Someone Cares

Someone Cares

One guest was waiting outside the gate Tuesday morning when I arrived to start the coffee.  “Elijah” had on his insulated orange jump suit that he’s been wearing all winter.  It is a bit tattered and quite dirty now, but still keeping him warm.  

I said “Good morning,” and he moved from the gate so I could unlock it.  But he said nothing.

            “How are you doing?” I asked.  But he said nothing.

            “It is a little warmer this morning,” I observed as we walked into the front yard together.  But he said nothing.

            I wasn’t surprised.  Elijah rarely says anything.  When he does speak, it is rarely coherent.  Underneath the orange jump suit, the disheveled hair, and the intensely vacant eyes, I know there is someone.  But I don’t know who he is, even after nearly eight years of his coming to Manna House as a guest.

            Yet, he comes, and I do too, and we’re together here on the mornings Manna House is open, and I guess that’s something for both of us.  Still, I yearn for more, for him to be housed, to be in a good state of mind, and for us to be able to talk freely.

            Later, as I sit in the kitchen listening to the coffee percolate, I see another guest walking up Jefferson from Claybrook.  “Laura” is wrapped in a blanket and she holds several bags.  She could be the poster child for a homeless bag lady. She’s been coming to Manna House for about three years, maybe longer.  She’s also not much for conversation.  She is rarely lucid.  Still, I’m grateful to see her each morning, and I have the same hopes for Laura as I do for Elijah.

            Elijah and Laura have stayed on my mind through this week.  Over the past year or so there’s been some progress in regard to homelessness in Memphis.  Government money has come in and along with donations from the private sector that has helped get some people housed.  “Outreach, Housing, and Community” (O.H.C.) is one of the agencies with which we work closely, and they have done a tremendous job getting people off the streets.  Housing is the only way to end homelessness.  It seems silly to have to state something so obvious.

            But there isn’t enough money for everyone to get housed.  And a program to help people get housed is always susceptible to cuts advocated by politicians running on platforms of demonizing and criminalizing the poor, of cutting government spending, and cutting taxes.  Certainly we’ll have to keep agitating and organizing for funding for housing.

            Meanwhile, we’ll keep working with O.H.C. and others who get people into housing.  And we will keep offering hospitality at Manna House.  

For many, if not most of our guests, that hospitality includes robust conversation, laughter, Scrabble games, and easy interactions, along with the showers and “socks and hygiene.”  Among these guests are some who have gotten housing, and Manna House serves as a kind of community center.

But there remain others, like Elijah and Laura, for which our hospitality is primarily being a place of sanctuary where they won’t be bothered or harassed.  I hope that in the midst of that welcome they might also experience that someone cares.  I hope that they will experience, as Craig Rennebohm writes in Souls in the Hands of a Tender God, that there is, “One who cares for us and dwells with us and holds us with an infinitely tender strength, One who is pained by our pain and passionate about our healing and well-being.” 

For each of us who offers hospitality we need that One as much as any of our guests.  In fact, that is why we are at Manna House too, for God’s hospitality which mysteriously comes to us through guests such as Elijah and Laura who are the very sacrament of God in “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). “Welcome one another,” Paul wrote, “as Christ has welcomed you” (Romans 15:7).

Hold On

Hold On

A guest took me aside this morning.  “I need to talk with you.  I need to get off these streets.”  So off we went to a place on the front porch where our conversation would be semi-private.  She shared with me the suffering of her life, from physical and emotional violence done to her, the grind of living on the streets, doors being closed wherever she turned for help, and the weariness she was feeling. 

I sat and listened.  Occasionally I offered a few possibilities of some other places she might turn to for help.  Some she had already tried, and here she still was, on the streets.  We devised a plan for next week, which included Manna House helping her replace her eyeglasses which had been smashed, and trying with a few places where Manna House has some connections.

            Earlier this morning, another guest shared with me that her mother had died last week.  She handed me the funeral program to see pictures of her mother, and to read a little bit about her life.  I learned that her mother had adopted eight children, one of whom was this guest at Manna House.  As we talked, I learned more about her mother’s remarkable generosity and love.  I could only imagine the heartache this guest was feeling over the death of her mother.

