When a homeless guy gave me a voice

It's been a month since I posted about my encounter with a homeless man named Butch. I didn't think all that much of the post when I wrote it just to get the weight off my chest. But that is usually how the truest stories are told. Well, this particular story took all my theological rants and questions and tossed them in the air like dust and isn't that really where it all starts anyway?

Here it is if you missed it: http://prodigalstories.blogspot.com/2013/06/when-jesus-goes-by-butch.html

And when I say 'encounter' what I really mean is my lack of encounter and the conviction that followed. This isn't a story I'm particularly proud of. Acknowledging that you missed something, that you're sorry, that your instincts are often self-protecting, these are vulnerable places, the dark corners you'd rather hide. I'd rather hide.

But something happens when we open ourselves up to each other, I'm finding. Something happens that stirs us down deep. Some kind of wonder- a communal head nod, an understanding that this is bigger than just me, that below the designer shoes scattering on concrete our roots are intertwined and we are at our core dependent on one another if we want to live well. Whole-hearted. Unafraid.

* * * * *

We went to Butch's memorial that same evening after I posted. I had to know more about who he was, and maybe give myself permission to feel so strongly about a stranger. My husband has worked with the homeless in our town for the last 7 years, so this world was nothing strange to him, but for the stay-at-home-mom and her kids to enter into it, well, you better believe I felt awkward. For about 3 minutes. Then one older man cried and leaned against me and said that Butch was like his brother...he looked into my eyes and told me not to ever forget and did I know how much his heart hurt? I'm undone. All these people who loved Butch, who walked with him every day, who were his family, they poured out their hearts in stories and tears and showed grace to the outsider and I stood there, on that bridge, bleary-eyed and humbled and speechless. Even my kids were quiet, taking it in. Someone else told me not to feel guilty, that my honesty was important, that it was brave love. Then we lit candles and put them on tiny rafts and said a prayer together and watched them float off into the water as night came and gently wrapped its cloak around our shoulders.

* * * * *

It's been a month and now I'm thinking my voice matters after all. I'm thinking I'm not alone in feeling helpless and overwhelmed at the broken world at my doorstep, and not alone in wanting to do something about it. Right where I am. Kids in tow. Owning my simplicity and awkwardness until it's not awkward anymore.

If I believe it all matters, that we all matter, then my role IS important, and maybe this is my role. To speak out for the ordinary people, to make space for the conversations so that extraordinary changes can be made in ourselves first, and our community next. I'm finding there are pockets of people who are far ahead of me here, and I want to learn from them.  What is your role, I wonder?

Whole-hearted. Eyes wide open. It's time.

Thank you, Butch.

The hot button issue.

I am exhausted today. Probably like everyone else. I'm overwhelmed and emotionally a bit fragile and it hurts to walk and I hate that I thought it would be gone by now and it's not. I feel pitiful.

But that's not really who I am. In my spirit I feel like a bird who just had its cage door opened for the first time- a bit hesitant, a little scared, but intrigued and overjoyed that there is a whole new beautiful world waiting to be discovered.  I feel like I've been shaken and a lot of the extra junk sifted out. Fell onto the floor boards and my bare feet like a shedding of skin and I feel fresh. I feel ready. Expectant.

There are glimpses of grace here. The simple, the mundane, that now I see are more than they had appeared-  even these are sacred. Pay attention. This small thing, this waking up of the spirit, it matters.

Today I am a paradox. The wonderful thing about this is that it demands that you acknowledge that the two very polar sides are not opposing at all, but are intertwined in places unseen. They don't just balance each other out as though on a linear cosmic balance board.  They reside in the tension, in the deep, in the questions. Tension is fast becoming a cliche word, and I'm in danger of overusing it, but I can't think of another English word that feels right. That's a challenge. Find me one please. Maybe I should make one up.

* * * * *

I read a blog post this morning that stirred up some new questions in me surrounding the homosexuality conversation. I am wishing all my Christian friends would read this, let it be another voice, mull it over like I am. I wish it would stir us, keep us up at night if it hasn't already, remind us of this tension and caution us to tread gently, choose our words more wisely, refine our beliefs a bit. New voices matter. 

This is not a complete theological exposition. It is personal thoughts from one human being living in the tension to another. Somewhere in the comments (which are also insightful) he says this:

I am not asking people to change their beliefs about gay marriage,

 but instead I am asking people to struggle more deeply with the implications

 of that belief, so that we may be better equipped to spread a

 compassionate gospel. We are to grieve with those who grieve — if the

 application of the scripture is as hard as you say it is, then it had best be applied 

with tears and tenderness, lest we crush those we serve. Those tears and tenderness can only be acquired through deep struggle with the cost of our words.

