it's christmas

Perched on some crumbling front yard retaining wall, his body shook and shuddered like a bedeviled puppet. His arms hung slack, his head stared vacantly, and from his open mouth came stuttering moans that turned my stomach. 

It was Christmas morning, and I had run out to grab a paper. Everyone else in the house was still asleep, gifts gleaming beneath the tree, and I wanted to be certain I was back before they woke.

After briefly looking over the paper at the 7-11, it occurred to me that the world was much the same as it had been the day before, so I left empty-handed. That’s when I saw Joshua sitting across the otherwise deserted street. It was 36 degrees, and even at that distance I could see that beneath his jacket he was bare-chested. His breath formed a halo around his anguished face as he grunted and exerted himself in his convulsions.

Walking briskly across the road I pulled my coat tight and watched for him to notice me. But even as I drew quite close, his gaze continued fixed in front of him while the rest of his body undulated with a mind of its own. He sat in the shadow of a pleasant looking home and was enclosed in a field of urban filth: a dented can of bean dip, a broken light bulb, a walker hung with damp clothes, some dried up lasagna, a crumpled surgical mask, and numerous wrappers, each bearing the rotten marks of their former contents. 

I sat down next to him, and the odor was overpowering. “Good morning,” I said cautiously. He gave no response, ankles rolling about as he pushed out muted gutturals. I continued. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine,” he said, suddenly ceasing his gyrations but keeping his face forward. There was ice in patches around his feet, but his voice was clear and lucid.

“Do you know what day it is?” I braced myself for his reply. I couldn't decide what would be more tragic, his knowing or his not knowing that it was Christmas Day. 

“Wednesday, I think.” 

It was Friday. I would have to ask again. “Do you know what is special about today?” I noticed a half-eaten, unwrapped sandwich leaking from his pocket. There was some sort of crust on his face and neck. The street was so quiet.

I stared at the side of his face. Here was a breathing, stinking piece of human waste amidst the garbage of a convenient store, a fast food restaurant, a gas station, a supermarket—and the society that spawned them.

 

The Jesuit theologian Ellacuria, martyred in El Salvador during their civil war, employed a pregnant metaphor in thinking about the poor who persist in the midst of a prosperous society: coproanalysis, the study of one’s excrement to diagnose disease. 

Admittedly, although the analogy is indelicate, it is telling. The suggestion that the poor, the destitute, the needy are the societal equivalent of excrement offends our sensibilities, but that is generally the extent of the offense. We might believe in the equality of all people, but we allow thousands of our neighbors to subsist on garbage; we might believe in inalienable human rights, yet we allow thousands of our neighbors to wallow in their own filth, sleeping in soiled clothing on sidewalks or in the mud beneath an overpass; we might believe that all humankind is endowed with inherent worth and dignity, yet we allow thousands of our neighbors to languish with untreated medical conditions.

Those whom I encounter on our streets, while possessed of many wonderful qualities, are also sick, lonely, frightened, hopeless, weary, cold, hungry, betrayed, abandoned, dejected, afflicted, and in some cases longing for death. The question that coproanalysis poses is this: what is this disease, this plague that infects us? What malady would produce such symptoms in our resource-rich society? What disorder would lead us to go about our daily lives while such suffering continues all around us?

The truth is that these children and adults are treated just as unclean, just as untouchable, and just as unholy as human feces. While we might do our best to place the blame for their conditions on their own shoulders, pointing to their inherent qualities, character flaws, personal proclivities, poor judgment, the result is all the same. And maybe it’s true. Perhaps human waste is just what they are, and we are otherwise relatively healthy.

 

I waited for Joshua’s answer. It was freezing, and I was close enough to see the goose bumps on his chest. I thought about my wife and children, warm beneath their covers. They would soon be waking.

For the first time since I had seen him he turned and faced me. His eyes were bright and alert. He smiled and answered, “It’s Christmas.”

emptiness

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and there was only an hour left before we would close our doors until the following Monday. Crowds still pressed through the halls, tracking in leaves and cold blasts of the November wind, but the place felt warmed by the smiles on people's faces. Our phones had been ringing feverishly all week with families desperate for assistance, but by this time the calls had begun to quiet. 

As we served this final press of families, staff were already talking about their holiday plans, buttoning their coats, and wishing their colleagues best wishes for the long weekend. And that’s when Jasmine rang.

“Do you have any food left?” Those were the first words that came through the receiver. Her voice was breathless. 

After being assured that we did in fact still have food boxes available, she asked how late we would be serving. “I’m not really sure how this works.” She’d never sought this sort of assistance before, and she was uncomfortable with the thought of accepting the gift of food.

“We only have about one hour left,” our staff informed her. The other end of the line went silent. “Can you make it here by then?”

“I’m …” she started, but then paused. “We’ll try,” she finally replied.

She never made it. But a half hour after we had served our last meal and closed our doors, the phone rang again. Most of our staff had tidied up their areas and had gone to be with their families. We answered the phone, and it was Jasmine. She explained her situation and pleaded with us to make an exception by delivering the food box to her. After listening to her present conditions, one of our staff members volunteered to make the delivery.

It turned out that Jasmine and her two-year old daughter were now homeless. They had come up with enough money to stay in a Motel 6 for the night, and that is where we met them on the evening before Thanksgiving. At that time all across the country there were warm and wonderful homecomings: students returning to their parents after their first semester away at college; grandparents flying across country to spend the holidays with their grandchildren; friends reuniting after years apart. But for Jasmine and her daughter, things were happening in reverse. Their lives were fracturing.

When we brought the food box into Jasmine’s room, she thanked us with what seemed an outpouring of all the grief she had been carrying for her family. In the cold, sterile, artificial furnishings of the motel room, everything she had ever associated with Thanksgiving seemed a mockery--something for somebody else. Yet even in such circumstances, in the midst of so much despair, she was overwhelmed with gratitude at our offering. And as she shared her appreciation for the food we had brought, her daughter’s eyes remained fixed and inexpressive. I think I would prefer to have seen her daughter express anything at all, rather than such emptiness. At two years old, emptiness.

After a few minutes of thanks and reassurance, we felt compelled to ask the disturbing question regarding how she planned to prepare the food. She held her daughter close, adjusted her little knit cap, and—as if apologizing—pointed out that the motel lobby had a microwave.

sacred & profane

I am ambivalent with regard to the notion of fate. That said, I believe that Wednesday morning, when the temperature had again dropped below freezing, our encounter was as predestined as the fall of any sparrow.

Just before sunrise, well wrapped in layers against the coming of the cold, I opened my front door and with a deep breath stepped outside. My eyes immediately began to water in the bitter air. Parked cars, rooftops, lawns—even dead leaves—were white with frost. My tears flowed slowly.

I had hoped I wouldn’t see it, but I never really doubted. I didn’t know who it would be, only that I dreaded the encounter. It was so cold. I even took a different way to work this particular morning, trying to avoid the meeting. But my altered path led me inextricably to what was determined to happen, regardless.

Before having passed beyond the shadow of my apartment building, there it was. Like a sacred object—ancient, wise, terrible—he sat immovable amid the scutter and scurry of morning traffic. Untouched by the world around him, he instead drew the world to himself.

Poised on the bus stop bench, a child’s pink blanket draped over his head and concealing his body, he filled me with foreboding. A jacket stiff with snow lay at his side, along with the other articles that might have kept him warm: pants, gloves, sweaters, shoes, a sleeping bag—all bristling like cacti with spines of white frost. The clothing formed an unbroken trail into the gutter. A brittle shell of ice encased his swollen feet, his socks stuck and stinging on his useless toes like the carapace of a mottled crab.

