Trust Comes in the Long Haul

I’ll call him Herman.  And just to be clear, that is not his real name.  He’s been coming to Manna House for a long time, almost from the very beginning.  We’ve had our ups and downs with Herman, especially early on.  He wanted to do business at Manna House.  It was probably drug related business.  It certainly involved money.  Herman was a bill collector.  So, on occasion we’d ask Herman to leave because we have a strict policy of not conducting any business at Manna House.  We’re a capitalism free zone.  We’re a sanctuary where people should be free to relax and not worry about being hassled. 

One time when Herman was asked to leave he got very angry.  He yelled a lot, and he threw in a few threats as well.  In more recent years, Herman has mellowed.  He seems to be out of the business he was in.  He sometimes likes to talk about his grandchildren, some of whom he occasionally baby sits.  He is definitely less edgy.  But he still has an edge to him, a kind of street toughness that he doesn’t let down.  Until this particular morning.

It was a slow day, a Tuesday.  We do women’s showers on Tuesday, and so we don’t do “socks and hygiene.”  Instead we do “socks and soap.”  “Socks and hygiene” means guests come and go through the clothing room in the house getting a variety of items.  “Socks and soap” means we give out a little bag with a pair of socks and a bar of soap to guests in the backyard. 

Typically, once the “socks and soap” are distributed, guests head out to the soup kitchen a few blocks away or other destinations.  And there are fewer guests waiting for showers too.  By the time Herman approached me in the backyard there were only 20 or so guests remaining there.  None of them were near where I happened to have taken a seat, near the back porch.

“Can you help me with something?”

“Sure Herman, I can try.  What is it?”

With that he produced an envelope, and I thought maybe he needed help negotiating some government bureaucracy.  But when he handed me the contents of the envelope and I opened the letter I saw that attached to the letter was a debit or credit card of some kind.

“I got this, but I don’t know what they’re telling me, how to use this card.  What does this letter say?” Herman said.  It dawned on me that Herman couldn’t read.

Relieved that it was something I actually could help him with, I said, “It’s about how to activate the card.  I can help you with that.”

He borrowed a friend’s phone, and I began to walk him through the call, including the numbers he needed.  I’d say a number and he’d repeat it to the person he had reached on the phone.

The whole process didn’t take but five minutes or so.  Herman thanked me when we were done, and then walked away.  I sat there, taking in what had just happened.

We get to know guests over time, some better than others.  I had never imagined Herman in any other way than tough, very self-sufficient, and not one to ask for help.  On this morning he not only asked for help, but he also risked some vulnerability when he revealed to me something that he was clearly reluctant to share. 

I’m not sure what to do with this except to be humbled by Herman’s trust.  And maybe, too, to realize that something like this can only happen when we hang in there for the long haul with our guests, respecting them, and being faithful in what we do.  We’ve been open nine years.  I’m thankful Herman has hung in there with us so we could reach this day together.

A Few Thursday at Manna House Stories

A Few Thursday at Manna House Stories

Larry stopped by today and said “hi.”  I hadn’t seen him since a rainy day last winter.  He’s staying at Alpha Omega these days, housing for veterans who have been homeless.  He talked with me about his time on the streets. 

“I don’t know exactly how I got so low, but I did, and there I was homeless.  I couldn’t believe it.” 

He’s grateful to be housed.  He not only stays at Alpha Omega, he works for them, and that is why he came by to see if we need any food.

“Do you all need any cinnamon rolls, sweet rolls, and things like that?  We get too much donated food and my job is to find other places that can use it.”

I explained that we don’t typically offer food in the morning at Manna House.  The St. Vincent de Paul Food Mission is about three blocks away from us and they begin serving at 9:30am.  Plus we’re focusing on showers and clothing and the like, and we just don’t have the room to store food.

“Great.  I’ll see if they can use it.  I wanted to come here first because I’m so grateful for how you all treated me. You remember?  I came in soaked from that cold rain; and Miss Kathleen worked me in for a hot shower and a change of clothes.  You all treated me with respect.  I’ll never forget that; I’m forever grateful.”

            Shortly after this conversation, another veteran and I started talking in the backyard.  He comes by about once a week or so, and about every couple of months he brings us several boxes of used books.

