Pray Always

Pray Always

“I’d like to pray for you,” she said.  She’s been coming to Manna House as a guest for a few weeks now, this middle aged, tall, African American woman.  I don’t know her story.  I do know she’s a bit difficult sometimes; prickly in her personality and not happy when we don’t have exactly what she wants.  

“Tell me what I should say,” she continued, “Tell me what you want me to pray for; for you.”

I’ve had guests ask me to pray for them, many times.  And guests have prayed for me before.  I remember particularly well when guests at Manna House prayed for me when my Dad died.  But this morning I was fine, physically and emotionally, and even spiritually, or at least I thought I was.

“You just look like you’re in need of prayer,” she observed, “So tell me what I should pray for you.”

“Ok,” I said, “Pray this way.  Gracious God…”

Before I could get the next word out, she started to repeat my words, “Gracious God.”  She was already beginning to pray, exactly as I would say.  

“Please help Peter.”  “Please help Peter.”

“To be.”  “To be.”

“A better disciple.”  “A better disciple.”

“Of Jesus.”  “Of Jesus.”

“Amen.”  “Amen.”

“I’ll keep praying for you,” she said as she walked away.

I’m not sure where her desire to pray for me came from, or where my words for this prayer came from.  But I am sure that she was right; I did need her to pray for me and I did need prayer.  And I am thankful that she stopped me in the middle of the morning to make sure I recognized my need for prayer.

There’s no offering of Christian hospitality without prayer, without first and always experiencing God’s hospitality in prayer.  How can I be gracious in welcome if I don’t have God’s gracious welcome?  How can I be loving if I do not know love, from others and in God?

Jesus told his disciples the parable of the persistent widow, which Luke says carries the message that we are to “pray always” (Luke 18:1).

Paul wrote, “Pray in the Spirit at all times, in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the members of the church” (Ephesians 6:18).

St. John Baptist de La Salle often said, “The work is Yours” referring to God, and he urged those in his religious community, who began as teachers of street children, to be zealous in prayer.  Lasallians today always begin prayer with “Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.”

St. Benedict built prayer into the hours of the day, a schedule of prayer so that the monks of a Benedictine monastery would constantly be reminded of the presence of God.  Hospitality was also part of the Rule of St. Benedict, “Any guest who happens to arrive at the monastery should be received just as we would receive Christ himself, because he promised that on the last day he will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

At Manna House we have a schedule of prayer.  Volunteers pray together before we open.  Then we pray with the guests as we open (the guests themselves insisted on prayer but it remains voluntary).  And we pray again after we have finished the work of the day.

To the question of, “What do you all need at Manna House?” Kathleen often responds with, “Prayer.  We first of all need your prayers.”

Kathleen is right, just as the guest was right who said to me this morning, “I’d like to pray for you… You just look like you’re in need of prayer.”

Malcolm X and Manna House

Malcolm X and Manna House

He stood next to the line that had formed at the front of Manna House for getting on the list for showers and for socks and hygiene.  I had just come out the front door to “take the list.” 

“I need a shower today” he immediately said to me.

He was new to Manna House, or at least I didn’t recognize him.  He was an African American man, well built, tall, with an edge in his voice and a tired scowl on his face.

I could feel the anxiety of everyone in the line waiting to get on the list, and my own.  On some mornings there is a tension about the order in the line that erupts first into verbal conflicts and then into more physical altercations.

“To get you on the list I need you to be in the line” I said to the man.

“I’ll wait” was his response.  He continued to stand just to the right of me as I took the names of everyone in line.  Eventually there was no one left.  He told me his name and I wrote it down.  I told him he would be the seventeenth person to shower that morning, and I thanked him for his patience.

After we opened, Byron (who like me is white) began to “call the list.”  Since we’re in the backyard these days, this means he comes onto the back porch and calls out names.  Guests whose names are called proceed to the front door to enter the house for their shower or for socks and hygiene.

The man who had stood on the porch now stood in the backyard.  There he waited for his name to be called for his shower. He faced the porch, just beyond where the coffee is served.  He stood there for the hour and a half it took before his name was called. 