            The sharing of suffering happens almost every morning at Manna House.  A guest will take aside one of the volunteers and begin to tell of being raped, or being beaten up, or put in jail, or loved ones murdered, or crushing physical disability, or frustrating journeys between government and church offices seeking help, or what it means to be bi-polar, or schizophrenic, or medications that make one numb, or trying to live in the midst of addictions, or losing a job, or never getting a job because of an old felony conviction, or having one’s belongings stolen while one sleeps, or waking up to find a rat gnawing at the shoe on one’s foot.

            Tuesday morning I asked a guest, “How are you doing?”  He responded, “I’m barely holding on.” 

            “Well, hold on,” I said.  And then we talked a bit more, and we got into thinking about the old Sam and Dave song, “Hold On” (written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, at Stax Records right here in Memphis).  We took a listen, thanks to the magic of cell phones.

“Don’t you ever feel sad
Lean on me when times are bad
When the day comes and you’re down
In a river of trouble and about to drown
Just hold on, I’m comin’
Hold on, I’m comin’”

As the song played, we both smiled, and the guest began to laugh.  “Now that’s what I needed to hear,” he said, “I’m holding on.”
            Early on Monday morning, listening to the coffee percolate, and praying the psalms, I realized again how important it is for me to pray the psalms before opening the door at Manna House for hospitality.  The words order my emotions and shape my devotion.  I get tired going to Manna House.  Every one of us who serves there are volunteers with a lot of other demands on our time and energy.  I get frustrated and angry and sad listening to the stories of our guests that have so much suffering.  They tear at my soul.  I need God’s graciousness to keep going.

“O God, hear my cry for help.

From the ends of the earth I call;

my spirit fails.

I pray that you make new this heart.

Lead me to a place of rest,

for you have been my refuge,

my strength against the foe.”  (Psalm 61)

In other words, hold on.

God is Good and Then Some

God is Good, and Then Some

The streetlights at 6:00am illuminated the snow beautifully.  As I walked from my car into Manna House, I was reminded of the muffled snowy mornings when I’d walk to the Motherhouse in Rochester, Minnesota to serve early morning Mass for the Franciscan sisters.  Christ would be present in the ordinary bread and wine on those mornings; this morning Christ would be present in the ordinary folks from the streets.  Before the first guests arrived, Psalm 46 greeted me in morning prayer, “Be still and know that I am God.”  It was a day to listen and learn.

            I opened the doors around 6:15a.m., and guests slowly started to trickle in from the snow and cold.  Many had fortunately found shelter with Room in the Inn or in small apartments or boarding houses.  But some had spent the night outside, and they arrived frozen with wet clothes.  Whether they had shelter for the night or not, all morning long people arrived with wet and cold feet in shoes covered in heavy snow.  Light running shoes aren’t the best in this kind of winter weather and that’s what most guests get in donated shoes.  We were continually outfitting guests with fresh socks and shoes.

“Feels like I got new feet since I got on these dry socks and shoes,” said one guest.

            “I woke up this morning and started walking here from my cathole,” said another, “It wasn’t long before I felt like I was walking on blocks of ice instead of feet.”

            Cecil was asked what he thought of the snow, “I’m not enjoying it,” he said.  Another quickly added, “Its miserable out there.”  Late in the morning a guest who was recently banned from Manna House for a rather serious infraction, came into the house.  He quickly stuck his head in the clothing room door and said, “I know I’m barred but I really need a pair of dry socks.”  We gave him socks, and also made sure he got some hot coffee too before he left.

            Still a few guests found the snow appealing enough that they went outside and made some small snowmen on the picnic tables in the front yard.  And all morning the spirit in the house was joyous.  Perhaps this was due to Kirk putting on Christmas music as he served steaming hot coffee.   Or perhaps it was simply having a warm place to be, with feet now in dry socks and shoes. 

A few folks shared memories of other snowy days, which are relatively rare here in the South.

            “My sister used to make ice cream using freshly fallen snow.”

            “I sure used to like to make snow angels.”

            “We’d find a hill and use cardboard boxes to slide.”

            And one old curmudgeon observed, “This ain’t nothing.  Why the schools closed?  I remember walking to school with snow up to my knees.”

            Most everyone scoffed at that story.

