The Walk

Yesterday evening, a fellow advocate informed me that one of our homeless friends, Ted, had been hospitalized after a bout with the flu caused pneumonia, which resulted in a collapsed lung. He'd been on a ventilator for nearly a week, and there was little hope of recovery. They were talking about "pulling the plug" if he did not improve.

I used to visit Ted regularly when he lived in a nearby camp. He had a fantastic, goofy sense of humor and never failed to make us laugh. He loved to tell stories, especially of his hunting escapades and his misadventures on his beloved dirt bike. Whenever any of us came by with a meal, coffee, blessing bags or warm blankets, he was always so gracious and appreciative.

I went to the hospital with a friend to see Ted today, not sure of what to expect, and quite honestly, I was feeling uneasy, even scared. The thought of seeing this usually jovial, feisty man hooked up to machines and tubes was unnerving. We were told he was heavily sedated and might not even know we were there. 

But when we reached the ICU, we were met with a very pleasant surprise.

He still had his oxygen and feeding tubes, but three hours earlier, they'd removed the ventilator. And even though he was still coming off the sedatives, his entire face lit up when he saw us. He lifted his hand to reach for mine, and I only wished I could have hugged him proper at that moment.

Despite some difficulty communicating, it was clear to us that he was on the mend: joking, cussing, asking the pretty young nurse if he could please have some breakfast, unaware that it was already dinnertime. She said no; he would have to wait until the next day; aspirating on solid food was still a concern.

There's still the question of what awaits him once he is released - if he will resume his life on the streets, or if Ted's miracle is only just beginning. But for now, we took comfort in his recovery, and we continued pray for his continued healing.

Hills, valleys, slopes, rocks, puddles, and landings: that is the nature of the walk.

It is a handful of success stories. The man who moved in with his cousin in California and, to this day, hand-writes letters to his New Jersey friends. The young mom who left her abusive relationship and sings at her church. The couple who worked and saved their way from a tent to a new apartment. The animal activists who, with the help of like-minded advocates, found a home down south with an acre of property so they can tend to their furry and feathered family.

It is frustration. The myriad of people who received a year of housing under the consent order that closed Tent City, but who ended up back on the street or in the woods. The struggle between honoring the humanity and dignity of every individual, regardless of circumstances, and wondering how much is genuine help, and how much is enabling. Watching people deteriorate from substance abuse, wondering what sort of demons they are compelled to drown, numb, or feed. Learning to forgive the toughest ones - the defensive souls who lash out like rabid dogs, the master manipulators to whom empathy is merely a weakness to be exploited. And realizing they, however flawed, are human too.

It is introspection. Realizing how just one choice, one catastrophe, one stroke of bad luck, can mean the difference between a roof over one's head and a flimsy cot in a rain-soaked tent. Looking at one's own life with newfound, overwhelming gratitude. Admitting that sweating the small stuff, life's little inconveniences, is time spent poorly. Wondering if my kids are absorbing the lessons of our encounters with the homeless, and feeling proud when, in ways great and small, they demonstrate principles of charity and generosity in their own lives, to all who cross their respective paths. 

It is profound compassion rooted not only in what we feel, but in faith. The full realization that, in the words of Katherine Henson, "having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness." It is possessing such a heart, one that has borne slings and arrows of the worst kind, but beats on, driven by a fierce, unrelenting, life-affirming love. It is leaning on one another as brothers, sisters, confidantes, and healers, and on He who has brought us this far, giving us the strength to soldier on.

This is not the life I've chosen, but the day I followed my heart down an unpaved road in the Pinelands, this life chose me.

Days like today, I'm thankful that it did.

Bread and Ten Thousand Roses

"Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for—but we fight for roses, too!"

The sermon at church yesterday morning centered on social justice, so the choice of that particular hymn, "Bread and Roses," was befitting. It called to mind the 1912 Lawrence textile strike in which people of all nationalities united for worker's rights, as well as my fondness for the musical talents of the late John Denver.

Later that day, I was still pondering the lyrics, and how accurately they surmise the human condition. We have the practical needs that keep us alive, and the spiritual needs - love, acceptance, dignity, and respect - that make life worth living.

The song remained in my head as I made my way through the snow heading towards Tonya and Mark's trailer. It was the first time I was seeing the place up close.

I greeted both of them with hugs. Mark seemed so frail, his face sunken around the hole where his nose used to be, and in obvious pain. Yet, he remained upbeat.

They were using the gas burner on the stove to heat the trailer, and I found the dry propane heat made breathing slightly uncomfortable. It was hard to imagine how it must have felt for Mark, who, with his missing nose, was only able to breathe through his mouth.

Mark offered me a bottle of water from their "fridge," a little crate just outside the trailer door. They had some power, but weren't allowed an actual refrigerator; it would have cost the property owner "too much money in electricity."

This was the same property owner who had sealed the door to the trailer's bathroom shut, requiring Mark and Tonya to walk to the main house to use the facilities. Who refused to hook up a pipe to allow for running water, again, citing the expense. And yet, who charged this ailing couple several hundred dollars a month for their crude accommodations.

My suggestion was that a recent cash donation might buy them a night or two at a hotel where Mark could enjoy a bath, where they could watch TV, have running water, and a comfortable bed.

As Tonya contemplated it, she reminded me, "It could always be worse."

And for a time, it was. They had previously lived in a shed, contending with spiders and other vermin; she mentioned one time when she was bitten by a spider and took months to recuperate.

Yesterday was also Super Bowl Sunday, and my kids were looking forward not as much to the game as to the halftime show. Over iced tea and green bean fries and other assorted appetizers, they sang along and marveled at the spectacle. A spectacle to rival the show itself: the ten thousand roses sent to halftime performer Beyonce by her husband, Jay-Z.

And I thought about how that degree of excess - a standard to which the rich and famous are accustomed - are not the "roses" we ought to be fighting for. Especially when there are people at the opposite end of the economic in this country who are homeless, sick, and forgotten.

Especially when only an hour or so before, I heard a penniless, suffering man praise his partner, saying, "I don't know what I'd do without her. I definitely wouldn't still be alive."

But I'm sure if he could afford to send her ten thousand roses, he most certainly would.

(To donate to "A Home for Mark and Tonya," click here.)