I stood for a moment, unsure of what was supposed to happen next. It seemed he had found me. How many times had this encounter taken place throughout the course of the world?

I moved very close.

“Hello?” I whispered.

He slowly drew back the blanket, eyes rolling in his head, and as he did, the sweet aroma of vegetable matter filled the space around us. And with the lowering of the blanket I could see that besides his sweatshirt, he was wearing only a pair of ratted underwear. His thighs were blotchy, and all his skin seemed tea-stained and scaly. It was 31 degrees, and he was perfectly still. I wondered if he was dying. 

“Are you okay?” 

His eyes, cloudy and congealed, wandered past me as mucus bubbled from his nostrils in a way I had only before observed in infants. His mildewed beard of brown and gray was chunked with globs of glistening ice, and coiled across his baldhead was a deep, undulating scar. Something had long ago reached in and touched his brain.

For a moment more I stood in awe of what was before me. I felt small, my words like throwing apples at a god.

the only gift he had

Shoddy tattoos are scrawled over his arms, across his chest, and up onto his neck. The ones that aren’t profane are pornographic, and combined with his shaved head and swagger, it's easy to believe that at 24 years old, Brett has spent more time in prison than he did in high school.

Yet three days ago, Brett—a former gang member—came to my door late at night with the question he had been struggling to ask me for weeks. His over-sized jersey made him somehow look child-like as he stood in the yellow light of our porch lamp, awkwardly steeling his courage with half-hearted small talk. He couldn’t look me in the eye when he finally got around to asking, and when he spoke, he stumbled over his words: “Are you proud of me?”

Brett spent his entire youth in group homes. Dirty carpets, dead-bolted bedroom doors, and communal kitchens were what the world held out for his adolescence, and once he turned 18, he found himself homeless, sleeping in cars, in shelters, and on bus stop benches. Brett has never had a family.

And this time of year is difficult for Brett. It was one year ago that he succumbed to the loneliness and isolation he felt without the support of any meaningful human relationships. He swallowed 28 capsules of prescription medication on the day before Thanksgiving and awoke after two days, a breathing tube scorching his airway and IV's piercing his appendages; his arms were restrained.

Having spent the recent summer months without work, Brett’s diligent search for employment finally bore fruit, and he was able to begin a new job a couple weeks ago. As he awaits his first paycheck, he has received the financial assistance to stay in a motel, but the motel is no substitute for the stability of his own place. And it is lonely. And it is Thanksgiving.

After assuring Brett that indeed I was proud of him, he asked the next question on his list, this time looking directly into my eyes: “Can I spend Thanksgiving with you and your family?” 

The question caught me completely off-guard and sent my mind swimming in all directions. What could I say? 

And then, before I could say anything but after my obvious hesitation, he offered the only gift he had to give: “I could bring the turkey I get from Sacred Heart, that way you don’t have to buy one.”

just waiting

It was getting late, and darkness had brought with it a crisp November chill. A handful of Sacred Heart staff was still at work, busy with the final preparations for the following morning’s holiday registration. We knew the morning sun would reveal vast numbers of children and adults lined up around the block in the hopes of signing up for our holiday services, so everything needed to be in place the night before.

As we moved back and forth, setting up chairs for our disabled customers and posting signs directing volunteers to the back of the building, we noticed an old man who had quietly pulled a wire cart up to our front door. From his cart he drew a chair, and there appeared to settle in to what would be a long, cold night. After the shortest deliberation, we decided it would be unconscionable to allow this man—who we later learned was 70 years old—to remain outdoors all night. Opening our front door we approached him and asked what we could do for him.

“I’m just waiting for the registration to begin,” he told us. It was 7:00pm, and we had advertised that registration would begin at 9:00am the next day. “But it’s not for me. It’s for my daughters. They take care of me.” The old man went on to say that his daughters, who were both getting off work at midnight, would be there to relieve him by 1:00am.

We explained that it wasn’t necessary for him to remain outside all night, that there would be enough slots available if he came back in the morning. At this he rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. “No, I’d better stay. I don’t want to risk it.”

Again we pleaded with him, this time taking down his daughters’ names and guaranteeing that they would be registered. “You don’t understand,” he insisted. “There will be no Thanksgiving meal for us, no presents for my grandchildren if I leave.” Still we tried to persuade him, and still he stood firm.

After twenty minutes of our insistence, the old man finally folded up his chair and lifted it into his cart. “If it’s OK," he asked politely, "I’m going to wait until you leave ... and then come back.” And without waiting for a response,  he pulled his cart into the darkness.

give hope

When I arrived at Sacred Heart last Saturday, crowds of people were gathered around our front door, the lines stretching out to the sidewalk, around the corner, and then around the block. Hundreds of children and adults wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags had camped out on the sidewalk in order to register for our holiday program. It was still only 5:00A.M., and we weren’t scheduled to begin registration for another four hours.

The sidewalk was impassible. I had a lot to do to prepare for the 250 volunteers who would begin arriving at 6:00A.M., but instead I found myself outside, moving slowly among the people, weaving in and out of the street, searching each face in the darkness for one young woman in particular.

Back in October, on another early Saturday morning, I was about to meet her for the first time.

  

The morning fog had not yet dissipated, and the girl I passed on the stairwell was inhaling a cigarette for breakfast, her makeup evidently making the best of its second consecutive day. I had been reduced to retracing my steps as I tried to find unit 205 of the beleaguered 4^th Street apartment complex, the numbering system of which had utterly confounded me.

When I finally found the door, its screen utterly demolished, I hesitated. What would I say? Everything was so quiet. Then I knocked.

A minute passed, and I knocked again. Another minute passed. I looked back to the sleepy smoker on the stairwell for guidance, but she seemed indifferent to my predicament. A part of me was relieved at the lack of response, but then suddenly the door opened.

The young man who answered did so with his back to me, and on pulling open the door, simply disappeared into the bathroom without ever making eye contact. Having left the door open, I poked my head into the darkened room.

The walls were bare, and there was no furniture, no dishes or utensils, no light fixtures, and in fact, there wasn’t even any evidence of electricity. Among the empty bags of chips, shredded cardboard, a stick, a sock, lint, dirt, and innumerable strands of hair, I counted four, then five bodies strewn across the discolored carpet, each covered by a thin sheet or blanket. Most of them looked like teenagers, their exhausted faces pressed into the coarse, unwashed shag, asleep with their shoes on.

After a moment one of the piles of flesh and bone rose and readied herself by rubbing her face with her hands. This is how I first met Regina.

 

Regina is twenty years old, the mother of a four-year old daughter, and homeless. Her father, also homeless, is a customer of ours at Sacred Heart, and after being released from a long prison sentence is now trying to put his life back together. Having lost his relationship with his daughter, he still worries about her, and after finding out where she had been staying, asked if I would try to help her. I spoke with her on the phone, and she agreed to meet.

After our first meeting that October morning, I neither saw nor heard from her again for several weeks. She was a pleasant young woman who hoped to get an education, remarking that she wanted to be a counselor, “So I could help people who are living on the street.” But she had dropped out of high school, had no income, and no real system of support.

Then a few days ago she called me. It was quite late, and she needed a ride. She had been forced out of the apartment where I had first met her, and she and her daughter were now staying somewhere on The Alameda.

When I picked up Regina and her daughter on Monterey Highway, it was cold and dark. She gave me a convoluted account of the events that had recently transpired, and not really knowing what to say or how to help, I brought up Thanksgiving, for it was evident that there wasn’t going to be a family meal for her to partake in.