            “I used to come here and get something to read, usually a novel.  I loved to get a novel to read.  I could escape the streets in a book.  After a while the books made me think I could live differently.  So I just started to get connected with the VA and with Alpha Omega and with Jesus.  You know I was raised Catholic, then when I went into the military I drifted away.  I don’t know why.  I drifted pretty far and fell even further.  I’m still reading novels, but I’m also reading the Good Book.”

            “We’re grateful for the books,” I said, “our guests love to read!”

            “I just want to make sure other people got the help I got.  Reading helped keep me going.  Thanks to Jesus and Manna House I’m doing good now.”

            A little while later I got to watch an intense checkers game.  James and Mark were going at it fast and furious with plenty of good natured trash talking.  After one move that didn’t work so well I heard, “You getting hungry?  Low blood sugar?  You need some coffee to wake up?”

            “Don’t you try to run from me!”

            “Money move!”

            “Don’t you worry, I’m coming back.  I got one you didn’t see.”

            “Shut up and king me.”

            “I’m going to take your king.  You done messed up now.”

            “Get out!”

            “Watch this man come right into my trap.  You can’t help yourself.”

And on it went, with checkers being moved with authority.

            When we got ready to close one guest was sound asleep in one of the reclining lawn chairs.  He had his shoes off.  His mouth was wide open, and he was snoring emphatically.  It took me several tries to get him awake enough to put on his shoes and get ready to leave.

 “I’m so tired, tired of this,” he said as he walked slowly from the shaded backyard into the sun.

Receiving Christ on the Front Porch

Heat and humidity are to be expected in August in Memphis.  These days those expectations are being met and then some.   We have plenty of both.  Temperatures the last few days have been near 100 degrees and the heat index has gone up over 110. 

Guests at Manna House arrive hot and thirsty, and worn out from the heat.  Even the night brings little relief with lows in the 80’s, along with an abundance of mosquitoes.  As one guest said today, “I gotta try to sleep during the day and to keep moving at night or I’ll get eaten alive.”

            This morning when I came early to Manna House to start the coffee, there was Christ waiting for me on the front porch.  He was Black; very Black.  And thirsty; very thirsty.  “Pete,” he said, “can you get me some water?”

            “Lord, when did I see you thirsty and give you something to drink?” (Mt 25:37).

            I went into the house and got a pitcher of water (with ice), and returned to Christ on the porch, who now included folks of various colors (and shapes).  Christ drank a lot of ice water.  He sure does like a cold drink of water on a hot and humid day.  These days we’re serving almost as much ice water as coffee during the hours that we are open. 

I’m also glad that H.O.P.E. is doing great work offering water to the thirsty Christ. They are going around the city offering cold bottles of water to any folks they see on the streets. 

Water in the Bible and in our biology is known to be essential for life.  Isaiah the prophet speaks of the promise of free water (and food and drink) as part of his vision of God’s reign, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost’ (Isaiah 55:1).

Water is so essential and sacred that our thirst and need for water symbolizes our thirst and need for God, as we find in Psalm 42, “Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for God. My soul is thirsting for God. When can I see the glory of God?”

            On these hot and humid days we share the need for water; and we’re easily reminded how precious water is for our lives.  We need to remember, too, how Christ promised to meet us in the sharing of water with those who are thirsty.  Water shared with the thirsty is a sacrament, a place of encounter with the Divine, and not something to be reduced to a commodity (as has happened in Detroit where the Pharaohs of the city have attempted to shut water off to people who are poor).

            I’m looking forward to the day when we respect all water as the living water come from God, a day when “the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd; 'he will lead us to springs of living water.' 'And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.'" (Revelation 7:17).

From Ferguson, Missouri to Manna House

Most of our guests at Manna House stay pretty well informed.  The daily newspaper makes the rounds of the front porch before we open, and then it gets shared around the back yard after we open.  A few guests carry small radios, and many of those who are housed, watch the news on TV.  There is also the “word on the streets,” a distillation of the eyes and ears of those who walk the city.  They see a great deal that is often missed by those of us who mostly drive quickly from one destination to another. 

            So it should come as no surprise that our guests, like much of America, have been paying attention to what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri and that they see some connections with their experiences in Memphis.  Discussions easily surfaced this morning about Michael Brown, the way he was killed, and the protests and police responses to protest. 

