 |
Rev. Rich Lang |
Miguel
There I was, minding my own business, when a voice called me out of my spiritual pondering. The voice informed me that a man was in need of my assistance, and sure enough, there on the brick bed of the church garden sat, slept, and slumbered Miguel, lost in his own battle with the spirits.
I tried to wake him up, but he was, in the words of my mother, “three sheets to the wind.” So I just sat there with him for a while. Then I went inside to fix him some trinkets of food, took it back to him, managed to awaken him from the dead, and there we sat. Miguel chewed on carrots and crackers, and I chewed on what happened in this man’s life to bring him to this low point.
Such thinking led me to this thought: I think we need a Truth Commission on Homelessness. I think about all those neighborhoods, mean and nasty neighborhoods like View Ridge or Bothell or Woodinville, neighborhoods that exist to insulate themselves from evidence of human need, and the revolutionary possibility of human solidarity. I think of those mean and nasty people who live in every neighborhood who long ago sold their soul to the stratospherically wealthy, and who now live as if those who economically struggle are an inferior species unworthy of our attention. And I think of the Church, particularly all those buildings that sit empty at night, while over 2,600 folk sleep outdoors. I think of all the excuses we use to prevent ourselves from moving from thought to action, from knowledge to courage.
And that’s when I think that maybe a first step might be for neighborhood churches to call together the public with a Truth Commission dealing with the reality of homelessness. The purpose of a Truth Commission is to provide a narrative, a living testimony concerning what has happened, and what is happening in our lives. I think neighborhood churches should gather together the public to hear the homeless simply tell their stories, their own spiritual journeys that have brought them to this point in their life. After that the churches can call up the public to tell their stories, to chronicle their own spiritual journey that has led them to the point they are at in life. And then, having listened, the church can feed them, providing a feast of celebration.
A Truth Commission of homeless and housed doing nothing other than sharing stories, and eating together: Such as this is the first step toward revolution that turns us away from segregation and allows us the possibility of taking a great stride toward freedom. A church in your neighborhood could do this: I ask that you compel the Church to do this as an example of its faith. And then watch and see if the sacred reveals itself in humanity. |
