Lament, Disturbance, and a Beautiful Reality

About 20 minutes after I sat down across from Janet, she decided to lift her eyes from her newspaper, pull out her phone, and show me a picture of a young, smiling boy standing awkwardly next to a flower pot.  I met her in CHOC (Community Housing Outreach Center), a segment of Water Street Mission where homeless people can reside, play games, use the phone and the computer, and build relationships with each other during the day. Janet looked over her glasses at me and pointed at the picture.

“That’s my son.”

Janet is twenty-eight, though she appears to be older from the deep, black and blue circles around her eyes. I noticed the wedding ring on her ring finger.

“Where is your son now?” I asked.

She looked back down at the newspaper lying limply on the sticky table in front of her.   “He was adopted.”

She yawned and got up from her chair.

Water St Mission

It is precisely at these moments that I feel utterly unworthy to be in the presence of someone without a home.  I merely look into their eyes to understand that I know nothing of that which I call pain, joy, faith, trust, loss, life, and love.  I am extremely disturbed by the tension between my life and the people’s lives at Water Street.  Countless times, I have met people who have worked at my college, Franklin & Marshall.  It was uncomfortable to see a 40-year old immigrant from Italy talk about making pasta for me and my fellow privileged F&M peers who most likely had no idea of the poverty of his life.  I admit that I have privilege; a social and economic status associated with me that the people in CHOC do not have and could never have.  The people in CHOC are those who did not have grandparents who could afford a down payment on their parent’s house so that their parents could save for their children’s college education.  They do not have family or friends who they can ask for money when in crisis.  These people lack any kind of economic safety net other than a non-profit homeless shelter. When their rent fund runs out, they have nowhere else to go.

I hear the endless stories and I lament. I lament that fathers and mothers like Janet cannot have the basic right to raise their own children.  I lament the captivity and the yokes of drugs and alcohol and the hopelessness of these family generational cycles of poverty.  I lament that our culture expects an individual to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and make a living in a capitalist society that makes the poor more poor and the rich more rich.  I lament that the poor are marginalized by their own human race, and I lament that social stereotypes and statuses deny people the basic right of dignity.  I admit that, in some form or another, by not shopping fair trade or avoiding a homeless person on the street, I have contributed to their marginalization.  I lament - and like Nehemiah whose heart broke for Jerusalem, I came home from Chapel one night, sat down, and felt like weeping.  I felt helpless, naïve, angry, confused, sad, and overly ideal.

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This past week, the tension between my life and the lives of the people at Water Street has slowly dissipated.  After talking with one of the women in the Women’s Ministry program, Mary, I realized that she struggled with the same problems that I struggle with, yet at a more extreme level.  Our conversation began as countless other conversations that I have had with people at Water Street, where I am listening, nodding, and affirming, while the other person is pouring out their life story.  Yet, our one-way conversation soon turned into a discussion about both of our lives, as we realized how much we have in common and the problems we share. Hearing her story, her wisdom, and the ways that God has transformed her is unbelievable. The people at Water Street are those who may be economically poor, yet they are spiritually rich with wisdom and experience.  They have nothing of worth that America recognizes, yet they possess the greatest capacity for perseverance, and from that, faith and hope and love. They are people who can sit in ripped Spiderman pajamas reeking of body odor with a few dollars in their pants pocket, and yet, who can say that God is good and that He will provide as they has seen countless times before.

One of the pastors of the church we attend came to our house and gave her testimony.  She described her past life of prostitution, drug addictions, loss, and violence, and somehow, through all of that, God blessed her with a healthy body without diseases. Today, on the same streets where she used to sell drugs, she now preaches the living Word of God.

The city is a diverse, creative, and dynamic place where God shows up in diverse, radically creative, and dynamic ways. The people and their testimonies have begun to transform me and my image of God.  I will end with the words of Pastor Michael from Water Street, who told our group what I believe to be a prophetic phrase: “I want you to know: the city will steal your heart.  It will steal your heart and you will never be the same.” 

Isaiah 58