Periodically he would ask, “When you going to call my name?”  Once he asked, “Why are all these people going ahead of me?  I thought I was number seventeen on the list?”  I explained that both the showers and the socks and hygiene lists were being called, so a lot of the names are for socks and hygiene. 

Like most mornings, most of the volunteers at Manna House are white, and most of the guests are black.  Manna House is not somehow magically removed from the history and present realities of racism in the United States.  All of us, whether guest or volunteer, white or black, bear in our souls the ways that racism shapes and deforms our relationships with one another.  The black man standing waiting for his name to be called didn’t trust the white man who took the list, and the other white man calling the list, to treat him justly. 

And there’s really no reason for him to trust us white men.  Nor is there any reason to judge him for his skepticism.  It was Malcolm X’s birthday this past week and I’ve been reading and reflecting on his life.  One of his insights was, “The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to 400 years of the conscious racism of the American whites.”

Which is to say, it was whites who set up the categories “whiteness” and “blackness” and used the distinction to create a system of slavery and then of Jim Crow and today of “New Jim Crow.”  That is simply a statement of history, and of current institutional realities that include our economic and political systems, along with the dominant cultural values and norms.

            There is a lot to learn from Malcolm X.  This week I wondered what I might learn of Malcolm X from the African American guests at Manna House.  So I asked, “What does Malcolm X mean to you?”  The men I talked with were quick to offer their thoughts and teach me about Malcolm X.

“He lived without fear; a man committed to telling it like it is.”

“I tell kids, ‘You need to know who Malcolm X was.’   Look him up and learn what he said and what he stood for.  He’s still important as a truth teller.”

“He was a powerful man.  He didn’t back down from saying what had to be said.”

 “He lives today in whoever tells the truth, even at great risk.”

“What kind of truth did he tell?” I asked.

“He told the truth that we still need know.  We sure could use him these days.  Things haven’t changed that much.  Black people still being hated, disrespected, and killed; still kept down, still too passive.”

“He told the truth about how this country is set up for the whites.  Blacks lives have not mattered.”

“Yes,” another guest said, “and he was always searching, always learning.  He knew adversity and he learned from it.  He said ‘There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.’ He traveled to Africa and Mecca and he learned from it.  He came to see that being human was the basic condition we share.  We need to see that we’re in this together.”

            Telling hard truths about this racist society, the guests at Manna House taught me, was Malcolm X’s way.  Hard truths are hard because they are hard to hear and they demand hard change.  And as another guest indicated, Malcolm X also said another hard truth, “I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”  The hard truth is that the way forward, for all human beings to be respected, is to begin with those whose lives are still not respected. 

Jesus said a similar hard truth, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me” (Matthew 25:40).  Imagine if white Christians consistently said and practiced in every area of life, “Whatever I do to Black people is what I do to Christ.”  Perhaps there would not be a need for a Manna House and a shower line because the racism that creates so much poverty and homelessness would not exist.

Punishing the Poor

Punishing the Poor

“I got picked up by the police this past weekend,” a guest told me Tuesday morning.  “A guy jumped me and we got to fighting and the police came by and arrested me for disorderly conduct.  I spent the night in jail and Monday morning the charges were dismissed.  Though now I’ve got court costs of ninety dollars.” 

            “Courts costs?” I asked, “But weren’t the charges dismissed?”

            “Doesn’t matter.  I owe them ninety dollars.”

            I was incredulous.  I asked a few other guests who were sitting or standing around, “This ever happen to you that your charges are dismissed and you still have to pay court costs?”  Everyone confirmed this is standard practice.

            “So the police can just arrest people and the court costs can be imposed even with the charges dismissed?”  Yes, they said, that’s the way it goes.

            I don’t think it takes much to imagine that this practice is open to abuse.  I don’t think it takes much more imagination to see that this practice burdens people who are poor or homeless more than people who have some wealth. Just one more way our society is set up to punish the poor.

            The criminal justice system is particularly adept at such punishment that lands harshest upon people who are poor.  Since 2010, 48 states in the U.S. have increased criminal and civil court fees.  