“Are you interested in a Thanksgiving meal for you and your daughter? We are getting ready for our holiday program at Sacred Heart, and if you register you can also get new toys for …” and I gestured silently at the four-year old, who looked intently at my pointing finger from the backseat. Regina said she was interested.

But when we got to our destination, it was a motel. 

I helped her in with her duffle bags—all her worldly possessions. “Regina, will you be able to prepare a Thanksgiving meal?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Then showing me the little refrigerator with a plug-in hot plate on top of it, she told me that some of the rooms have kitchenettes. 

As I prepared to leave, I asked her how long she was planning to stay at the motel.

“Well, I get $65 a night from my social worker for two weeks—because I was in a bad situation.” I tried not to imagine what sort of situation would trigger this response from her social worker. 

“How long have you been staying here?” I asked.

“About eight days.”

“Then you only have six days left—is that right? What will you do?”

“Well, I found out that this motel gives me a weekly rate.” This added four more days to her stay. “But in a week, I get $150 more.” Another two days.

I was making the calculations in my head as she enumerated the winding down of her resources. Just as one source would run out, a little more would emerge, but always less then the amount before. Until finally, there was nothing.

“That would mean that your last night will be,” I re-calculated. “November 25^th. You’ll have to leave the motel by 11:00 A.M. … on Thanksgiving Day.”

She sat on the bed, her daughter asleep on her lap, and all she said was, “Oh.”

 

I still have no idea if Regina made it in to register for our services last Saturday. It was a busy day, and some 1500 families came through our doors. But there are still some spaces open. I hope she makes it.

night

After passing through an eerie series of security stations and electronically locked hallways, I emerged in a blue-lit chamber half-filled with heavily medicated men and women. More disturbing than their disheveled appearance or the vacant looks on their faces was noticing that the patients were all shuffling about in socks, slippers, or slip-ons. For their own safety—to protect them from self-destruction—shoelaces are not permitted.

Finding the Sacred Heart customer I had come to visit, we sat down facing one another. The chairs we sat on were heavy—far too heavy for a person to lift. He slurred something, then his eyes fixed on my shoulder, and he was immobilized—except for his palsied hands. A bead of drool slowly crept from his lip. I wondered, How had it come to this?

 

As a young high school English teacher, I had to learn the hard way that 15 year-olds aren’t generally manic for the likes of Chaucer, Milton, or Keats. But Andy, a particularly gifted junior, was an exception. He devoured Dostoyevsky between classes and counted Kafka a like-minded confidante. He wrote both poetry and prose for pleasure and enjoyed wrestling with the classical philosophers as much as analyzing independent cinema. Andy was a popular student, a starter on the varsity football squad, played electric guitar, and appeared to have an auspicious future before him.

Upon graduation, Andy went off to university. The next time I saw him shook me profoundly.

The athletic intellect I had known as a high school student was now heavier by 80 pounds and had trouble finishing a thought. Instead of living in a well-appointed home, he wandered the streets at night. Instead of working on a graduate degree, he spent his days pulling recyclables from city garbage cans. He delivered interminable rants on esoteric topics, punctuated by pure fantasies of dealings with politicos, publicists, and the occasional movie star. His world was now consumed by an inner violence, sometimes directed toward others, sometimes toward himself. 

Andy had experienced a psychic break at about the age of twenty. Without warning, this bright, personable student was plunged into the darkness of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. His behavior quickly became erratic, and after assaulting both his mother and father was relegated to the streets.

Now, at thirty years old, it seems that things are deteriorating further. He is currently locked in a psychiatric hospital—his fourth visit in two months. He has been caught in a cycle that reveals a massive breech in our social safety net.

Unwilling or unable to maintain a disciplined regimen of medication while trying to survive the vicissitudes of homelessness, Andy’s episodes are becoming more frequent and more volatile. But the system’s answer is woefully inadequate: usually it is a 72-hour hold, followed by a cab ride to a downtown street corner. In the more egregious cases, he will get up to two weeks in a hospital, capped off by a bed at a homeless shelter.

Nine days ago Andy called me at home. He was terrified and begged to see me. Aware of his recent degeneration, I agreed to come see him. It was the middle of the night and he was at St. James Park in the heart of downtown. When I found him, he began to weep, perhaps as much in relief as in agony. He complained of a wizard who was putting thoughts into his head, a wizard who appeared to him in the form of a black squirrel. He agreed that it was best to call the police and have him taken to the hospital, and after I got off the phone, he brightened up a little.

We sat on the park’s swing set while we waited for the police to arrive, and as we swayed back and forth, he suddenly took off his shoe, telling me he wanted to show me something. He lifted up his shoeless foot and began to peel off his sock. I looked intently, having learned to expect the unexpected in circumstances like these. As the sock came off, I stared at his bare foot, trying to make out what I was seeing. It was a shoelace wrapped neatly around his arch.

In a voice suddenly sane, Andy said matter-of-factly, “When they admit you, they take away your belt and your shoelaces, they check your hair and your pockets, they remove your shoes … but they don’t take off your socks.”

He unraveled the shoelace and handed it to me.

 

Andy will be released from his present stay within the next couple days—I don’t know how much longer he will last.

a cruel frugality

As the lunch rush cavorted from course to course, a wiry busboy made his way to the back and clunked another tray of sullied dishes onto the rinse rack. Henry, the dishwasher, pulled his hand like a fish from the sink and plucked a solitary meatball from a plate smeared with bleu cheese and tepid marinara … and popped it into his mouth.

Henry, along with his colleagues the busboys and food prep crew, cannot afford even his most elementary necessities. At 48 he earns $9 per hour and is scheduled to work no more than 27.5 hours per week. Not only does this arrangement preclude him from receiving employee benefits, but after rent and utilities, he has little money left for food.

In order to survive, Henry and his colleagues buy only enough food for one meal daily. They typically skip breakfast entirely, and for lunch depend on the scraps from the dishes of the restaurant’s patrons, which of course, is strictly prohibited by restaurant policy. 

“Enrique!” It was the manager who like an angry dog had followed the busboy into the back of the restaurant. Enrique snapped to attention next to the tray of dishes he had just set down at the washing station. “Where is that meatball?” The blood vessels began to bulge from the manager’s neck and forehead as he ransacked the piles of dirty dishes in search of the meatball that Henry, with his back to the drama, tried quickly to grind down to swallowing size.

The busboy pleaded his innocence in broken English, but the manager wanted proof. “Get in there,” he growled, laboring for breath and pointing to the 30 gallon garbage can filled with two hour’s worth of waste, “Get in there and find it!” At that point Henry gulped, turned, and confessed his crime.

In retrospect, Henry won the confrontation due to the element of surprise. The manager glared at Henry, then noisily tromped away amidst the fog of his false accusation. Henry kept his job, but feels that he long ago lost his dignity.

  

I spoke with Henry earlier this week. It was 9:00PM, and because it was his day off, he had not eaten. “I’m just trying to be frugal,” he said. "But I don't know if I'm going to make it."

the nature of change

Last Wednesday morning, with the first of the brisk fall weather having just arrived, I was walking through downtown on my way to Sacred Heart. Summer was over, and with the onset of gray skies I couldn’t help but reflect on the changes we had seen over the previous year.

Twelve months ago we were worried because unemployment in Santa Clara County had climbed beyond 6%; we have now passed 12%. Last fall we agonized over the fact that while 7000 people are homeless each night, the largest homeless shelter in the county had only 250 beds; starting this month, this same shelter will only provide 125 beds; since last spring the number of people coming to us for emergency food, clothing, and housing assistance has risen by nearly 50%.