            Instead of closing at our usual 11:30a.m., we stayed open for the whole afternoon.  At the suggestion of several guests, Ben and Lauren went and got a massive mound of friend chicken from the Cash Saver.  Everyone enjoyed this treat, especially with the hot sauce they also bought.  A mother and daughter team arrived with boxes and boxes of sack lunches, and those got passed around as well.  Later in the afternoon another volunteer arrived with snack food.  Hot coffee was available all day. 

A rousing game of Scrabble ended in the usual way with Twin victorious.  A few folks found enough quiet to nap on the couches.  There were plenty of stories told, and the music director from the Stax Academy came by for several hours and got people to share favorite songs.  So we all shared some wonderful music for about an hour. 

            The hour finally arrived when it was time for Room in the Inn pick up.  Despite the bad roads, faithful folks arrived to take twenty-six people for shelter at two different churches.  Two others had to be taken to the warming center run by the city, but at least everyone is inside tonight.

            As one guest had told me earlier in the day,  "God is good and then some."

From the Front Porch at Manna House

From the Front Porch at Manna House

From the front porch at Manna House, you can see a lot, and learn even more.  With the weather a bit warmer today, a number of us were out on the front porch talking.  A car pulled up in front of the house.  A woman got out and started yelling, “There’s a woman in your house that hit my car with her purse and threw a pickle jar at me. And I’m going to call the police.”  She proceeded to make her call.

            “What does she look like?” I asked.  Certainly we don’t want to be a place that hides pickle jar throwers.  She gave me a description.  I invited her in to look. She said “That’s the one,” and pointed to a guest, who I’ll call “Jill.”  I invited Jill to come outside so we could get the whole thing addressed.  As we left the house, the woman flagged down a police car that had apparently responded to the call.

            The police officer talked with the woman, and then turned to Jill.  Jill was clear that the woman was at fault.  She had almost hit her when she was trying to cross the street.  Jill said, “It was self-defense.”

            Meanwhile, two more police cars arrived with more officers.  One of the officers was with the Crisis Intervention Team (C.I.T.), which means he’s been trained to work with people who struggle with mental illness.  I’m glad he was there.  He calmed down the original officer who was clearly getting more and more agitated with Jill, telling her sternly at one point, “Don’t tell me how to do my job.  You’re about to get arrested if you keep that attitude.”

            Another officer got the woman in the car to drive off.  She reluctantly left as he assured her they’d take care of the situation.  Jill was not arrested, and the officers drove off after about another thirty minutes.

            This all led to a discussion of what had happened in Los Angeles yesterday when officers there shot and killed a homeless man who seemed mentally ill.

“I thought Jill was going to be in big trouble until C.I.T. came.”

            “That one cop was getting pretty angry.  I’m glad they didn’t shoot her.”

            “Things can get out of control pretty quick.”

            About an hour later, a police car came through the intersection of Claybrook and Jefferson, just down the street from Manna House.  The car stopped next to a woman who was crossing the street.  She had been at Manna House earlier that morning and had signed up for a shower.  She certainly has mental health issues. A police officer got out of the car.  They exchanged a few heated words, and then he quickly grabbed the woman, threw her to the ground, and handcuffed her.

            “They got her for an open container,” one of the guests said.

            “He didn’t need to do her like that; just give her a citation, that’s what they do to me,” said another.

            “He must have been bored.”

            This led to one guest reflecting on the times he’s been arrested and beaten up by the cops.  Given his stories, it has been a rather regular occurrence.

            He said, “Some cops just like to make you hurt for putting them through the trouble of arresting you.  They get you on the car, and as they handcuff you, they twist your arm real hard hoping to make you struggle so they can hit you.”

            You can see a lot and learn even more from the front porch at Manna House.

The Power of Our Guests at Manna House

The Power of Our Guests at Manna House

Eddie was sitting on the couch with his paper bag of belongings.  Another guest took a look at the bag stuffed with things and asked, “Do you have a dining room table in there?” As the laughter started to roll around the room another said, “That’s like a dang traveling chifferobe.” 

Eddie took it with good grace, laughing along with the others.  “I’ve got everything I own in here; it’s bound to be a little crowded.”  Later in the morning he asked me for a larger bag.  His traveling chifferobe had given way under the pressure and ripped open.  I got him a plastic shopping bag from a local department store.  It was bigger than a grocery store bag and smaller than a typical garbage bag.  “Just right for toting” Eddie observed.