The discussions moved around from personal experience to larger reflections drawn from history.  Inevitably we talked, too, about white supremacy.  If you’ve been to Manna House you know that the majority of our guests are African American men.  Some are experiencing homelessness; some are housed.  All know the realities of racism and poverty in the United States.

            Several guests brought up the death of Semaj, a former guest who died just a week ago from injuries sustained when a security guard threw him off a city bus back in May.  I told about the conversation I had during a street protest last night here in Memphis.  I had talked with an African American woman, who described the police beating of the son of a friend of hers; a beating that resulted in his death.  Many guests had stories of police harassment and physical force being used against them or other people on the streets.  Several gave this advice, “Try to stay out of their way and lay low.  Be as invisible as you can.”

            We reflected on how enduring white supremacy is in this country.  First it took shape as slavery, and shortly after that ended, it emerged as Jim Crow’s “black codes,” convict lease system, and segregation.  Some of the older guests remembered the signs forbidding them to use certain restrooms, drinking fountains, and dining areas.  They also remembered “Sunset Towns”—towns where they were told to be gone from before the sun set. 

White supremacy these days takes the shape of the criminalization and consequent marginalization of African Americans, especially those tagged as a threat (or possible threat) to “law and order.”  All of the guests at Manna House well know this latest installment of white supremacy.  Many stagger under felonies committed long ago, mostly drug charges, and thus they have no access to jobs, voting, housing assistance, or food assistance.  There is the ongoing violence of poverty itself; deadly in its denial of medical care, decent food, shelter, and simple human respect.  And there is the violence of being subjected to police harassment, arbitrary arrest, brutality, and the dehumanization of imprisonment. 

One guest told of how frequently he is stopped and questioned by police as he walks from Manna House to the nearby St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen three blocks away.  “They ask ‘Where you been?  What you doing?’ and then they want my ID.  They know damn well who I am and what I’m doing, but I keep my mouth shut.  I ain’t going to jail, and I ain’t gonna get killed.”

Moses quietly reflected on the story of Michael Brown, “That could have been me.”

Another guest added about the shooting, “He was down.  He was down.  They didn’t have to do him like they did.”

Everyone agreed when another observed, “You gotta be careful.  Some cops just don’t care.”

Don summed it up, “We live in a mean world, and it’s only getting meaner.”

While we talked, I occasionally looked around the yard.  A few were solidly asleep in chairs; so exhausted from the streets that our lively conversation did not create a stir.  Others quietly sipped their coffee.  No one seemed to have the energy for Scrabble or chess or checkers.  There is a lot to think about these days.

Jesus Wept

Jesus Wept                   8-4-2014

There have only been a few times that I’ve wept after a day at Manna House.  Most days I am far from weeping because the morning is filled with good people, our guests.  They come with such patience and joy and ready laughter that I typically leave with a feeling of blessing from them.

            But there are days at Manna House when the suffering surfaces with intensity and death comes to the door, and after such days, I have wept.   

            I wept after the day we served a man who came in a wheelchair seeking a shower.  His backside was so filthy that when we helped him remove his shirt and trousers so that he could take a shower, his skin came off.  Maggots dropped to the floor in a pool of blood and shit.  I wept for him and for the state of our humanity.  What kind of society are we in which people are so neglected they end up like he did?

            I wept when a guest arrived one morning battered and beaten with blood caked on his shirt.  He had been jumped by unknown assailants.  He came to us and said he knew we could take care of him.  We did our best, but sent him along to the Med afterwards.

            I wept after one morning when a guest went down with a seizure right after we had sung him happy birthday.  It wasn’t the awful singing that sent him down; it was his brain injury that results in seizures.  And when he had recovered from the seizure, he told me those seizures will eventually kill him.

            And I wept this Monday, from being overwhelmed with death and grief.  Not only had Semaj died this past weekend, but Radio too.  And then I started to talk with Kathleen, and Ashley, and June and it didn’t take too long to come up with a list of twenty-one names of guests who have died over the past year and half:  Semaj (James Gray), Radio (David Remus), Sarah Simmons, Tony Bone, Frank, Rick, Mark R., Aaron Levy, Daddio, Earl Baines, Michael Human, Leroy Scott, Roosevelt, Carol Pennington, Willie Moore, Charles/Dusty, Elania, Tommy, Nannette, Herman Trice, Karen.  We also lost Eddie Cantler this past January.  Eddie was a long time supporter of Manna House and the husband of Jenina, who is a faithful Thursday morning volunteer.

