Advent from the Underside: Symbols of Compassion

A rosary ? Why, yes. Despite my deep Protestant roots, literally centuries deep, decades of chaplain training have made certain I always have a few in the glove box in the car. 

 What exactly does a Menorah look like? Let me google it on my phone and we can look at a picture together.... Half an hour or so and several sheets of construction paper later- an almost perfect representation if the Wikipedia pic. 

The hope of divine compassion real in human life. Light overcoming darkness. The comfort of familiar ritual- centuries proved. Human suffering knows no bounds, cares not for doctrine or belief. It seeks only the blessing of relief, the strength beyond strength of hope amid overwhelming grief, suffering and unrelenting pain. 

At a shelter for the homeless, unmedicated mentally ill: Advent from the underside. Come Emmanuel, come soon.  

Celebrating the birth of God among us in the year that the number of homeless children in the United States has surged in recent years to an all-time high, amounting to one child in every 30

 

 

According to the Washington Post: “The number of homeless children in the United States has surged in recent years to an all-time high, amounting to one child in every 30, according to a comprehensive state-by-state report that blames the nation’s high poverty rate, the lack of affordable housing and the effects of pervasive domestic violence….

“Child homelessness increased by 8 percent nationally from 2012 to 2013, according to the report, which warned of potentially devastating effects on children’s educational, emotional and social development, as well as on their parents’ health, employment prospects and parenting abilities….

“The report by National Center on Family Homelessness —part of the private, nonprofit American Institutes for Research — says remedies for child homelessness should include an expansion of affordable housing, education and employment opportunities for homeless parents, and specialized services for the many mothers rendered homeless because of domestic violence.”

 

All of which leaves me wondering and at prayer:  How shall we celebrate Christmas as a family this year?

 Perhaps, better for prayerful consideration: What do we want to teach our children this Christmas about who this baby Jesus really is?  What do we want to teach our children about how everyone of us can come to know him a bit better?  How can we help them come to know Jesus, resurrected, alive and well and walking among us?  What do we want our Christian lives of faith to say to our nation that, this Christmas, lies deep in error, pining? What do we want our Christian lives of faith to say to say about the birth of God, a year when child homelessness has raised 8%?  

How about this: This Advent, as we prepare for the birth of God’s Son among us, let’s ask our children and families to set a %, 8% would be a good jumping off point for the discussion, to set aside a % of the resources we spend on gifts and family celebrations to donate directly to homeless children and/or to organizations trying to remedy child homelessness through: expansion of affordable housing, education and employment opportunities for homeless parents, and specialized services for the many mothers rendered homeless because of domestic violence?

Isiah 9:6-7: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.”

#rethinkadvent

 

Tiny Houses for Homeless Persons

 

 

Read about how Madison, WI and several other communities are creatively providing housing for homeless persons here. And vsit the website of inovative home builders and activests Occupy Madson here

 

Be inspired.

 

Pray.

 

Build homes for those who don't have them.

 

Amen.

.

 

 

Day 13

 

Justice

Safety. Compassion. Outward and visible. Finding some order suffering's chaos.



Advent from the Underside: The D Antiphon

¿Dónde está el Rey de los judíos que ha nacido? Porque vimos su estrella en el oriente y hemos venido a adorarle. (Mateo 2:2)

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos. We are using an interlinear Spanish/English, Nueva Testament/New Testament provided by the Gideons.  

My patient teacher makes me pronounce each word over and over until my pronunciation is correct enough.

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos. / ¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos. / ¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos. / ¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos. Porque vimos su estrella en el oriente y hemos venido a adorarle.

The D Antiphon?

Around us, there is lunch and improvising decorations, incredible grace and kindness.

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos.

I am grateful to see the old man in his grey maxi-skirt and dirty kicks. He taught High School mathematics for years before he lost the struggle to quiet the voices in his head with booze and when that stopped working, weed and stronger things. He somehow successfully dodged the draft and outwitted those sent to arrest him by coming north but President Carter’s pardon did not extend to schizophrenia. He is reading the New York Times and eating chocolate cake.

