about his daughter and I was starting up too. He asked me, "Do you know why he's apologizing? Do you know what he's apologizing for" He asked me calmly several times as I shook my head and tears welled up in my eyes as they were in his. "He's not apologizing for that (his addiction). He loves you so much. He's apologizing for all the love he didn't give you and not doing right for you." We were both crying and he leaned over and hugged me saying, "I'm so sorry" again and again as we held onto each other.

I don't know if I'll ever confront my father with how much pain I feel regarding him. But I got to talk to John. John has done the same thing to his family. Maybe he didn't get a chance to tell his daughter that he was so sorry he didn't give her all the love he had in his heart for her. But he got to tell me and I hope that gives him the same comfort that he gave to me.

The Beginning of Something

At some point in February or March earlier this year, 2009, Nik and I started spending time with homeless people near the area I live. What we do started when one day I considered several things I was learning about or had known for some time. I had know that fasting was an important and expected part of Judaism and early Christianity. I was reading a book by Shane Claiborne called Irresistible Revolution. The section I was reading at the time was about his experiences in college while spending time with homeless people. So I decided to fast a pray for a day, and that day I decided I would like to break my fast with homeless people. So often homeless people receive food from others but no real meaningful exchange occurs. I thought I would make a meal for myself and another person, go to an area where I knew homeless people would be, and ask if one if he or she would like to share a meal with me. Originally I planned to do this on my own, but I thought I would be safer with another person just in case anything went wrong. So I told Nik about my idea and asked him to come with me.

Nik and I live in Bakersfield, CA. I live at the eastern edge of what is considered downtown Bakersfield near Union Avenue. We met at my house and ride bikes to Union Avenue, what used to be a very trafficked street when our parents were young. In fact it was the north/south highway at the time. I don't know if the areas around Union were ever really "nice," but they aren't now for the most part. It seems that rundown homes, businesses (especially hotels in the southern part), and empty buildings and lots line Union for the most part. There used to be a big homeless community at Central Park. But it was cleared out, dug up, renovated, and renamed Mill Creek. The homeless people who lived there have since dispersed.

Some of the homeless people live off of Union between about 21st and 18th. And these are the people we have been spending time with every wednesday night. Here are some stories about our time with them.