DAY FOUR
01.12.25. The Baptism of the Lord.
“You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
12.2.19 Message of Our Lady of Medjugorje
“Dear Children,
As I am looking at you who love my son,
My heart is being filled with tenderness.
I am blessing you with a Motherly blessing.
With a motherly blessing
I am also blessing your shepherds –
You who speak the words of my Son.
Who bless with His hands
And who love Him so much
That you are ready to make every sacrifice
For Him with joy.
You are following Him,
Who was the first Shepherd,
The first missionary.
My children, apostles of my love,
To live and work for others,
For all those whom you love through my Son,
Is the joy and comfort of earthly life.
If through prayer, love, and sacrifice
The Kingdom of God is in your hearts,
Then your life is joyful and bright.
Among those who love my Son
And who love each other through Him,
Words are not necessary.
A gaze is sufficient for the unspoken words
And unexpressed feelings to be heard.
There where love reigns,
Time no longer counts.
We are with you.
My Son knows you and loves you.
Love is that which brings you to me,
And through that love, I will come to you
And speak to you of the works of salvation.
I desire for all of my children to have faith
And to feel my motherly love which leads them to
Jesus.
Therefore, you, my children
Wherever you go,
Illuminate with love and faith as apostles of love.
Thank you.”
Today I did my first bit of dumpster diving, a simple introduction, Natalie my guide. She was standing in the field south of Sunnyview, the one with the Trump supporters sign which got vandalized a few weeks back. I stop and chat with her; she’s been on the streets for four years, the breakup of a tumultuous relationship the cause, the sacrifice of her now twelve-year-old son a byproduct of her moving out. She hasn’t seen her son, Carmelo, in those four years. She’s in the field taking a break: “I’m just resting before continuing to the Bottle Drop. This bag keeps falling off the side of my little wagon here. It’s hard being out here.” She tells me the story about the breakup and her son. She takes a hygiene kit from me.
I came out today without any food, just my backpack filled with sandwich bags, filled with provisions care of my dear friend Mel Carter who is purging as a kind of New Year’s resolution: toothbrushes, travel size toothpaste, floss, deodorant wipes, deodorant itself, moisturizing ointment—items from her house which I received in a box on Thursday. I added to them cue-tips and bandages. Natalie takes a sandwich bag: “If I get one more pair of socks from someone out here, I don’t know…” She’s wearing white flip-flops, a single strap covering the whole top of her foot. “I’ve got fourteen pairs of socks on me right now.” No kidding, I peer into her bag and there they are, two pairs of clean socks. “But I don’t understand it: sometimes the socks are really old and you can see the bleach stains from their husband’s socks he’s been wearing for years and these nice ladies think we out here on the streets need his leftovers. Just saying: I don’t need any socks.” Noted.
I offer to carry the recyclables bag the rest of the stretch to the Bottle Drop, perhaps eight blocks distance. As we’re traveling she mentions the church often has weekend gatherings and they never recycle but trash their redeemable recycling so our next stop is at the church’s dumpsters. I’m a novice who digs through the actual recycle bins first, even opening the lid on the yard waste before turning my attention and helping her in the main trash dumpster. There’s nothing by way of bottles or cans in there: “You can tell you’ve hit on something when lifting a bag and the aluminum from the cans makes a clinking sound, a nice sound…” She winks at me. I pull a half-eaten bag of tostadas from the pile, sealed with a rubber band and not soiled by any other contents of the dumpster. Overcoming my shame, I ask her if she will eat them: “If the packaging is closed and there isn’t a bunch of garbage on it, of course I can eat them.” I gingerly place the bag of tostadas in the bag atop the two pairs of socks.
Headed west again on Sunnyview, she opens up: “The city has made being homeless illegal, there’s nowhere that you see right now that isn’t either property of the city, these sidewalks, the land along the streets, or what belongs to private homeowners. It’s illegal to camp within the city limits so sometimes we’ll set up a tent at midnight and pull it down at five in the morning just to get some kind of rest out here. I mean, it’s darn near illegal to stand in one place for more than ten minutes and pick your nose, they’ll flag you down and judge the technique of your picking! Just one time I’d like to attend a city council meeting and ask them flat out: ‘Are you guys really this bored? Do you need to regulate my life to the tiniest degree?’” At this juncture I went down a thought path she grinned at, mentioning it must be a hard job for the police officers as well, carrying out the directives of their superiors and the politicians. “There was this time about a year ago on Coral Street; it was frigid cold (Perhaps the polar ice freeze that enveloped the whole country last year over Martin Luther King weekend.) and there were about five of us huddled around this "gigantic" fire (she cups her hands betraying actual size of the fire they had made) and these cops come up to us. With barely a word, one of them uses a fire extinguisher and sprays out our fire and sprays out the face of one of my girlfriends too. If you know anything about fire extinguishers, the way they work is both to suppress the fire AND suck the oxygen out of the air so the fire won’t have that kind of fuel anymore so my girlfriend had the wind sucked out of her space. I try to be gracious to the cops, but that incident makes it hard for me to empathize with them.”