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos.

Table decorations are being made from a discarded gift bag and silver and red garland from the pre-Christmas sale bin at Walgreens. They will stay in the kitchen, I am told because the weekend office worker spent her entire shift last Sunday hand making ornaments for the little artificial tree in the living room. It would be wrong to detract from her gracious gift by adding to it.

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos.

 On the ground floor are five parents, four mothers and a father with young children. They travel from church to church every night so that they do not have to sleep outside. During the day, they can stay here. A board, slouch postured young teen watches something on the TV I don’t quite understand. There are no beds or couches. A preschooler girl sleeps hard on the tile floor wrapped in an old comforter, another in a long discarded stroller. There is a beautiful boy, about a second grader, with long wild curly hair telling his father numbers from a book. The women, I’ve been told, have been asking for blankets for the children.

¿Dónde. Está. el Rey. de los. judíos.

When the Spanish lesson and our kitchen decorations are done, I retrieve the bag of blankets I have in the car.

Porque vimos su estrella en el oriente y hemos venido a adorarle.

Amen.

Advent from the Underside: Saturday before the 3rd Sunday in Advent

“Sin pan.” “El ruido.” My patient teacher, who does not do art, articulates carefully and slowly. I write in Spanish and in English in blue paint upon the news print sheet employed to make clean up go faster. And upon careful questioning, he tells of his child’s long desert journey with his father and the coyote towards the promise of a better life.  

German constriction paper Christmas Bells remembered from a 5^th grade teacher. The grateful story of a  6^th grade teacher who could see the considerable gifts of intellect and empathy in the shy, quiet girl; the same teacher who struggled to maintain order with the active, talkative boys. Hot dogs and diet coke along the third baseline at Wrigley.

A mixed-media Santa with a white glitter nose and matching left thumb sliding down a pink and purple crayon chimney carrying in his acrylic paint sack a purple teddy bear.

“Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.” (Zephaniah 3:14-20)

Advent fragments gathered the Saturday before the 3^rd Sunday in Advent:   Advent from the Underside. 

Advent from the Underside 1

A rosary ? Why, yes. Despite my deep Protestant roots, literally centuries deep, decades of chaplain training have made certain I always have a few in the glove box in the car. 

What exactly does a Menorah look like? Let me google it on my phone and we can look at a picture together.... Half an hour or so and several sheets of construction paper later- an almost perfect representation if the Wikipedia pic. 

The hope of divine compassion real in human life. Light overcoming darkness. The comfort of familiar ritual- centuries proved. Human suffering knows no bounds, cares not for doctrine or belief. It seeks only the blessing of relief, the strength beyond strength of hope amid overwhelming grief, suffering and unrelenting pain. 

At a shelter for the homeless, unmedicated mentally ill: Advent from the underside. Come Emmanuel, come soon.

Jesus is Out of The Church

Here is what I learned today: 

The old Haitian woman is brown, and bent and slight as her walking stick. I was so glad to see her. I had worried in all this heat. In the past, she has told me that she has many years since made peace with the voices in her head and her need for Jesus. With Jesus, she told me, she has a happy life off her meds which often seemed to make things worse. It was not always thus; a jagged life she is glad she is long past.

She came to join us today carrying a bouquet of wild flowers, all green and yellow and sienna and orange. They were beautiful. Finding no vase, she took a can out of the recycling and left them for everyone to enjoy.

She told me, through long missing teeth, to go to the local village fest. It features the music from many cultures, it is important for all of us to try to increase our understanding of other people if we are going to live well with one another. I must go too because they have a gospel tent. They are bringing Jesus to the people.

Jesus, she says, is locked up these days in the churches. It wasn’t always thus. She tells me of  her childhood in a poor mountain town where the RC church was so far away that they could only go twice a year. The Pentecostals were out among all the small villages. All the Catholic parents would send their children to the Pentecostal bible school and worship services held in tents so they could learn about Jesus. All carried strict instructions no to go down to the Alter Call. Many did, though, and later brought their parents.