Making my way down First Street, I passed beneath the 280 overpass, numbers and grim statistics swirling in my head, and as I did, I ran into Ian, someone I hadn’t seen in years.

I had worked as Ian’s case manager back when he was in his teens and struggling to survive homelessness. He was a bright and resilient adolescent, and I had watched him succeed in establishing a fruitful—if not tenuous—life beyond the street, getting a full-time job and his own apartment. The last time I saw him he was continuing in this trajectory, registering for classes at San Jose City College. But this past Wednesday, amidst the din of the morning traffic, I learned that everything had changed.

After our initial pleasantries, Ian’s voice altered, and he lowered his head. He had always been fairly reserved, even serious. He began abruptly: “I had to leave my apartment about a year ago when my hours got cut.” He spoke hesitantly at first, but soon the words came tumbling out. He talked about his relationship with his mother, how she was struggling, and how he worried about his younger sister who was faring poorly in school. He was anxious about his girlfriend, who shared his fate, and every attempt to improve their conditions seemed doomed from the start.

We spoke for about twenty minutes, dead leaves scratching the cement between us as he caught up to his present circumstances: “I’ve been renting this tiny room for $200 a month, but I haven’t worked since June. Tomorrow (October 1^st) I have to move out, and I have no place to go.” And then something happened. Sitting on his bike in the middle of the sidewalk, this intelligent, hard-working young man melted into a torrent of tears.

The pain and brokenness that we see each day in our community shows no sign of abating. Although there are indications that the economy may be heading toward recovery, the splintered lives it has left in its wake will struggle for some time to regain their sense of fullness. In response to this stark reality, Sacred Heart has taken a leadership role in, among other areas, the stewardship of Federal Stimulus dollars.

The mandated focus of these funds is on emergency support for those hit hardest by the recession and on creating and sustaining employment opportunities. I want to share with you some of the changes we have been able to make with these additional resources.

In terms of emergency support, we have been able to fortify our grocery portions, buying and distributing additional staples such as eggs and tortillas. We have also begun providing our customers with “stimulus boxes”, large, supplemental portions of our traditional fare, including more fresh produce, frozen chicken, and milk.

In addition to addressing the added nutritional needs of the community, we have strengthened our housing assistance. In the past we have been able to help people facing eviction by paying up to $800 to their landlord on a one-time-only basis. Now, in certain cases, we are able to help individuals and families maintain their housing over a longer period. What’s more, we are able to help people qualify for this help who would have previously been ineligible because they did not meet a minimum income level.

But beyond this critical emergency service, we are also creating and supporting employment. We have bought work shirts, pants, boots and other employment necessities for those who have obtained jobs but lack the resources necessary to equip themselves for their first few weeks on the job.

We have implemented an expungement program for individuals who have misdemeanors on their records, but have already paid their debt to society and are working toward productive citizenship. Through this program, those who qualify can get a clean start and have a far better chance of positively reintegrating into the community.

We have also built a remarkable new program that actually creates employment: Teamworks. This is a residential cleaning co-op that not only provides sustainable work, but also completely alters the nature of the traditional corporate power dynamic. In the co-op, the workers are also the managers and owners of the enterprise. At present there are two residential cleaning teams, and we are now looking into building a landscaping team. Through this program we are incubating the individual enterprises while at the same time encouraging entrepreneurship and the empowerment of traditionally disempowered people groups, such as women and minority groups.

Looking back over the events of the past year—the economic implosion, the response by Sacred Heart, the pain of individuals like Ian—it has clearly been a season of change, both within our community and across the nation. Forces of both fragmentation and unity have been at work, altering the fabric of our shared existence. Our collective action, now and over the coming months, will determine whether the greater part of this change will have been for the common good. History will be the judge.

spider (update from 5/28, 7/25, & 8/31)

"Don't smoke in the room, and do not--under any circumstances--urinate on the carpet." I asserted this in the most earnest, authoritative voice I could muster. And with that I shut the door behind me.

It had taken two-and-a-half hours for Alicia and I to convince Spider to stay indoors last Tuesday night. We, along with several others, had worked hard over the previous month to reinstate his disability payments, and now the money was available for his use. But as deplorable as Spider's life on the sidewalk was, the trauma of moving from the known degradation of the street to something so radically different and unknown cannot be underestimated. Even a move so clearly advantageous involves loss.

After hours spent cajoling him from his alcove and into the vehicle, we had to drive around downtown San Jose looking for a place for him to stay. We were spurned by a couple motels until eventually landing a room at the relatively swank Ramada. However, part of our deal was, if he agreed to sleep in a motel for the evening, we would get him whatever he wanted for dinner. Plus, his jeans and shirt were covered in feces; if he were going to sleep in a bed, he would need new clothing and adult diapers.

After getting him situated in the room, I told him I'd be back in an hour, and then left to drop off Alicia and fulfill my promises, not really sure what I'd return to.

An hour later I arrived back at the Ramada; I held my breath and put my hand on the door handle.

Pushing open the door, there was a frantic energy in the room ... but in that first instant everything looked normal. Then I noticed that Spider had the telephone receiver to his ear and was blindly punching the key pad. He hadn't yet realized I was back. That was the first peculiar thing I beheld. "Spider, I'm here."

Startled, he cocked his head and slammed down the handset. "What took you so long!" The anger in his voice was tempered only by a barely audible note of fear.

"I'm sorry, Spider," I said, "but I'm here now, and I've got Kentucky Fried Chicken, new clothes, pull-ons, and Brut, by Faberge."

His tone shifted completely: "Oh?" And with that a smile emerged from his stormy looks. "That will be sufficient," he said, expressing his fondness for this particular men's fragrance.

"Okay, first of all, let's get you set up for dinner." I set his drumsticks and mashed potatoes with gravy on the desk, arranging the packets of salt next to his plastic-wrapped spork.

"I want a cigarette!" he suddenly demanded, wheeling himself like an assault vehicle through a chair and waste paper basket on his way to the desk. A bit alarmed by his his sudden ill-humor, I looked to the desk, and that's when I saw it: a glass half-full (I'm an optimist) of urine. And floating there in what could have been ginger ale, were two cigarette butts. I glanced instinctively at the sign posted by the door, reading, "This is a non-smoking room. $100 fine for smoking."

Pushing through me, he began feeling impatiently across the desk for his smokes, and I quickly snatched the mashed potatoes and gravy from his hands' destructive path, only to watch--as in slow motion--his arms and elbows thrash inexorably toward the glass of golden sunshine.

"Spider, no!" I yelled in vain, just as his left forearm tipped the tepid liquor from its chalice and across the polished desk, over the once-sanitary spork, onto the binder titled, What to Do When You're in San Jose, and down into the luxurious emerald shag.

The stink of urine-soaked ashes wafted quickly through the room's fusty air, and in the midst of the pandemonium, Spider turned toward me sharply and growled, "Where are my cigarettes!"

This was all I could take. Turning from him quickly, I grasped my hair in both fists and went through the motion of pulling it out. I paced rapidly back and forth, ignoring Spider's dictatorial demands, and was for a moment given over to despair. "This is never, never, never, never going to work," I kept repeating to myself. A tiny piece of soiled toilet tissue lay timid and forlorn on the rug next to the bed, and ashes were scattered all over the bathroom tile. "What have I done? I knew this wouldn't work."

