Light and Darkness on a Grey Morning

Light and Darkness on a Grey Morning

The Christmas season with its emphasis upon the Light shining in the darkness continues through Epiphany on January 6^th.   But on this Monday morning, after Christmas, cold and grey and damp, I was in a dark mood as we gathered for prayer on the front porch at Manna House. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas are past.  We know with our guests that this means the end of special meals and special events for people on the streets.  It is back to business as usual, which is the darkness of suspicion and fear, “Bathrooms for Customers Only,” “No Panhandling,” “No Loitering,” “Get a Job!”  “You Lazy Bum!”  “Crackhead!”  “Crazy Motherf*&^$(#!”  No more Hallmark TV Specials about the magic of Christmas in which a homeless person is wonderfully swept up into a new home.

There were other reasons for the sense of darkness.  Kathleen would be leaving later to be with Camille, one of our long term volunteers who is having another round of chemotherapy.  Pasty shared that she is still living in the dark, waiting as she says, for “her lights to get cut on.”  And everyone’s hearts were heavy for Ron and Samantha and their little new born Ronaldis, who is in intensive care at Le Bonheur.  Long time guests of Manna House, but recently housed, they had welcomed Ronaldis into the world the week before Christmas.  But now his poor little lungs aren’t working well and things are unclear, grey.

I also noted a few new names on the “banned list” for Room in the Inn, and then heard about the tensions that led to a fight.  Both combatants were remorseful but still edgy around each other.  Their moods, like my mood on this morning, were dark.

            So we prayed, as we do each morning when we open.  We held each other’s hands.  Some of us had hands still warm from being inside or slightly warm from having gloves.  Some of us had hands icy cold from being outside with no gloves.  We prayed for Ronaldis, for Camille, and all family members and friends and people who are sick, for lights to get “cut on,” for people to get housing and jobs, and to be treated with respect.  And, of course we ended with prayer for the coffee to be hot, the sugar to be sweet, and the creamer to take all life’s bitterness away. 

            Somehow the prayer created a path for the flickering candle of Christmas Light.  And so guests streamed into the warm house where hot coffee was being served.  Though the line was long, there was great patience.  Guests loaded the coffee with plenty of sweet sugar and added creamer as well, and maybe that took some of life’s bitterness away.

            One guest found the far end of a couch, sat down, put his head back, and fell promptly and peacefully asleep.  Byron, working the list, began calling names for showers and for socks and hygiene.  Soon the clothing room was filled with activity as guests came in for one or the other purpose.  There were conversations about sports and politics and family and the minutia of daily life.  There was even some occasional laughter.  Moods lightened, and so did mine.

Outside, though, the day remained grey and cold.  Later in the morning, loud and threatening words were exchanged between two guests.  Eventually, wiser heads separated them.  One guest told them, “Don’t disrespect the Manna House that way.”  Light and darkness were contending, with neither clearly winning, a grey day.

The Church traditionally observes the Feast of Holy Innocents on December 28^th.  This Feast commemorates the children that King Herod slaughtered in his quest to kill the infant Jesus.  The Christmas Light of “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night” is quickly confronted by the darkness, by the powers of sin and death.  This Holy Innocents is a feast that puts that cross right next to the crèche.  Sentimentality is swept aside for something more sustaining, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”   What is this way?   Maybe it is something like living in and sharing with each other the warmth of the Light in the cold and the grey, and even in the darkness.  It seemed to be on this morning.