At the Hawthorne crosswalk she eyes an abandoned PETSMART shopping cart, blue, tosses a ripped pair of jeans out, grabs my load of bottles (which she naturally discerned I was struggling with), throws them in: “We’ll use this to get to the Drop.” She is so delightful; I’m amazed she’s been on the street so long. She sees Richard coming toward us on the sidewalk and greets him: “No, I haven’t seen Kristina” and rolls on at a pace of determination. When we arrive at the Bottle Drop, I’m instructed to park my cart along the curb while she asks some fellows along the wall of the building to the north to keep an eye on her wagon while she redeems her cans/bottles. After sharing some hygiene kits with these fellows, sharing also my regrets that I don’t have any cigarettes, I enter the BD and take my leave of Natalie. She’s rifling her goods into the cylinder: “Oh, thank you for walking with me. I appreciate it.” I have a lingering sense of appreciation too.
Amber saunters toward me in a bulking pink jacket looking for money—her head hurts and she needs to get some pain meds. As a rule, not an absolute rule, but a very firm boundary, I don’t pass out money on the streets. People see me coming with the cart and think I’m off my rocker, which I am, but I’d be certifiable (some days I feel as if I’m tending in that direction) if I took greenbacks to the streets and connected with the people by giving out money. Amber is not happy with me since it’s clear I have some means to supply what she’s asking. These are some of the sticking points when a request arises: “What is an actual help and what is strictly enabling? Should I take a pack of cigarettes out and light one up for the occasional ask? Should I put a bottle of beer in with the waters for my man on Market who only wants beer?” Compassion is a weird thing and the question is no longer “What would Jesus do, but what is Jesus doing?” It’s not written in the gospels, but perhaps Jesus found a coin or two in the dust of the streets he traversed. Maybe he passed those along but that isn’t written down either. He knew intuitively money wasn't what his people needed.
Even more germane to Amber’s disgust is the fact that I touched her. Touch on the streets is an interesting dance that requires discernment, and I missed it on this occasion. A moment before she asked for the cash, I had placed my hands on her shoulders—she backed away in caution. That was my sin of presumption, presuming the other feels safe before they do, presuming I have any right to touch before there’s an established trust and permission to do so. Jesus wants His touch to be manifest on the streets, but it has to be His.
I walked along the storefront edge of the strip mall between Sunnyview and Wolverine Street, noticing everything in my surroundings. The various forms of trash lining the sidewalk of the vacant BIG LOTS store, food wrappers, bottle caps, a tossed-off arm from a plastic doll. There’s a general filth too, dirt and dank. The BIG LOTS entrance is lined with chain-link fencing to prevent us from camping on the sidewalk or commandeering the building itself. At the south edge of the fence in big block letters is the graffitied phrase: “U GONNA FIX IT?” I think it’s the wrong question, both to random passers-by and to the Christ as well. Perhaps a better question: “YOU GONNA BE WITH US IN IT?”
Walking further along I notice the propane tanks and wood pellets stacked on pallets at the entrance of the BI-MART. Sometimes I stop at this juncture to check my phone, to see if anyone has texted or called since I’ve been out. Sometimes I park the cart alongside the merchandise for sale and re-arrange the garbage bags and grocery bags, clap together a final display of the goods still available in the wagon. It gives me pause about provision: do I truly trust in the Lord’s intimate involvement in my basic needs or do I rush with anxiety to meet them with resources I falsely claim as my own, somehow having something to do with my capacity to procure them? Am I allowing Christ to fully minister to me in my broken and longing and aching heart? More importantly, I look at all the things on offer on the open market—all the goods and material richness we take for granted—and I wonder: is any of this hitting the spot of my need?