After a moment I snapped out of it. I collected myself, grabbed a towel from the bathroom, and began mopping up the sooty vinegar. Spider had by this time finally laid hands on his dampened tobacco and was making his way out the door. He situated himself just outside the room and began puffing away while I cleaned the desk. It had occurred to me earlier to bring some latex gloves, so donning those I worked boldly. I wiped, rubbed, patted-dry, then tossed out the sopping visitor's binder; I sponge-mopped the lamp; and last of all I blotted the water-logged carpet. The entire room then received a baptism in Brut. I surveyed the place, and well-pleased I felt a renewed hope for Spider's success.

Dumping all the fouled evidence into a garbage bag I had thought it prudent to bring, I headed to the door to make peace with my nemesis. Stepping onto the threshold I arrived just in time to see another pint of acrid water running from Spider's lap, over the gleaming metal complex of his chair, and onto the walkway. I looked to my left, where two doors down the hotel manager sat behind a wall of glass with only the distraction of a phone call keeping him from glancing our way. (For an instant I allowed myself to take moral refuge in the fact that there was, truth be told, no sign prohibiting this practice, no fine attached to the behavior.)

I made haste with Spider's nasty glass to the restroom, filled it with water and returned to splash it beneath the wheelchair. I did this three times, and pleaded with Spider to empty his bladder into his goblet and then pour it into the toilet.

But in response to my aggravated pleading I received a pair of the saddest, most defeated eyes I have ever known. "You don't know what I've been through," Spider rebuffed me mournfully. And it's true: I didn't.

I put my hand on his shoulder and took a deep breath. "It's going to be okay, Spider," I said, as he again urinated at my feet. "It's okay, Buddy. It's okay,"

I slept fitfully that night, knowing that Spider was doomed not only to urinate, but also to smoke in bed. I wrestled all night with what I had done, examining and re-examining my own motives. What if he dies tonight? That was all I could think of. A horrible death, burning in the bed I had convinced him to sleep in. This had been a terribly conceived mistake.

I woke early the next morning and headed to the Ramada before work. I hurried to the door, fumbled with the key, and on opening the door, stood looking at Spider, blissfully sleeping in the king-sized bed, his radio on the pillow next to his head.

please help me

He was in hysterics. Part of his lip was pink and dewy, as though a segment had been carefully sliced by a scalpel. "Why are they doing this to me!" He was shrieking. "What do they want from me!" He was kicking up dirt and smacking his hands against his head and my heart was pounding and I was at an utter loss. There were cracked and blistered abrasions on one of his arms, and as he labored for breath, tears muddied his jaw. Looking wildly and directly into my eyes, he pleaded, "Make them stop!"

The whole ordeal started earlier this evening when I stopped at a light getting off the freeway. It was about 5:00PM and a man stood downcast on the side of the off-ramp with a black backpack at his feet and a cardboard sign in hand reading, Please help me. 

I rolled down my window and spoke with him for a moment, and as the light turned green, I shook his hand and learned that his name is Joshua. But after pulling away from him, I decided to turn around and go back. I circled and found my way into a parking lot, then got out of the car and joined him on the side of the road.

He seemed glad for the company and the conversation, and as we talked, he related an incoherent story, making it that much more heart-breaking. He was in his late twenties, polite, soft-spoken, homeless, hungry, and in all likelihood, schizophrenic. 

As near as I can tell, Joshua has been sleeping beneath an overpass for the past six months. He gets his food from the occasional soup kitchen, from Sacred Heart, and from the few dollars he can scrape up in alms. 

But not long into our time together, Joshua's dialogue turned to relating how, standing right where he was, he had recently been struck by a car. I tried to figure out when, but he never could get around to telling me--my guess is that it had to be within the last couple days. He lifted his shirt at one point and showed me the bruises. I asked him if the driver had stopped, and he said he didn't know--he was thrown from his feet with the wind knocked out of him, and that's all he could say. He described how when he landed, the pain welled-up into his chest (and here he made a grand gesture to emphasize the gathering of the pain), and how at the time he could neither scream nor breathe. His face was knotted in anguish as he described the incident, and he seemed to be struggling to relate the magnitude of his pain. I asked him if he had gone to the hospital, and at that question he just shattered.

"I know they're listening!" he yelled, his arms beginning to tremble while his face stretched toward mine.

"Who?" I asked, taking a step back.

"They're testing me, to see if I'm faking!" He flung his sign and began to pace. "I-can't-take-this!" he screamed, the blood vessels bulging in his neck and face. "Get me out of here!" he called to someone unseen.

"Joshua, I'm right here," I said, failing to soothe.

He picked up his hat and began to yell into it: "You can kill me! You can kill me!" 

This tortured display went on for a few minutes, until finally his volume dropped. "I'm so scared," he said, having spent his energy. "A car drove by after I was hit and said, 'Did you like that, Joshua? We're watching you!'" And at this he seized my hands: "Why would he say that?"

I couldn't see any use trying to reason with him. I simply asked, "Joshua, could I come visit you a bit later? I'd like to see where you're staying, and maybe we can talk some more."

He wiped his eyes and nodded. He pointed to the overpass, described where he slept, and explained how to find his spot.

At about 7:00PM I went back to find him.

I walked along the side of the road, against traffic, and eventually, as the road rose, I stepped off the asphalt and into the wilds that grew up along this particular stretch.

As the area beneath the overpass grew close, so did the deplorable signs of inhumane habitation. Strewn across the dirt and dried grass were at first two water-logged books and a spoon, then a pile of ruined pants, shirts, and socks, a broken box spring, and a torn suitcase, a tire, and finally a pitiful pair of underwear, tissue-thin, spread out delicately across some thistles.

I paused at the steps hewn in the rocky earth that led down and under the road. Balancing just out of view, I noticed a tent about a hundred feet away, but just then my footing gave way and I barely caught myself before sliding with the loose dirt and gravel toward the bottom of the severe incline. 

Steadying myself, I called out, "Joshua?" No answer. "Joshua?" Nothing.

I bent down to see into the cramped quarters beneath the bridge. There didn't appear to be anyone there ... but there were a number of darkened niches that I couldn't make out, so I announced myself again. I stood still for about a minute, straining to detect any movement. Then, compulsively looking back over my shoulder, I stepped down and underneath the massive structure of steel and cement.

And there I was, standing before Joshua's home: a concrete platform where the under-side of the overpass met the side of the ravine, laid-over with a mildewed futon and a couple of sleeping bags. Cars and trucks rumbled only five or six feet above my head as I looked around, wide-eyed, taking in the squalor. There were ghostly images in soot that covered segments of the walls and ceiling, and filth was everywhere. I imagined the terrors Joshua must face down there, having to make it through each night all alone with no one to comfort him, no one to tell him that everything would be alright. 

On the mattress was a small pillow, covered in dirt and ringed with water stains. Joshua.

september 11th

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was commuting on light rail from my home in Mountain View to my job in Campbell. It was about 6:00AM when I boarded the train--still gray outside and fairly chilly--and there were two men huddled next to each other listening intently to the single earpiece of a 30 year-old transistor radio. In the entire year prior, I don't recall a stranger ever once offering me a piece of news, but on that morning one of the men looked up at me and said grimly, "a plane crashed into one of the twin towers." At that moment I recalled reading of a military plane having crashed into the Empire State building some decades earlier, and although it was certainly terrible, I thought nothing more of it.

But as I progressed toward my destination, an air of pain and panic began to grow thick amidst the gathering commuters. Whispered comments and gasps ran throughout the train as riders came and went; soon there were tears, and not long after, genuine terror as people gasped, covered their mouths, and frantically tried to call loved ones.

We all recall our personal whereabouts that morning eight years ago, and we are all still caught up in its devastating effects. But this year we as a people united decided to steal back the legacy of that fateful day. Instead of allowing it to persist as something ugly, destructive, and poisonous, we joined with others all across the country in recognizing the first annual National Day of Service and Remembrance.