We’ve had so much cold weather this winter that on most mornings, guests are crowding into the living room and dining room of Manna House, and are making less use of the space on the porch and the front yard.  This means not only a lot of people in a small space, but also all their bags.  Some guests carry more than others. 

Backpacks are favorites for carrying things, and we never have enough to give away.  Guests also favor duffle bags with shoulder straps.  A few use those little suitcases on rollers, though in the snow and ice those aren’t so handy, and the wheels tend to fall off from too much rolling.  Plastic grocery bags, paper grocery bags, little canvas shopping bags, those all get put to use, too. But usually guests need two or three of those kinds of bags to manage.  That’s not very convenient.  Of course we do have guests who are not homeless.  They come from the rooming houses and apartments nearby and thankfully have no bags. 

With all the guests and the bags, getting a cup of coffee and carrying it back to one’s place requires nimble movement along with lots of “excuse me’s.”  It really is amazing how little coffee gets spilled each morning. 

Besides nimbleness, the movement without spills and tussles between guests also bespeaks of the community and compassion our guests share with each other. Guests share information with each other about soup kitchens, shelters, safe places to be during the day, opportunities for housing, and more.  Guests share socks and cigarettes and books among other things.  Hosting the Room in the Inn pick up the last week or so, I’ve seen guests give up their spot for the night so that another person who is more vulnerable will have a place to stay. 

Their decency and humanity to each other in the midst of horrific conditions on the streets is humbling.  Guest spend their days (and often nights) in the cold.  They eat barely adequate food.  At soup kitchens there is rarely any fresh fruit, and meals are high in starches and carbs.  They walk for miles from one place to another, often in ill fitting shoes.  Many go without glasses, because who can afford them?  They carry within a gnawing sense that no one cares and the wounds of rejection from family and former friends.  They experience the constant indignities of depending upon the fickle good will of others.  All of this is part of the slow death of the streets, the crucifixion of the poor.

And yet our guests carry their humanity in the midst of all this.  Their laughter and their ways of screwing with the various systems aligned against them form a resistance to the injustices they experience daily.  Eddie laughs about his “traveling chifferobe.”  Guests have catholes that no cop can ever find.  Freddie rides a bike in which he has fashioned handlebars covered with gloves in the “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot Position.”  And guests organize with Homeless Organizing for Power and Equality (H.O.P.E.) to fight for housing, and ending police harassment.   

There’s a power in the folks who come to Manna House, it’s the power of their humanity and it’s the power of God, of which the Psalmist writes, “You, O God are the eternal light. Your glory reaches higher than the heavens. Who is like you, magnificent in holiness? And yet you live so close within. You raise the poor from their lowliness; you lift the oppressed from the depths. You give dignity to their lives, a place of honor with all the faithful” (Psalm 113).

A Prayer for Rhonda

A Prayer for Rhonda

Rhonda (not her real name) stopped me as I walked by the coffee line.  Rhonda is a difficult person.  She is not homeless now but has been in the past.  She still comes to Manna House on a regular basis for coffee and some level of companionship.  Few, however, seem close to her, which perhaps isn’t so surprising.  She has what might be described as a “prickly personality.” 

She is easily angered and quick to take offense.   She can also be garrulous, cornering another guest or sometimes a volunteer for a lengthy monologue.  There is almost always a cigarette firmly planted in her mouth.  She is a voracious smoker.  Her hands shake when she tries to light a cigarette with the dying embers of her previous cigarette.  Years of smoking and other hard living have made her voice raspy and deep.  And in that voice she asked me, “Do you have the pictures?”  A couple of weeks before I had taken her picture, and she had made me promise to get ten copies. 

            “Yes, “ I replied, “I have your pictures.  Hold on, let me get them.”  Over the past few months, I’ve taken photos of guests who wanted their pictures taken, and then shared copies with them.  This was the first time, though, that a guest wanted so many copies.  I’m not sure what Rhonda wanted with ten copies of her photo.  I had asked her, and she had answered by glaring back at me like I had asked her a very inappropriate question.  So I got the number of copies she wanted.