At the north end of the strip mall, I notice a figure along the Wolverine sidewalk wearing fire-retardant pants. He’s got a couple of carts he’s attending and a rickety bicycle standing watch over the activity. It’s Sean. I first met Sean underneath the I-5 overpass at Market, he and his wife Jessica hunkered down there for a few days. I doubt Sean has a “problem” with drugs; he embodies the term resilience. After hellos, he launches in: “On Thursday, I’ve got a meeting at Arches to talk about getting a place, we’ve been on the waitlist and finally we’re going to see…Jessica is doing good, right now she’s at her son’s house…I’ll take a bunch of those kits (Hygiene) and will pass them out since I know lots of people who could use them…” There’s a gathering of tarp-covered carts to our north and he lolls over, opens a gap between tarps and asks the inhabitants if they’d like hygiene kits too. I pass three of them through the crack and lay them behind a young lady who isn’t interested in turning toward us.
I hope Sean’s meeting gives him hope this week; the thought occurs to me that we might be failing these people with false hopes instead of real engagement. As I lift my eyes and heart to the Lord, it seems clear Sean will not be housed anytime soon; may his hope be in something much more substantial than his prospects with Arches.
Today’s walk around Planned Parenthood is quiet. There aren’t any new camper vans to visit, no activity besides the crow landing in the tree on the lot. Along the east side fence, I take note: a chocolate milk bottle wedged in the shrubbery, a damp blanket lying at the base of the fence, a carpet chunk. The BLACK LIVES MATTER big yellow sign on the building saddens me, an affront to true engagement with the welfare of those who are black. At the senior housing facility to the north, I notice a black powder-coated bench chained to a thick-trunked tree and more random debris: a soggy paper towel roll discarded, and a used syringe. As I walk today, my prayer is for everyone who will be in the building this week: the doctors, the nurses, the frightened young mothers and their children. I’m asking for a measure of peace to enter hearts there, all the hearts and minds and bodies in the building. Today is the Lord’s baptism where Jesus hears directly from the Father: “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” I want each soul entering this building to truly know who they are before their generous and loving Father.
A few weeks ago, while walking the PP perimeter, I prayed in a way I never have before: "Lord, forgive me for the ways I kill your precious children every day.” It lifted a burden from my soul and expressed a truth I am usually able to repress under a façade of “being good.” If I were to read the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where the Lord is teaching about anger, that's probably where I’d be most convicted of this reality in my life. I do not want to kill people anymore, but to give them life.
As I head toward Lancaster, Victor is standing over the tarp-covered carts conversing with someone inside. A shame washes over me: Victor and Don are two men—young—on the street who I’ve gauged as possibly fit for housing—at my house. Kind Hispanic men, they don’t seem to fit the mold of living their entire existence on the streets. But that isn’t the source of my shame. My shame is from having met him with some friends two days ago in the spot where I am currently standing, asking his name, and remembering my first encounter with him: praying along the west sidewalk on Coral with Don. It was the first time I had prayed aloud with anyone out here and it was Don’s request. During our prayer, a dealer of some sort—drugs, prostitution—drove up, window down, and interrupted us asking if we needed anything. Don and Victor were used to such intervention. I was confused and angry, my prayer too small. It needs to open out to wash over and encompass that man too.
On Friday when we were out, Corey told me about Dough Hook Donuts, a tiny shop in the strip mall behind Walgreens. Empty-handed food-wise today, I decide to get a dozen and share them out. The young lady at the counter informs me they are limited to the selections on the counter so I get a random dozen of her choosing—it seems they need to get rid of the raspberry glazed, based on the ratio she selects. The place is quaint, an industrial galvanized 3D mural on the wall to your right as you walk in. The donuts are huge, and look amazing, classic style circular with a hole at the center.
I exit the shop and stroll south behind the Walgreens—the William Tell Overture blaring. Walgreens--this particular location anyway--has determined that playing loud classical music twenty-four hours a day is the remedy for the attraction of their sidewalks to homeless folk. I don’t think it’s working—there’s always a large gathering of folks there, carts often lining the east side of Lancaster. Today, I ride my feet along the backside of the store to engage my friend of the moment: Chuck is in a wheelchair nestled against the dumpster station between Walgreens and the Car Wash. He’s the guy we saw on Friday—head and torso covered with a blanket—and I discover now he doesn’t have legs. The socks we gave him on Friday are warming his hands—he hands me a brown grocery bag filled with what I believe is excrement he’s just deposited. “Can you toss that in the dumpster there, please?” Gladly. I’ve never considered the details and practicalities of being homeless, legless, and toiletless, having to navigate one’s way through a bowel movement. I am truly honored to be able to help him in this way.
