"Why Is He Homeless?"

My mother was indeed a beauty.  My favorite picture of her in one taken in college that was printed in the yearbook.  She was grouped with her Delta Zeta sorority sisters and she was wearing a tiara.  She was grinning from ear to ear and obviously excited over the attention she was receiving.  An all-American girl, my mother, beautiful and smart, had the world at her feet and her future appeared bright.

I only know rumors of what happened next.  But personal tragedy led her to start drinking.

She later met and married my dad.  Over the next few years she had three miscarriages. My parents decided adoption was the best option and chose my older brother and I to complete their family.  But the pain must have been overwhelming and as addiction settled in and took hold, she could not resist alcohol any more than a cancer patient can resist the growth of killer cells.

My parents divorced, my mother left and moved to Florida to live near my grandparents while my dad filled the role of single parent.  For the next 30 years or so, my mother marinated her pain in Vodka and failed relationships.  She cared for my grandmother and my grandfather in their old age.  My mother, still loved by her father, was left a mobile home and an allowance, just enough to support her basic needs. Living with her older brother, my mother lived out her final years full of shame and hate.  She wanted no one around her and refused any comfort by those who loved her.  She died, alone, sitting on a couch, coughing up blood.  Her death certificate confirms that she literally drank herself to death.  But she died with a roof over her head.

Eddie has family too.  He has an aunt in OKC, he has nephews and nieces.   I have no idea what tragedy led him to the place he is now but, like my mother, he has an taste for vodka.  Being sober is too painful and is avoided as much as possible.  Eddie lives on the street.  He is not poor.  Eddie is destitute.  He has nothing.  Not a shopping cart, not a cardboard sign, nothing.  If you give him money he will buy coffee and vodka.  He is dirty.  He smells of mouthwash and shit.   He is freezing cold almost all the time. 

Eddie and my mom have so much in common. Pain, addiction, neither held a job, both have hurt those around them... but to answer this question that was posed to me earlier this week:

Eddie is not homeless because he is an alcoholic (although no doubt he is).  Eddie is not homeless because he is mentally ill (but he probably is).

Eddie is homeless because he is not loved. 

$Church$

"This Church doesn't run without money.  Someone has to pay for the lights, the heat and the air-conditioning ya know." 

This came from our parish youth minister over the weekend.  My daughter looked at me and I looked back; we both shook our heads and put our hands over our faces.  Wow.  How can people be so misguided? 

Many years ago (many many many), when I lived in South America, my soon-to-be husband and I would, on Sunday mornings, take a bus out of the city of La Paz and ride for 45 minutes to church.  We passed a lot of big fancy Catholic churches on the way, mind you, but there was one Church that we loved.  We would get off at a crossroads and walk another mile or so on a dusty road.  We would pass children digging through the garbage for something to eat or sell.  We would pass the homeless who were not very particular of where they went to the bathroom.  The smells were gut-punching.  Everything was dirty and depressing.

And then we would turn the corner and walk across this small grassy field to a gray cinder-block building.  It was tiny...maybe 10 or 15 people could sit comfortably, and it was bare. Not much to look at but the Cross.  There was no air-conditioning.  There were no lights and absolutely no heat...we would sit and freeze most days because it didn't have any glass in the windows.  We would sing.  And praise God.  And afterwards everyone would sit outside on the ground and share whatever they brought with them for lunch.  And anyone was invited. 

It was Church.

The Day Dorothy Quit

When I began reading through Dorothy Day's diaries, I was anxious to read about the time when she left The Catholic Worker.  I wondered what the catalyst was for her leave of absence and I was anticipating a great inner struggle to her decision.  But it still came as a shock and completely unexpected. My heart paused for a brief moment and then turned cold as I read the diary entry documenting her thoughts and pain that she felt that were leading her to leave the CW. 

"I no longer feel I can save my soul by this work; no, more, I am in danger of losing it.  I am in danger of becoming like that woman in Bleak House who worked so hard for foreign missions and neglected her family...The world is too much with me in the Catholic Worker.  The world is suffering and dying.  I am not suffering and dying in the CW, I am writing and talking about it."

The criticism of the world was pressing in and she wanted to find a normal job somewhere quiet, maybe in a hospital, and lead an unassuming life of "prayer and penance". 

"The world will leave us alone, saying---after all, they are not doing anything. Just a bunch of smug fools praying.  We will not be as tormented by its scorn as we are by the praise of the world for works of mercy...Hence this new move.  Hence this running away, to seek a hidden life.  I have always been so sure I was right, that I was being led by God...and I looked for some unmistakable sign. I disregarded all the little signs.  I begin now to see them and with such clearness that I have to beg not be shown too much, for fear I cannot bear it."  DD. July 14, 1943

So many saints go through these times of darkness.  Mother T's struggle with depression as she could not feel God's presence in her life is well documented.  Dorothy was no exception. The life she chose was so sacrificial, how could she not have moments of shadow?  God is, always, merciful and showers His grace upon us.  Dorothy's year long leave of absence, which ended up only lasting 6 months, and her diary during this time have been lost.  But her commitment and her conviction never again swayed and she stayed a loyal servant of God every day until her death.  May our Lenten struggles heal our pain, remove our doubts and lead us closer to the Living God whom we serve.

Lenten Readings

So Lent is here.  I have high expectations for this Lent, as I usually do right before my intentions are nullified by my human nature.  But this Lent I am jazzed about reading "The Duty of Delight", the published personal diaries of Dorothy Day.  As always, she never fails to disappoint. 

I love how she writes with such ease and compassion about the drunken man who stole $5 from her,  "he must be tormented in soul as in body." (1935)  She talks about the mentally ill, the addicts, her anger at her own personal failings and shortcomings (she is ridiculously hard on herself).  She is impatient with the foul smells that seem to permeate whatever room she is in and speaks of it often.  She is a mother, worried about her daughter, Tamar. Dorothy craved time with her and was racked with guilt over every minute they were apart.  I love, absolutely love, every word she has written in this book. 

It is painfully honest as she writes about her depression and loneliness. The burdens she carried as her co-workers, The Church and her own family analyzed and criticized her every move. I can't begin to conceive how much she sacrificed for Christ; she gave it all to Him.

The life of this Saint.  Amazing.  May your Lent draw you closer to the Living Christ!