For those in jail there are inflated charges for phone calls.  There is also the inflated cost of commissary items like toothpaste, socks, and other basics.   The poorest prisoners get none of these items because they have no one to put money on their “book” for commissary.  And I got a letter recently from a Manna House guest currently behind bars.  “Don’t put any money on my book” he wrote, “I won’t see it.  It will just go to the county for the money I owe them for fines and court costs.” 

If you’re out of jail the costs continue.  There are monthly fees for being on probation and for parole supervision.  If you can’t pay those or fall behind, you go back to jail.

            I wonder if Mary got a bill for Jesus’ court costs and execution? 

            This past week I got word through the No Exceptions Prison Collective that a mother who is dying of cancer was trying to get to Tennessee to visit her son who is imprisoned here.  She is poor and doesn’t have the money to make the journey.   Manna House made a contribution to support efforts to bring her for this visit.   It is a common problem that poor families can rarely if ever visit their loved ones in prison because they don’t have reliable means of transportation. 

            I find it interesting how much of the New Testament pays attention to courtrooms and prisons.  Jesus’ trial is the most famous (and receives the lengthiest description).  But you don’t have to go far into the Acts of the Apostles or the Letters of Paul to find references to arrests, court appearances, and imprisonments.  Hebrews urges, “Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them” (Hebrews 13:3).   Jesus identifies with those in prison, “I was in prison and you visited me” (Mt 25:36). 

            The persecution of the poor in our jails and prisons is a pretty good indication of just how far we are these days from those New Testament concerns.

There is a Balm in Gilead

“I’m Ready For My Hug Now.”

Valerie [not her actual name] has been coming to Manna House to shower on Tuesdays perhaps only slightly longer than Ann has been coming to volunteer.  So for nearly ten years, almost every Tuesday, Ann has offered Valerie hospitality. 

Valerie has been on and off the streets for many years.  She’s been battered by racism, physical abuse, rape, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, and a myriad of physical problems, including a stroke.  Ann is a Jewish woman who has lived a middle class life, and spent years as a nurse before retiring.

Together, Ann and Valerie select clothing, shoes, and other necessities to replace the dirty clothes Valerie has on.  Then Valerie showers and changes into the “new” clothes. 

After all this, Valerie and Ann work together for a few finishing flourishes, like picking out a scarf or putting on some perfume (or as some guests call it, “smell good”).

I happened into the clothing room on Tuesday morning at the end of this ritual, just in time to hear Valerie say to Ann, “I’m ready for my hug now.”  At which point Ann came around the counter, and they embraced.  Valerie left with a smile, and Ann said, “That’s my favorite part of the morning.”

“Have You Heard This Poem?”

Matt [not his actual name] is always the first at Manna House on Tuesday mornings to get on the shower list for Thursday.  While Matt waits for his name to be called for a shower or socks and hygiene, he’s often got his nose in a book reading.  He groans at my bad jokes and occasionally shares a joke with me, usually one that has a clever twist.  This morning we somehow wandered into talking about favorite authors and literature.  He doesn’t like Charles Dickens or Earnest Hemingway.  He has enjoyed Flannery O’Connor.  Then he asked me, “Have you heard this poem?”  And he proceeded to recite the following from Emily Dickinson,

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –

I keep it, staying at Home –

With a Bobolink for a Chorister –

And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –

I, just wear my Wings –

And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,

Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –

I’m going, all along.

(From: “The Poems of Emily Dickinson,” R. W. Franklin, ed., (Harvard University Press, 1999).

            Hospitality is so much about simple gestures of love and respect.  Greeting people by name, listening to stories, sharing joys and heartbreaks, writing a letter of referral, serving coffee, meeting a few basic human needs; none of these are complicated.  There is a healing that takes place in our guests as we offer this hospitality.  But hospitality is always a two way street.  The love and respect that come from our guests is also healing.   

           The prophet Jeremiah asked, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (Jer 8:21-22).  In the Christian tradition, the balm in Gilead is God’s healing love, God's Spirit in our lives. An old African American spiritual sings,

“Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.”

