ACTS
13:14, 43-52
REV
7:9, 14b-17
JOHN 10:27-30
I recently was asked by a dear friend what she can
do to help a homeless woman who lives on the streets near her home. She’s been
taking her to the store for groceries, offering blankets and other needed
survival items, but wanted to do more.
I told her the most important thing she can do is
be her friend, walk with her, continue to offer her the ministry of your
presence. This was the best medicine for her ailing new friend. Let her know
she’s not alone.
This homeless person has one thing going for her: she
now has a friend.
In the winter of 2005, L.A. Times columnist Steve
Lopez was a writer in search of a good news story. He never expected that his
life would be forever changed, or richly blessed, or that he’d have a new
lifelong friend in a homeless man.
As he was sitting in a downtown Los Angeles park
one sunny afternoon, he heard a homeless man playing a violin. The instrument
only had a two strings on it, but the music being played was remarkably
beautiful.
Lopez struck up a conversation with the man and
quickly discerned he was mentally ill since his rapid fire speech made little
sense and seemed completely disconnected from reality.
But the man did make a reference to once being a
student at Julliard (Julliard is the nation’s premiere music school based in
New York City).
Lopez thought, ‘Now that’s a good news story: A
former Julliard student now living homeless on the streets of L.A. playing a violin.”
So after his brief encounter, the columnist
contacted Julliard and found out that in fact Nathaniel Anthony Ayers had been a student there in the early 1970s,
but dropped out after only a few years.
In his early 20’s, Nathaniel suffered a mental
breakdown at Julliard due to the onset of schizophrenia.
Since then, he’d been living on the streets,
surviving day to day by raiding trash bins and living off the throwaways and
scraps of our society of abundance.
No one chooses to be homeless. It’s never a choice. Life circumstances lead people to the
streets: abuse in the home, addiction, mental illness, poverty.
Often, these people feel frightening to us.
But every one of these people living on the streets
is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s mother, somebody’s son or father or sister
or brother.
They were not born mentally ill. They were not born
addicted to drugs or alcohol. They were not born homeless.
There’s a story behind each and every one of these
human souls. And their story will break
your heart if you take the time to listen and learn it.
Homeless people are the most disenfranchised and
neglected people in American society.
And they don’t have a voice. You could be that voice.
The problem of homelessness is huge here in the
Pacific Northwest. Our region has the
third worst homeless problem in the nation.
And 97% of the homeless in our area are native Washingtonians.
Homelessness exploded on the American stage in the 1970s
and 80s with the defunding of mental institutions. It exploded when broken men
coming back from Vietnam found themselves rejected by America for an unpopular
war. It exploded when some in the youth culture embraced hard drugs like heroin,
becoming hopelessly addicted.
Most recently, it exploded with entire families forced
from homes due to the Great Recession of 2008.
There are a million reasons why people live on the
streets. There are no easy answers, no simple solutions to the problem.
Experts say the homeless crisis is not going to go
away until we resolve as a society to provide permanent housing for our sisters
and brothers living on the streets. It
will end when we have the political resolve to spend our tax dollars on drug
treatment and mental health counseling. It will end when we start to truly SEE
the people living on the streets as people -- instead of turning our heads,
looking the other way and ignoring the problem.
Some experts say, “It costs just 16-thousand dollars a
person a year to provide an apartment and social and clinical services. It
costs 100-thousand dollars a year if we leave people on the streets and they
cycle through the public health system and jail. And when they cycle through
they always land back on the sidewalk and there’s been no resolution to their
long-term homelessness and no improvement to their health.” Some experts say, “We can end street-dwelling
homelessness in about two years with the right investment and in the short-run
it will actually save taxpayer money.”
Steve Lopez ended up doing not just one story about
Nathaniel, but a series of stories that touched the hearts of millions of
people who have now seen the movie and read the book “The Soloist.”
In one touching scene, Lopez finds his friend
Nathaniel as he’s bedding down for the night amidst the chaos of the night streets
of Skid Row.
As he’s preparing to go to sleep, the homeless man
starts to pray for all the troubled men and women around him, the mass of
humanity that occupy a few square blocks of downtown Los Angeles, “a lost
colony of broken, homeless souls.” He prays a simple and poignant Our Father.
Lopez wrote of this scene in one of his columns, “Every night my friend Nathaniel tucks his
instruments away and lays his head among the predators and hustlers, among
fallen drunks, sprawled on the streets, as rats the size of meatloaves dart out
of drains to feed off the squalor. I
tell him this is no place for him.”
A line from second reading from Revelation was read at a Memorial Service in our
parish in February for Rudy, the homeless man who died on the streets of
Everett. Our homeless sisters and
brothers were the sheep who heard the Good Shepherd’s voice with the line, “and
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The promise of eternal life, a life free of pain and suffering is
promised to us all, even our brothers and sisters living on the streets of our
community.
As we heard in the first reading from Acts of the Apostles,
“For so the
Lord has commanded us, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, that you may
be an instrument of salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
In the end, Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ayers became friends.
And his homeless friend, thanks to the power of their friendship, no longer
lives on the streets, but in permanent housing.
Steve blessed Nathaniel with the ministry of
presence and the relationship richly blessed both of their lives.
The ministry of presence is what we offer every
night to our sisters and brothers living on the streets at Operation Nightwatch
in Seattle, in addition to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sleeping bags,
backpacks filled with needed survival supplies, and socks. Lots of socks.
In September, we’re bringing this homeless street
outreach ministry to Everett. We will initially base it out of our parish
community.
If you’re interested in finding out more or being a
part of this, we’re holding an information night on Wednesday, May 18th
at 7pm at Hensen Hall next to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Everett (Ceder and Everett Ave).
The idea of joining us on the streets may seem daunting or
overwhelming to you. That’s OK. There many other ways you can help us behind
the scenes.
Families can help by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Students can help by launching sock drives at
their schools. Our prayer shawl ministry
will be making hats and scarfs.
There are lots of ways to show loving presence to our homeless
sisters and brothers besides being present to them on the streets.
This week also kicks off the Annual Catholic Appeal, the effort to
fund the many ministries in this Archdiocese.
Among them is the Mission office which will be helping us to launch our
homeless ministry.
The Annual Catholic Appeal also funds deacon and priest formation
and many other important ministries in Western Washington.
Please give what you can to our Archbishop’s efforts.
The day will come when we all will be joined together amidst “a
great multitude, which no one (can) count, from every nations, race, people and
tongue.”
We will stand wearing our white robes, holding palm branches in
our hands before the throne of the Lamb.
“The one who
sits on the throne will shelter (us). And (we) will not hunger or thirst anymore.”