Chuck’s “pants” are still lingering just above the end of his stub thighs, his genitals exposed to the fresh air and to me, his momentary assailant. I offer him a donut: “Which one should I take? There’s a bunch of different kinds…” to which I wait, knowing he’ll choose well. He takes the first available raspberry and begins mowing on it—a child in primary school, maybe. “Oh my gosh, YUM! It is raspberry.” (Chuck is the one who determined for me the precision of that purple flavor.) I crouch before him and watch him enjoy his treat. That dozen donuts cost me twenty bucks and this right here is worth every penny. By the time I’m on my way further, Chuck has purple shades of grace and frosting lining his beard.
I’m tempted to get these other eleven donuts into the most immediate hands: I want to treat the Mexican guys at the end of the car wash, buffing, waxing, and drying, but they are swamped. A father and his young son across Lancaster waiting outside the bus shelter occupied by an elderly lady. I want to give a donut to each of them. Instead, I continue south, making eye contact with a young kid on a bicycle racing my way in front of the Les Schwab. I stand in his path and show him my goods, feeling oddly like the counterfeit watch scalpers in a 1980 movie. I might as well be a drug dealer for the time being, pulling back the flaps of my jacket, alighting my product. This kid smiles, takes a donut and rides on after “really appreciate you, man.” That’s the thing, isn’t it: they don’t appreciate me, they appreciate being seen, being brought into a communion which moments before was completely lost on them. I went to mass earlier today and Jesus is THE Dough Hook. He is our food, our modem of connection, our capacity to even enter into these encounters.
Tom isn’t homeless; he lives in my neighborhood but right now he’s a street corner preacher disinterested in a sugary treat. His station has two easel boards, a smaller and a larger. The smaller has a statement about some kind of connection—Obama and Trump conversing and being civil at Jimmy Carter’s funeral three days ago. The larger easel message is lost on me: sixteen years of voter fraud seen from his post as an election official, boding some kind of ruin for the near future. It takes a lot of guts to stand on a corner broadcasting to everyone passing by a few disparate thoughts. I wonder about his aim, his inspiration: would he like us to concur with him or is he simply stating some points. I’m missing something, but the Lord sees hearts, thank God.
Direction Fred Meyer I run into Dawn who’s coming my way—a woman I’ve never met before. She’s got a Walmart bag in one hand and a concerned look, saddened by the woman across Lancaster wailing at everything and nothing: “She’s having a bad day” for sure. I commend both Dawn and the screaming woman to the only woman who can help them right now, Mother Mary.
Laurie was at her post at the entrance to Fred Meyer, eyes bulging when I showed her the donuts. She fished around in her shopping bag for something to put a couple of them in so she could share with Libby. I stood there aloof, watching as she came up with nothing. The dozen were split into two boxes, so I told her to stop looking for a container, to take the four in the first box and balance them on her walker. She’s a reserved lady; I was happy to bust her into some excitement.
Sean and Stephanie sat in her car as I walked up to the roundabout at the Days Inn. They were chatting in the sunlight, windows open when I arrived. “Hey, we were just talking about you, how nice of you to come out here and visit us, share with us.” She took the one whipped cream donut in the bunch; he took a glazed crème bru lee. We chatted awhile about the tattoo business, concrete work, etc. Their neighbor Jerry came out of his camper and enjoyed some sugar before I took some to a man working on his mini-van at the end of the line. There’s something about Sean and Stephanie which I appreciate: they truly care for one another, in a gritty kind of way. Connections on the street have to be deeper than one might think; there’s nothing else to stand on.
John is under the I-5, his nose still in bad shape from banging it into a tree in the dark a few days ago. He takes a donut while I put some peroxide on a cotton ball and treat the oozing scab on the bridge of his nose, being careful not to upset the broken bone beneath it. He’s his usual reserved self and stands there idly munching on a donut while I work. Clean as we’re going to get it, I hand over a hygiene kit and the rest of the bottle of peroxide, a half dozen bandages, and lightly tap him on the shoulder. He smiles an exhausted smile and I carry on towards home.
I’ve come full circle: at the corner of Hawthorne and Market stands one of the men I stood with while Natalie took care of her cans. People out here are very mobile and this isn’t the first time I’ve run into someone at the end of my route who I bumped into at the beginning of it. He smiles a toothless grin while standing over his dog, takes the final donut and concurs, yes, it was him at the Bottle Drop. He’d been sitting there waiting for his wife to finish an errand, resting. It’s been a good day out here, time for me to get home and rest a bit myself.
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