The people need Jesus today, she tells, me. He needs to be brought out of the churches and back to the poor, hurting, struggling people.

Rob Blagojevich and Preaching Good News to the Poor

I’m angry tonight: “I’m sorry, I know you want treatment but you don’t have funding and the wait lists for those beds is 3 to 4 months. And, I know you are homeless, but the shelters are over filled and have no beds. Yes, frustrating, scary, overwhelming,” I can see it in their eyes. I can see it much more often now. Sometimes several times a day.


Meanwhile, the Trib reports:“Blagojevich left the house this morning dressed in a turquoise knit shirt, tan shorts and blue running shoes. He held Annie's hand and carried her backpack as they walked down the front steps of his Ravenswood Manor home…”

I wonder sometimes: What is the good news for these poor ones who eyes are looking deeply into mine, longing for some frail shred of hope? Where is the risen Lord in the midst of their suffering? How and where will they meet Jesus along the road of their despair? I am grateful though, tonight, as well, for if I hadn’t known the grace of glimpsing Jesus in the sorrow that is my own, or stumbled upon him upon occasion along my own darkest road, I could never find the courage to meet their pleading gazes, nor could I hold it in some frail act of hope for them when knowing mine is all that they can  bear.

In Homelessness - Gratitude

I had the great privelage of working with "Tom," of having RN Peggy as a colleague and publishing the following article in our Pastoral Care Department Newsletter:

An Unorthodox Sight-seeing Trip to Chicago

(or How Tom and Ed Fed the Good Wolf)

By: Peggy Moran, M.S., R. N.

In the recovery community, there’s a Native American tale that resonates with those recovering from addiction. It goes like this:

The Two Wolves Story

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life….


He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil—he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other wolf is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather “Which wolf will win, Grandfather?” The Elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Tom and Ed’s Story

When Tom, a seasoned Chicagoan and hockey player, with 6 months of sobriety and his house-mate, Ed (Florida native), who both live in a local shelter for homeless men and women, were told by their case worker to “Get out of here, have some fun in Chicago!” they excitedly made their plans.

They tried the free admission to the Shedd Aquarium along with 500 other people…

Next! They then walked along the lake marveling at the Chicago Skyline., heading for Navy Pier. Chicago…City of Big Shoulders in the words of Carl Sandburg. Were Chicago’s Big Shoulders big enough for the stories of Tom and Ed?

At Navy Pier, they enjoyed the Crystal Garden, art, views of Lake Michigan and people-watching. They walked along the river, spotting the architectural stars of the Chicago Skyline, Willis tower (grrrrrr, still Sears to me!), Trump Tower, Marina City, the Wrigley Building, among many eye-popping structures.

They made a stop at Harey Carey’s, no, not to admire the Dutch architecture. But to gaze in wonderment at the photos of sports stars that cover the wall.

At long last, tired, they prepared to return to to the PADS shelter where they lived. But they had one last stop, Tom’s spontaneous idea. He took his friend to Lower Wacker Drive. No, not to show him where the movies The Blues Brothers or Batman were filmed. Not to show him the section of Chicago that used to be called The Emerald City because the lights were always green. Tom had a different idea…. A spiritual one. He wanted to show Ed, that even though they were residing in transitional housing, they had much to be thankful for: a roof over their heads, a warm bed to sleep in at night, and a lot of support from people like Kathryn, Linda, and Wendy, at the PADS support services center. Tom wanted to see the look on Ed’s face as he grasped the magnitude of the dire situation that some of their peers were in and the lengths they had to go to for survival.

He wanted to look back at how far he had come in his recovery, feel compassion for the homeless men and women still out there, shunned by society. He needed to embrace his gratitude to his Higher Power and to all the earthlings who were there to help him, because he was ready to help himself. A crucial timing of spiritual proportions.

Upon return to his treatment group on Monday, many of us were struck by Tom’s intuitive, spontaneous decision to take a look at the past and to learn from it; he felt moved and feel grateful for all he had learned and gained, by reaching out for help with humility, courage, and gratitude.

