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.