On September 11th, 2009, we at Sacred Heart launched a new strategy in our efforts to realize our vision, an approach that takes our work directly into the neighborhoods and homes most affected by poverty and involves bringing the general public together to work side-by-side with our low-income neighbors in building a stronger, more just community.

Specifically, we brought together some 150 students, politicians, seniors, business professionals, members of faith communities, and people living in poverty, and spread out into low-income neighborhoods to install raised-bed gardens. Working shoulder-to-shoulder in small groups, these disparate members of our society joined one another to do something beautiful, something compassionate, something full of hope and purpose.

Now, as you might imagine, bringing off something like this is quite a logistical feat. Trying to organizing all of the volunteers, the materials, the tools, the transportation to 18 different sites was not easy. And there were some challenges.

Shortly after sending the volunteers out at about 9:00AM, my cell phone began to ring. "Um, Todd?"

"Yeah?"

"Were we supposed to have shovels?"

And then things got a little out of hand. My phone wouldn't stop ringing. "We don't have enough screws." "Can you bring us a drill?" "I thought we were going to have wood--how are we supposed to build the wooden planter?" "There's no one home." The calls came tumbling in, one after the next like row upon row of a malevolent marching band.

But in the midst of this onslaught, the teams really pulled together. We sent out drivers to borrow tools from groups that had already finished using them and to transport them to the teams without. Others rushed to hardware stores to buy more supplies. When I arrived at a site that was without a functioning wheelbarrow to move the huge pile of soil from the front yard to the back (their wheelbarrow's tire was completely flat), I found the family matriarch on her knees scooping dirt with her bare hands into an old paint can, and from there into a garbage can perched atop a skateboard that acted as a make-shift wheelbarrow: not only an amazing act of ingenuity, but one full of the sort of determination that we see every day in the faces of those we serve, the determination to keep struggling because giving up carries with it too high a price. And after all of this back-breaking work, this mother of two hurried herself into her kitchen to make the entire team enchiladas.

I learned a lot that day: first, that I'm more of a big-picture guy--not so strong when it comes to details; second, that something remarkable happens when those on both sides of the economic divide come together to work toward a common vision; and third, that the low-income community is not simply a repository of deficits--that there is much in the way of assets within those weighed-down by poverty, and in many cases it is just giving people the chance to exercise those assets that will help them rise to a place of dignity and self-determination.

These gardens, only the first in what will be 100 planted by the end of the year through our La Mesa Verde program, will not only provide a supplement for families struggling to meet their nutritional needs in regions of the city conspicuously devoid of fresh produce, but also provide the impetus to community. There is something special about gardens in the way they can draw people together; we saw this already as neighbor helped neighbor in the construction of these planters, and we will rejoice when the harvest comes and the produce is shared, the yield being more than most families will be able to consume themselves.

What's more, the first harvest will coincide with Thanksgiving and Christmas, and many of the new owners of these gardens have expressed an interest in sharing their yield with Sacred Heart as we distribute holiday food boxes to the greater community. 

To all those who joined in this good work--and to all those who will do so in the future--Thank you.

the law of unintended consequences

With a face like rawhide, his silver whiskers looked like cactus spines spread out across his jaw. That, plus his cowboy boots and hat would have led me to take him for a Wyoming law man--except for his crocheted fingerless gloves and girlish dance moves.

I first saw him on the corner of a busy San Jose intersection, across from a Shell station, a Target, a Chili's, and a nail salon. The sixty-four year-old suburban wrangler pranced and frolicked to the pulsating beats being piped from his duct-taped Walkman. And in his hands was a huge green arrow-shaped sign announcing the availability of detached, two-bedroom homes. For all he was worth he swung that sign, spinning it, tossing it, and twirling it above and behind his head for every motorist to see. His feet stomped and slid as his hips swiveled and twisted to the inaudible rhythm of music and capitalism.

Earlier this evening as I approached him, he had just given himself a ten-minute break. I watched as he rolled his own cigarette and took a long swallow of pink vitamin water. He eyed me wearily from behind dark sun glasses, and when I introduced myself, he remained silent. I made an offhand compliment regarding his knit glove, which he had removed to work his tobacco, and I could tell I was losing him. He shifted his weight and began to turn away so I followed quickly with, "This seems like a pretty creative way to make money;" and to my great pleasure, he engaged me.

"If you want creative, you should go to Burning Man."

Okay, I thought. It's a start.

We ended up talking for about twenty minutes. He told me he worked five, five-hour shifts a week, being paid $10 per hour. I asked him how, at his age, he had so much energy, and he pointed to a plastic bag he had strung up in a nearby tree. It was filled with empty vitamin water bottles and an enchilada tin.

"How many of those do you usually drink per shift," I asked.

"Six," he replied gravely.

"Six!" I couldn't help exclaiming.

"The way I see it, I'm getting paid to work out," he said, taking a deep drag off his filterless cigarette. "You see here," he said, pointing to the labels: "Energy and focus. This is the perfect combination to help the music flow through me and keep me groovin' (I saw CD's by Pink Floyd and Celine Dion in his bag--not artists to which I would typically think of grooving). And it's perfectly legal." There's my law man, I thought.

"So this is your secret?" I said with admiration, eying the empties.

"Yeah. It has guarana."

"Guarana? What's that?"

"It gives you energy. It's all over the internet," he informed me.

"Where do you use the internet?" I asked.

"At the downtown library."

"I see," I replied, holding my breath for my next question: "And where are you staying right now?"

"I'd rather not say," he said cautiously. As a matter of record, the companies that provide these dancing sign-wavers their employment frequently recruit at homeless shelters. It's part-time, no-benefit work.

"Ok," I said, regretting my next question before I asked it: "Would you mind if I took your photo?"

His leather face sank in a taut frown and he exhaled in disappointment. "I'd really rather not," he began. "It may seem a simple thing--taking a man's picture--but I'm not looking for publicity (this from a man who for a living dances on a bustling intersection waving a huge sign). It's the law of unintended consequences, you see?"

And I pondered those words as he picked up the enormous sign and precariously mounted his ten-speed to go return the gaudy advertisement. Here was a sixty-four year-old man making a spectacle of himself in all sorts of weather, homeless, without health insurance, alone, spending 20% of his pittance on the energy it takes him just to get through his shift: are these the consequences we intended when constructing our society?

Spider (update from 5/28 & 7/25)

There is no getting used to the shock, the sickening mass that rises in one's throat when confronted with this 61 year-old man lying naked on the side of the city street, covered in flies and fungus. Yet there he lies each night.

Wads of soiled tissue debase his surroundings, and his wheelchair, with its one flat tire, simply adds insult to injury. At his side is the waxy cup from 7-11, the one in which he relieves himself, and next to it is a paper plate with some white rice and what looks like beef.

Spider's head rests heavily on the pavement, a stinking heap of tangled hair, dirt, and blood. Just a few inches away is a small gap in the pair of double doors to the vacant building whose doorway he calls home--and through that gap we have seen wiry, brown-haired rats pass, carrying who-knows-what manner of fleas, parasites, and disease. But there he lies each night.

Perhaps we can get used to it.

Or so I would have thought. But for more than a month now, a group of friends and colleagues has been rallying around Spider. Not content that he should be left to molder in the middle of the sidewalk, these otherwise-ordinary individuals have organized themselves to ensure that every evening a couple people pay him a visit, bringing him food, companionship, and hope. They bring bowls of soup, burritos, beans and rice, chicken--anything soft that he can manage without the use of teeth. They bring him adult diapers, batteries for his radio, new blankets, rolls of toilet paper, and whatever else he can make use of. But still, it is not enough. And they know it.