We share that balm of Gilead as we share God’s healing love with each other.  We share with our guests the brokenness of our humanity, just as they share their broken humanity with us.  And, together we turn to each other for a hug, a poem, for moments of loving grace in which we are healed.  

We’ll Sing on Monday

On a beautiful morning with the sun shining brightly and clear blue skies, I couldn’t help but notice this guest with a black eye; a fresh large bruise against his weather hardened face. 

“I got jumped,” he said, “for no particular reason. Those kids just wanted to hit someone they figured wouldn’t put up much of a fight.”

For people who live on the streets such physical violence is part of their lives.   It is direct, often brutal, and as obvious as a blackened eye.  Over the years at Manna House we’ve had guests arrive with bloodied heads, split open by an attacker (or sometimes multiple assailants).  We’ve had guests arrive with stitches from being knifed.  We’ve had guests arrive limping, or on crutches, or in a wheelchair from being hit by cars, driven by people going too fast and with too little concern for pedestrians.

Such physical violence is easy enough to see.  But there’s another violence our guests face, the structural violence of homelessness.  Structural violence harms persons by preventing them from getting their basic human needs met for such things as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.  Rather than the quick direct injury (or death) of physical violence, structural violence harms and kills more slowly, over time. 

Kids in Baltimore, for example, born in the neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested (and where the riots broke out this past week), have a life expectancy that is twenty years shorter than kids born in wealthier Baltimore neighborhoods little more than a mile or two away. 

Various studies have found that people on the streets have a life expectancy that is anywhere from fifteen to thirty years shorter than those who have homes.  A year ago we were losing a guest to death almost every month.  None of those who died were over sixty years old, most were in their forties, or younger.

As I continued to take in the morning sun, another guest approached me.  He is usually very quiet.  But occasionally he speaks, and when he does a lot pours out.  Today he had some lamentations to share. He’s struggling with a range of physical health issues.  He has a bad eye that has been bothering him for months.  He has high blood pressure and he’s already had one stroke.  Mostly he wanted to share the frustrations he has with trying to get medical care.  The long-suffering biblical character Job had it easy compared to this guest.  From his physical ailments he moved on to share his struggles with mental illness. 

“I get dogged around trying to get a doctor to take care of me.  I get shoved from one office to another.  You know, I used get angry and go off on people.  Remember, when I’d go off on you?”  I assured him that I remembered.  “Well, I don’t go off anymore.  I stay on my meds and I’m staying aware of my tendencies.  But some days it’s real hard not to get angry.”

He handed me a small sheet of paper, “Here hold onto this for me, will you?  I’m always losing paperwork.”  The paper was a prescription.  “I’ll get to it when I get my check, but until then I don’t want to lose this.”  I carefully folded it and put it in my wallet.

This kind of structural violence doesn’t get much attention on the evening news or talk radio.  I’ve seen this week how it is easier to condemn riots than to understand why riots take place.  Definitely it is much more popular among pundits, politicians, and apparently with a lot of people, to blame and shame poor people for being poor.  And that kind of shaming is another form of violence our guests experience.  It is a spiritual violence; a violence that cuts right into the soul of a person and makes him or her feel worthless.

Another guest took me aside as the morning sun continued to warm us in the front yard.  He asked in a soft voice, “Will you make an announcement Monday?  It’s my birthday.”  This guest almost always stands off alone.  He comes to Manna House, drinks coffee, gets socks and hygiene, hangs around, but rarely says anything.  He dresses a bit bizarrely.  He’s on the margins of the marginalized. 

But he’s paid attention.  He knows it’s a tradition at Manna House to make a loud announcement when it is someone’s birthday, and then everyone joins in to sing “Happy Birthday” as loudly and as off-key as we can.  It is a little sign of affection and respect to acknowledge a person’s birthday.  Maybe it even says, “We’re glad that you’re alive.”  I’m thinking affection and respect have been rare in this guest’s life.  Part of the spiritual violence done to him is that no one has paid attention to his birthday for quite some time. 

We’ll sing on Monday.   Rain or shine.