Homeless

A couple of weeks ago, as I approached the double doors of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, I noticed the sleeping bag at my left. Tucked inside was a darkly bearded man. Behind him was a backpack, and as the faithful congregated, he remained unperturbed and asleep. No one asked him to leave, nor did anyone bring him a cup of coffee and a sweet roll. When we emerged an hour later, he was gone.

I learned a bit later that he’s often there in the morning, and he slept unusually late that Sunday. No one knows his name or his circumstances, but no one harasses him.

Is this the best we can do, “not harass him?” Where does he take care of the necessities of life? Our bathrooms are locked, our church is locked, our parish hall is locked. We don’t have a port-a-potty on our grounds. The Walgreen’s across the street might be open all night, and perhaps they’ll let him use their facilities. But why can’t we?

Many years ago and far, far away I lived across the parking lot of another Episcopal church. Everything was in one building, not like the sprawling campuses in California. The church proper and one office were at street level, the choir loft above in back, and the undercroft (basement) held bathrooms, kitchen, and classrooms. The building was always open. This was in the 70’s on an island, a small suburb of Buffalo, where crime was pretty much limited to misdemeanors. It wasn’t unusual to find a note of a Sunday morning in the kitchen, sometimes with a dollar or two, thanking the church for the coffee and a place to sleep. Maybe they were just traveling through, but maybe they were homeless and transients of another sort. Whatever, the church was there with shelter, a degree of warmth, toilets, water and coffee. It was in the early 80’s and after I’d moved with my two boys to Buffalo that the brass candlesticks were stolen and a decision was made, sadly, to lock the church. Not just the pews and the altar, but the building where a weary traveler could find sanctuary. My younger son was one of those weary travelers for a few months and when there was no place left for him to sleep, he made his way to the familiar church, believing it was open. Not too different from the man outside St. Mark’s two weeks ago, and just as sadly, my son slept outside in chilly late September.

What is a church about if not to provide shelter and food and comfort for the homeless, the less fortunate, the hungry, the lost, and the sick? Is that not what Christians are called to do? “As you do unto the least of these my children, you do unto me”, Christ said.

We could blame Ronald Reagan for the homeless pandemic, but blame for past decisions does not solve the present and future homelessness. If we think it’s bad now, think of the near future: millions of jobs lost already, many more to come (mine probably included), and where will those millions of jobless men and women and their children go when they are forced to leave their homes? Many people have friends or family with whom they can stay for a while, but what of those who don’t?

I need to think more about this, because I need to do something about it, and it’s not a slam dunk. It’s complicated.

“All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” This was written hundreds of years ago by a mystic, Dame Julian of Norwich, and I have to believe it.

More to come...