With that said, here it is.

http://sacredtension.com/2013/07/08/three-reasons-the-traditional-perspective-on-gay-marriage-makes-me-uncomfortable/

If you are willing to be a part of this conversation, let's all agree to do it well, to speak kindly, and be respectful. I have failed at this enough times to know the damage it does. But it's too important to ignore.

On listening when it's awkward

It happened in the back of the grocery store. I was simply trying to grab some chicken for company that night. I was an hour behind, frazzled, company was already waiting at the house and supper would be late. Again. One of those situations. You know the kind. I am quite sure I looked the part.

But she was looking for me, I think, for someone, anyone. It really shouldn't have been me. Not that day at that moment when I was consumed with my own shortcomings and guests and busyness.

She shook her head first as I reached across the corner of her mostly empty cart for that chicken. I tried to keep to myself, I did. But I heard her say, "I can't even afford to buy food anymore. How are people supposed to eat?" I get it. I ask that myself with 3 growing kids and a 10-year-old boy-man who needs a full meal at least every hour. (Well, thankfully now he recognizes he doesn't 'need' it like other people who don't have enough. He is a tender soul who often reminds us of our exaggeration. Even when we think we need to eat, we won't starve, he points out. Not unless we do that for a month. Not like in Africa, he says. Truth.)

I nodded and smiled in understanding, placed the chicken in my cart and tried to keep moving. I failed.

I'm not sure I could even begin to explain the extraordinary details this woman poured out to me about her life at that exact and inconvenient moment. Not a moment as in a minute. More like an hour. Right next to the frozen chicken and blocking traffic on a holiday weekend. Smooth it was not. I learned about her husband dying 5 years ago from the medication that has now been recalled. I learned about her house that's been on the market for nearly that long, all about the new deck, the realtors, borrowing even more money for a fence to maybe block the messy neighbors. I saw the desperation in her eyes as they welled up with tears. She leaned in uncomfortably close and told me she does go to the food shelf when she has to, but she doesn't want to tell anyone else because her children don't know how bad things really are. She'd hate to be a burden.  I learned about all her children, their names and her grandchildren's names and hobbies...the time her daughter almost died because of alcohol...how she found sobriety and God...the abuse in her childhood...the very specific timeline of her travels and moves across country to nowhere-ville Minnesota, "right up next to Antarctica", she said, and laughed out loud. And when this woman talked about her husband, I tell you what. Her tired face lit up like Christmas morning. "He wasn't the romantic type," she explained, tearful and quiet. "But he was my partner in life. He never left me. And I loved him."

My heart swelled with admiration, with sadness, with longing. And my eyes filled with tears, too.

There were a few very brief lulls between her rambling thoughts and I tried to close the conversation by checking my phone and the time, remembering everyone waiting for me at home. I turned my grocery cart the other way, as if to slowly wrap it up, offer goodbyes and blessings, move on from this stranger. On to more pressing matters. Like chicken. And company. And glorification of BUSY.

But I couldn't do it. She intrigued me with her earnest outpouring, her vulnerability and honesty. For reasons I won't ever understand, she picked me. At first I was slightly annoyed by this hangup, catching glances from people scooting around us, odd looks, curious looks. They didn't phase her.

"I believe in Life! I believe in God! Don't ever stop praying for your children," she was almost dancing now, "but they all have to learn their own hard way. Even when you think it might kill you!"

Now she had completely captured my attention, disarmed me. And now, of course, she was ready to say goodbye. She introduced herself, even gave me directions to her house. She grabbed my hands, looked straight into my soul, thanked me sweetly for listening, and turned to leave.

And I wept. For what, I'm not positive. In front of the company. And it was good.

* * * * *

I have prayed for eyes to see people, for opportunities outside of my small community of friends to allow these strange and fleeting lives to intersect, for moments that glimmer with purpose. I've prayed that somehow maybe I could make a difference, make the world a little less lonely. And when I didn't genuinely have the desire, I asked for even just the desire for the desire. Sometimes that is all I can honestly offer. I believe the Giver has honored that feeble and fumbling heart request I call prayer. It was answered in an awkward moment, at an awkward time, with a sort of awkward stranger. And I'm fairly confident it wasn't for her benefit, but for my own. One encounter at a time, breaking down the barriers I'm realizing I have erected. Opening the eyes of my heart by paying more attention to those around me, those fragile and divine and messy and beautiful people. Because we're all together in this chaos.

It's all very awkward. The best sort of awkward.

 There are no strangers here; only friends you

 haven't yet met. -- William Butler Yeats

* * * * *

I know I'm not alone. Have you had a similar experience? What did it teach you?