More remarkably, this group has committed to loving Spider as they love themselves. They are in the process of reminding us all just how revolutionary this now hackneyed moral precept truly is. They are working hard to secure humane housing for Spider, something befitting his human dignity. They want to make sure his medical conditions are treated. And they want to make sure he is part of a community that cares for him.

About a week ago--inspired by the devotion of this group--I thought I'd pay him a visit, myself. I approached Spider as he reclined just a few feet from the heavy traffic of a Friday night in downtown San Jose.

After some opening pleasantries, I got down to business: "How does a cheeseburger sound, Spider?"

He looked up, vaguely in my direction, and came out with this: "It sounds about half as good as two cheeseburgers."

"What?"

"My stomach is up against by backbone," he replied, and through the humor I was reminded of his very real suffering. I asked him if McDonald's would suit him, to which he responded, "That would be sufficient," using one of his most oft spoken--if not peculiar--expressions.

I made my way over to the downtown McDonald's, ordered the fare, and handed over the $2.16. And as I did, I looked at just how meagre that amount of money really was. Is that all it takes?

When I returned, I found that Spider had dozed off. I set the bag by his head, but I was worried that the rats would get it if he left it for too long. "Hey, Spider," I said softly, but he jerked awake with such violence that I leapt back. I felt horrible for waking him, but after a moment I was able to re-orient him. "I brought the cheeseburgers. They're right by your head."

A few days earlier, knowing that he was totally blind in his right eye and nearly so in his left, I had asked how he recognized me whenever I approached. "By your voice," he answered. I had hoped that he would tell me that he could still make out faces if they were up close, or that he could tell by the way I carried myself--but his vision is gone.

By now it was after 10:00PM, and I was looking to return home. I began bidding my farewell, when Spider asked if I had picked up any salt. The question caught me off guard, and I really couldn't imagine why he would want it. "Do you want to put salt on your cheeseburgers, Spider?" I asked with both amusement and disbelief.

"Um, yes," he snapped back in a tone of near perfect condescension. I looked up to the night sky, black and starless above the city's lights, and then back at Spider. "You can get it across the street at the Taqueria," he advised me in a little-boy's voice, as if my pause were simply an indication that I couldn't figure out where to get the desired substance. He followed with, "Would you mind getting me three packets?"

Three? How weird is that? That he determined it would be one-and-a-half packets per burger struck me as exceedingly curious, even for someone as curious as Spider.

I don't even think I had it in me to muster a sigh in the face of this crazy, pitiful, gentle, human being, this brother who had confided to me that he cried himself to sleep every night. So off I went, dutifully returning with the three packets.

This all took place about one week ago. Since then, two of the more courageous members of the group dedicated to looking after Spider gave him a hair cut and trimmed his beard. Another has been working feverishly on he trail of his missing money. And last week he was able to get it reinstated. The disability checks are now scheduled to start up within about one week of this posting. And with that funding comes the possibility of shelter. He is literally that close--after 28 years of almost continuous homelessness.

However, the transition from the street to stable housing is almost impossibly difficult--more strenuous on the individual than most of us could even begin to imagine. Please continue to keep Spider in your prayers. It will be not much short of a miracle to get him into humane quarters. But we are so close.

let's call it war

It was dusk, a time of transition throughout the unseen haunts of the homeless. At this hour there is much maneuvering as anxiety begins to rise in anticipation of the approaching darkness. At dusk there is the sense that one's options are diminishing, that events are already in motion that will determine the course of the dreaded night. And yesterday, this is precisely the time at which I met Sam.

Sam was starting to shift on the bus stop bench even before I first spoke with him, but what caught my attention initially were his bulging eyes. A quick google search will point out over 140 diseases that present themselves with this symptom, from iodine deficiency to hyperthyroidism, from goiter to malignant hypertension. But as we began to chat, I realized that Sam was not the least bit interested in this sort of diagnosis; he had far more pressing concerns than the slow, inevitable march of a degenerative disease.

"I can't take it out here," he said plaintively. "I'm a prisoner. I can't escape ... this." At 65 he was ready for it to all be over. His pants were a series of stains, what mostly looked like gravy, and his feet were shod in well-worn slippers. Beside him was the tell-tale grocery cart draped with garbage bags containing the bottles and cans he managed to pull from the city refuse.

As he began to narrate his recent events, I looked down to his left hand resting just inches from my shoulder. His gnarled fingers stretched their thinning skin and curved into thick, yellowed talons--and across his knuckles were the harrowing streaks of blood.

"I just needed a break," he continued, and before long he had described how, in order to escape the violence of his circumstances, deprived as he was of any semblance of human dignity, he had taken matters into his own hands. "I found a busted bottle lying in the gutter, and took it, and went to work on my arm here." And with that he made a vague sawing motion, bubbles of mucus blowing from a single nostril.

On that night, he had sliced and peeled his forearm to a mass of oozing lacerations.

He wanted to die, but this act of self-mutilation was a feigned suicide, for he proceeded to tell me how he sought out a sherif's deputy, this being the middle of the night, and presented himself with ravaged arm in full-view. "The sherif, he called an ambulance, and they took me to the EPS [Emergency Psychiatric Services] down there at Valley Med."

"What happened to you at EPS?" I inquired, not disguising my horror. I watched as his fingers repeatedly straightened, then curled back around his arm, more like tentacles than extensions of a human hand.

"Oh, well, they gave me some medicines, you know. But I got to sleep in a bed that night," he said with a grin that revealed some missing teeth and clearly infected gums.

"How long did they keep you there?"

"Oh," and then he thought for a moment. I was wondering if it was several weeks, or perhaps some number of months. "They let me go after 'bout 18 or 19 hours." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of prescription medication. It was then that I noticed the orange hospital bracelet still encircling his rawboned wrist.

"What do you mean they 'let you go?' Where did they take you?"

"Nowhere." He said matter-of-factly. "They just pointed me to the door, and out I went. They gave me these pills here, but I ain't taken 'em." He rattled them in their amber plastic, then returned them to their place.

It is difficult to talk to people in Sam's circumstances and not be mindful of the persistent state of war that rages throughout so many of our neighbors' lives, a war with effects just as ruinous as any employing bullets and artillery. Families are being forced from their homes, adults are wandering from state to state in search of work, the elderly are languishing in out-of-the-way places, and children are being denied the opportunity of a decent education. The mental and emotional violence they suffer is real.

When we contemplate armed conflict, we cling to the hope that most nations--certainly our own--will adhere to the humanitarian guidelines laid out in the Geneva Conventions. However, there are no such conventions for our own citizens during an ostensible state of peace. Thousands of our neighbors must even now sift through garbage for their food, spend freezing nights without adequate shelter or covering, allow medical conditions to fester, watch their hygiene needs founder without the means to clean themselves, and endure the indignities that await those whose destitution is put on display for every passer-by to see and scorn.

Here are just a few excerpts from the Geneva Conventions:

Art. 26: The basic daily food rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality, and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies.

Art. 27: Clothing, underwear, and footwear shall be supplied to prisoners of war in sufficient quantities by the Detaining Power, which shall make allowance for the climate where the prisoners are detained.

Art. 29: The Detaining Power shall take all sanitary measures necessary to ensure the [prisoners'] cleanliness and healthfulness. Prisoners of war shall have for their use, day and night, conveniences that conform to the rules of hygiene and are maintained in a constant state of cleanliness.

Art. 14: Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honor.