            I returned from the kitchen where I had kept the photos and handed them to her.  She smiled and thanked me, “These look real nice.”  And then she said to me, “Pray that the Lord will take this sickness out of my mind.”  As she said this she pointed to her head and grimaced.  “I’m not doing very well, not very well at all.”

            There’s a river of suffering that runs each day through Manna House.  Some days that river isn’t quite visible; other days it can’t be missed.  This has been a week of bitter cold and the river of suffering has overflowed.  Guests today were especially shaken to have heard of a person on the streets in Memphis who had frozen to death.  Nobody knew him, but everybody knows that death from grinding cold and grinding poverty follows all of them around.

            Rhonda’s eyes looked tired.  Her hair was unkempt as it almost always is, and she said with insistence, “Don’t forget. Pray for me.”  I said I would. She walked away with her pictures and a cup of coffee.  She headed out the front door. I didn’t see her again the rest of the morning. 

            So tonight I’m praying for Rhonda, and I’m praying for our other guests, and for the man I didn’t know who died this past week in the cold. I take up the ancient words of the Psalms and join my voice to the pain I heard in Rhonda’s voice, “O God, hear my cry for help.  From the ends of the earth I call; my spirit fails.  I pray that you make new this heart.  Lead me to a place of rest, for you have been my refuge, my strength against the foe.  Let me dwell in your presence forever; hide me in the shelter of your wings” (Psalm 61).

The Ice Came and the Winds Blew

The Ice Came and the Winds Blew

The past two mornings, we have opened Manna House early. Instead of our usual 8:00 a.m. start, we opened the door at 6:30 a.m. At that time on Monday morning, the sleet and icy rain were still falling, and kept falling for several more hours, while a strong north wind made temperatures drop. The house filled quickly, especially when the vans came bringing people who had stayed overnight at Room in the Inn.
This morning, when I arrived at 6:15 a.m., there was already one guest waiting, standing on the ice covered sidewalk. He had several blankets wrapped around him trying to fend off the 17 degree cold. When we attempted to get into the yard and then into the house, we discovered the lock on the front gate was frozen solid. The waiting guest produced a lighter, melted off the ice, and the lock opened. When he came into the house, he peeled off the blankets, and then several more layers, and laid back on one of the couches, and promptly fell asleep.
When we “officially” opened at 8:00 a.m., we prayed together, warm and cold hands joined in a circle in the house. We thanked God for our not falling on the ice, at least not too hard. We also asked that the cold might lighten up and the ice might melt.
Later in the morning I asked Jamal (not his real name) where he would stay the next couple of nights. I told him I was concerned since the temperatures are supposed to go into the single digits.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I’m worried. I don’t think I can survive outside. I may get myself arrested to get a warm place.” I told him about the Orange Mound Community Center that would be open and encouraged him to go there. (He told me he can’t stay at Room in the Inn or the Union Mission or any other shelter because he can’t stand to be around people). “They probably won’t be too busy,” I tried to assure him, “It should be quiet.” Another guest asked, “Do you think the police would give me a ride there?” I really didn’t know how to answer that question except to say, “I don’t know.”
Another guest recalled when one night he was so cold he built a fire under the bridge where he was staying. “Someone called the Fire Department and they came and put the fire out. I waited until they left, then I got me some gasoline and made that fire again. I figured if they came back or the police came I’d go to jail. I was going to be warm one way or another.”
The “Radio Station” which everyone on the streets calls the soup kitchen near Manna House was closed due to the bad weather. So, on Monday at Ashley's suggestion, we dug into our More on Monday supplies, and offered sandwiches to our guests. Today we bought more bread, cheese, and turkey, along with bananas to make sack lunches. Ben and Jenina led the sandwich making crew. Some eighty people got lunches.
Toward the end of the morning a conversation started among the guests about how nice and warm it was in Manna House. “This place isn’t drafty at all.” “I feel so good in here out from the cold.” “How old is this house? It sure seems well built.” One biblical scholar guest remembered Matthew’s Gospel, and said, “This place is built on rock, not sand. It’s solid.”
So we read from Matthew 7:24-27, where Jesus says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.”
I think that biblical scholar guest paid Manna House quite a fine compliment. The ice came, the winds blew, and we were still open. His words gave us a good end to a good morning.