God of love and grace, I am filled with awe at Tom and Ed and Peggy. I am grateful that you have allowed me to share a small part of this journey with them. I pray that you continue to open them to your presence in their living and do not cease opening me to your presence in their living. Amen

Prayer for Honoring Dead Homeless Woman

Kevin Barbieux of Nashville, TN, who blogs as The Homeless Guy: There’s More to Homeless People than Being Homeless wrote back on August 14:

"Something happens to a person who lives homeless for an extended period, like I have. They develop the ability to remove themselves mentally, or perhaps spiritually, from the environment they find themselves in, on the streets, in shelters etc. The homeless environment is ugly and depressing, and so to survive being in it, mentally, you have to create some distance between yourself and the place in which you find yourself.

"After being homeless for so long, the mentality of "removed" becomes more permanent. It becomes the default your default mindset. This mindset is in play even when you're not in the homeless environment, and long after you've left it.”

One of our Deputy Coroners called me yesterday to do a funeral for an older woman who died homeless in the car she shared with her family. I spent today trying to talk with them to plan the service. They seem elusive, scared, removed from the experience. No planning has been done. I will try one more time later in the week. I can’t force them, just as no one could force them off the streets and into a shelter.

Jesus did not make Samaritans and Canaanites convert to Judaism before he loved them. He loved them as they were and as they were able, in ways that made sense to them. My prayer preparing to "Worship God and Celebrate the Life of this Woman" to ask the Holy Spirit to guide me beyond my own needs and vanity and ego so that I can love her and her family  in ways that make sense to them, as they are able and, most certainly, which meet them where they are. Come. Holy Spirit. Amen.

Untheological Postscript:
             Found Kevin Barbieux through a link on the Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County IL. Very great resource.

             For a thought provoking read try Cormac McCarthy’s The Road which I believe works quite well as an allegory on homelessness in America as well as a contemporary apocalyptic.

 

Despair's Beatitude

Despair has a red shopping cart palled by two old winter parkas as soiled and oily as her hair. They guard sad mysteries of a life cut short long before its time. What of this life lost does she guard so well from prying eyes of voyeur lives which pray they don’t convert?

She sits silently in the shade behind a big box book store; matted dark hair veils a face bowed in contemplation—will drained of willingness—before the alter of a life no soul should ever know.

Before her, sail SUVs and foreign luxury cars natant on the asphalt sea ferrying pilgrims of other faiths, they worship here as well. They come for the liturgy of the latest word or to offer praise—the hottest songs; partaking of the sacred meal, drinking venti, with an extra shot, and eating the most luscious foods that no body will sustain.

Despair has only a few stubby teeth, vacant black eyes, light brown skin weathered and pockmarked; vigilant bulwark enduring life’s most violent storms. A stained and faded green tank top and short-shorts of indeterminate grey offer little relief from burning sun or biting bugs. Despair sits in the cool shadow of the big box cathedral’s shade, supplicant to this livings most unwilling and faithless faith. From beyond her sanctuary taunt big box temples to a life from which she’s been cast adrift.

Sailing past in my old scow, before the anchorage of her despair, I am as any worshiper of that other faith. Yet, from her icon faith calls, I know its strength and depth and beauty full too well. I must stop and worship here, some outward and visible sign of the will to will life’s willingness rescued from her faith’s steep decline.

Of another faith, Jesus speaks to me:
The blessings of your impoverished spirit—the grace to see this icon of despair, recognizing there the promises of God.
The blessing of your life time mourned—the grace to offer comfort here.
The blessing of your powerlessness—the grace to see in her the birthright that you share.
The blessing of your unwilling soul—that hungers and thirsts for what it dare not know is grace to offer that which fills.
The blessing of the grace of mercy in your heart—the grace to do what Mercy wills.
The blessing of God’s pure heart upon your own—to see beyond the s-oily rags to where you share with her God’s common heart.
What peace you share is from God’s own heart—God’s daughters recognize their own.
In the darkest suffering and deepest griefs, palled by the illusion of their prevail, you are surely joined with her in hidden deeper parts—longing for the safe shelter of your Father’s home. Amen.