Given the fact that so many thousands of our local residents are denied these rights each day, perhaps the sensible thing to do is formally recognize that a state of hostilities exists within our society and invoke the Geneva Conventions on behalf of our community's most beleaguered members.

Let it not be said that open war is safer for our own families and individuals than is our so-called peace.

a tolerable violence

I hesitate to write this blog entry. The violence that exploded in slow motion before my eyes just a few hours ago can be written about and interpreted in any number of ways, but in the end it is a violence that is wholly unremarkable.

Earlier this evening I was in line at a downtown soup kitchen (not Sacred Heart). I was talking with the elderly man in front of me who was sitting with his tired back against the wall. His beard was long and his shoes were mismatched, but the most distinguishing thing about him was his black bicycle helmet that he kept strapped on tight.

We had just begun our conversation when an argument broke out about 15 feet in front of us. It gradually became more heated, and more and more people began shouting at the two antagonists.

I stood up from my conversation and could see the two men that the others were trying to separate. But one man seemed inconsolable. What they were disputing was not at all obvious, but my guess was a disagreement about position in line. Then through all the posturing, the jumping around, and the screaming woman with long, tangled, blonde hair, one man through a fist at his foe, connecting to the top of the other's head.

But just as soon as the one punched, he retreated, and at that point I honestly believe it was still possible to avoid what eventually happened.

The person in charge of the feed line had a moment earlier taken out his cell phone. He did it in plain view, presumably to act as a deterrent of the violence that had yet to boil over. Now that a blow had been struck, it seemed that the one who had thrown it began to realize the consequences of police involvement.

The man who had landed the jab was disabled--one of his legs was twisted in an awkward arc. He then took a swing at the person in charge--a pastor--who was still on his cell phone with emergency dispatch, and that's when the whole group began to move toward him in unison; at first slowly, but then they descended on him like the rush of a breaking wave.

The man stumbled as he backed out into the street, cars swerving to avoid him. One man hit him hard in the ear, and another punched him in the back as he lost his balance. In an instant, it seemed that the whole line was upon him. And at the same time, those who had gathered across the street ran to join in the beating. By now the man with the twisted leg had fallen into the gutter while the mob unleashed their unrestrained fury. They kicked him, they tore at his clothing, they punched and slapped and clawed at him until eventually his limbs stopped flailing, and he seemed to rest peacefully, resigned beneath the torrent of blows.

Those few of us who weren't directly beating the fallen man were circulating through the press of assailants shouting in their ears that the police were there (they weren't) and to stop the assault (they didn't). Running from man to man, I could see the rage in their eyes. Their teeth flashed, they grunted, they frothed and cursed from distorted mouths. Each one seemed to focus his entire being on crushing the pile of bones rolling around on the street within this sack of flesh.

I don't think any of these people had ever before seen the man they sought to destroy. But for that brief moment, they vied with one other to rain down the most violence on this fallen stranger. Having had my camera out to take a photo of the old man waiting in line, I at this point clicked off a single shot from within the fray.

And in an instant, it was over. The throng evaporated and the bleeding victim lay motionless with his head against the curb. I knelt down beside him, and could hear him moaning gently. Then he reached up and grasped my hand. "Please, don't leave me" he begged.

I looked around, wary of a second attack. The street, the whole evening suddenly seemed so quiet, so still. The mass of tormentors had melted back into the park across the way, into the soup kitchen, which had just opened its doors, or had simply walked around the corner and away from the scene all together.

The man gripped me tightly, and trying to rise to his feet, found he was unable. "Please, don't go," he repeated over and over, his eyes rolling about in his head as blood flowed from his temple and from both rows of teeth. I held him and told him to rest, that he was safe, and that an ambulance was on its way. I looked him over and surveyed the damage: his shirt and pants were torn, his flanks were scraped and scuffed, dirt and debris were ground into his hair, the contents of his pockets were strewn about the vicinity, the area around his left eye had begun to swell and darken. He lifted his head, and I put my foot beneath it as a pillow.

Within several minutes, the police did arrive in force. The man I held clung to me with both hands until the police at last took him from me.

It is difficult to reflect on what I've just witnessed--just participated in. So many thoughts now fill my head: Could I have done more to prevent the escalation of violence? There were small steps, each of which edged closer to the eruption of savagery, but none of which were inexorable. Could I have done more to protect the fallen man? I am hardly an intimidating physical presence, but at some level courage and moral presence can command a situation. Why are we as a community content to put thousands into the situation of having to fight for their survival from day to day?

But by far my most disturbing thought is that violence, so long as it remains within the lower economic classes, is fairly tolerable. Most of the violence I have witnessed between the homeless and indigent goes unprosecuted. This goes for rape and sex-slavery as well as street fights. It is primarily when the violence breaks upwards into the middle class that society becomes alarmed and punishes the assailant with full vigor. As long as law-enforcement can keep a lid on things, can keep the violence restricted to the poor, we are pretty well satisfied.

After even the least bit of reflection it seems foolish that anyone would put himself in harm's way for someone mired in poverty and more than likely accustomed to violence.

The question I now ask myself is, Would I have done more to protect someone who looked more like me?

ann's story

At 22, Ann was struggling. Working nights at the Jollibee was an anemic, minimum wage affair, and when business was brisk she would stay late to finish out the closing procedures: bleaching towels, filling condiment bins, stuffing napkin dispensers—critical jobs one and all.

But for Ann, staying late meant missing the evening’s final bus home. “What was I supposed to do?” she asked me. “I needed the extra money.” (The extra hour netted her about $4.90.)

“The problem was that I had to ask one of my co-workers for a ride home. I felt so ashamed.”

“What?”

As it turned out, when Ann and her fellow employee would get close to her place, she would initiate an elaborate ruse. “Okay, here we are,” she would say, having her colleague drop her off around the block from where she actually slept. Having him pull over in front of an apartment complex she had never, in fact, visited, Ann would exit the vehicle with a chipper, “See you tomorrow!”

“Do you want me to wait until you get in?” the driver would inevitably ask, to which Ann would reply, “Oh no, I’m fine. Thank you—good night."

She would then walk up the path to the complex, and as soon as her friend would drive off, she would retrace her steps and walk back around the block to where she actually spent her nights: the homeless shelter.

“I hated being homeless.”

That was seven years ago, and a lot has changed for Ann since then. She has two beautiful children, her own car, and lives with her children’s father in her own place just around the corner from Sacred Heart.

But she is still struggling.

Ann now works three jobs, and even these aren’t enough to provide for her young family’s basic needs. The four of them are squeezed into a one-room apartment; her boyfriend is unemployed; they have no health insurance; and she relies on CalWORKS for her childcare.

She has come to Sacred Heart for help with obtaining employment, for her Thanksgiving turkey, for her infant’s diapers, and not long ago she received an eviction notice that she was only able to fend off through the help of Sacred Heart’s Emergency Rental Assistance program.

Recently, when her car broke down, she took it to a mechanic. Unable to pay for the repairs, the car is still being held at the shop until the entire bill can be paid. And as of today she has been unable to pay this month's rent.

We have asked Ann to help those of us who have never experienced the frustrations, the desperation, or the hopelessness of poverty. Within the next day or two, Ann will begin using our Facebook page to give regular updates on her day-to-day activities. We invite you to comment on her posts, ask questions, or otherwise share your reactions (although we can't guarantee that she will respond).

This is an experimental program, and we are grateful for Ann’s vulnerability and willingness to take this on in service to the broader community. Our hope is that this conversation will begin to build the foundations of solidarity between the poor and the prosperous, and that on this foundation we might create a culture in which poverty is no longer acceptable.