            Jesus tells us in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mt 5:4).  I find this a hard teaching, though I guess that’s true of most of what Jesus taught.  How are we who mourn blessed?  Maybe it is in weeping like Jesus did that he blesses us. He wept for his friend Lazarus who had died. He wept over Jerusalem for its violence and killing of the prophets.  And he wept in the Garden of Gethsemane as he faced his own death. 

And as we weep like Jesus did we might find the comfort of the Kingdom of God of which he spoke.  This is the Kingdom comfort of sharing with each other our vulnerability and our need for each other and for God.  This is the Kingdom comfort of not believing the hype, of not being seduced by a society that denies death even as it imposes death on so many.  And there is the Kingdom comfort of standing together in God’s love and God’s powerful affirmation that love is stronger than hate, and that life is stronger than death.

            There’s an old promise God has made and I’m going to rely upon that promise in the midst of weeping:  “See the home of God is among mortals.  God will dwell with them; they will be God’s people, and God will be with them; God will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).

            

Goodbye Good Teacher

Semaj died this past Sunday morning, August 3, 2014. Kathleen and I had been up to see him at the Med a little more than a week ago. He was unconscious, as he had been since falling while being forcibly removed from a city bus in early May. 
Semaj would be angry if I smoothed over his rough edges in remembering him. He demanded honesty. He was who he was, belligerent, cantankerous, abrasive, intelligent and well read, ill-adjusted to life, assured of his own rightness and the wrongness of most of the world, quick to argue and slow to agree, bitter and angry about how his life had turned out.
At the same time, Semaj was an engaging conversationalist, with interesting ideas and observations, a teacher about the injustices of racism, the harshness of poverty, the brokenness of the criminal justice system, and the opportunism of many churches ostensibly out to “help the poor.” He was also known by some as a friend, a person you could count on, ready to help you, compassionate under his gruff exterior. Semaj was a complicated person, not easily pigeonholed as wonderful or awful. He was uniquely Semaj. He was a child of God.
His name, “Semaj” was his own creation: “James” spelled backwards. Why “Semaj”? Because, as he would explain, James was a “slave name,” given to him out of the heritage of slavery endorsed by a white supremacist Christianity. Unlike other guests who called me “pastor,” Semaj liked to call me “Iman”—an Arabic word for “faith” though also used to refer to a religious leader. I was honored to be called such by Semaj. We had many conversations about Christianity and other faiths. His position on Christianity was much like Gandhi’s, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
I found Semaj to be one of my early and important teachers at Manna House. Certainly he was happy to instruct. Semaj was never short on words. So he taught me about his experiences on the streets. How he responded to those police who would harass him by asserting his rights and his dignity. How he foraged for food and shelter and found places where he could be left alone. How he questioned the constitutionality of being consistently denied his demand for a jury trial whenever he went to court. How poverty influenced justice, with wealthy people able to afford a personal attorney, but poor people being assigned overworked public defenders. How he lost jobs due to race, or wasn’t even hired. How he grew up in a segregated society marked by signs and enforced by terror, and how he continued to live in a segregated society marked by neighborhoods and selective law enforcement. There was much to learn from Semaj and he was a relentless teacher. And like any good teacher to student relationships, sometimes we agreed and sometimes we argued.
For the past couple of years I didn’t see much of Semaj. He was asked to leave Manna House one day when he was drunk and he didn’t come back. I think his pride prevented him from doing so. He began working steadily with Nathan Hill, helping with recycling computers for non-profits and people in poverty. He frequented Caritas Village. When I would run into him he was still the teacher, still ready to share some insight or observation.
Seeing him in the hospital, unconscious, I mourned that his voice had been silenced. There was so much more for him to say. I don’t think he will be joining a heavenly chorus; that would be too stifling for Semaj. I think he’ll find a picnic table and hold forth with whomever is willing to listen and learn. And I think he’ll have a few questions that he will want answered. Enjoy the conversation, Semaj, we will be missing you here, good teacher.