Anonymous

Boston is a busy spot.  It is diverse.  It is constantly moving.  I really love it.  And one aspect that I really loved upon arriving here, I must admit, was not knowing the name of every homeless person on the street.  In Spokane, after two years of working directly with a healthy percentage of the homeless on the streets there, I felt like I couldn't go anywhere without being noticed.  I wasn't anonymous anymore, and they weren't anonymous anymore.  Sometimes it was a good thing, but most of the time I just craved that anonymity again.  I wanted to be able to be in the grocery store without having a conversation with everyone that approached me.  I wanted to be able to wear that short dress out with friends and not have to answer about it on Monday when I got teased about it by someone that saw me.  But as much as I wanted my privacy back, I also desired to not know anything about their hardships anymore.  When you work with people and walk alongside people in that way, everything about you ends up changing.  Your personal politics change.  Your attitude towards your own life and your own circumstances change.  Your biases get tossed or strengthened...depending.  I found myself unable to walk past a homeless person in any context and assume that they suck as human beings...and there actually had been something comforting in that before.  Being oblivious had been great...it took the responsibility off of myself....because it was their fault...it was their problem...not mine.

Now as I arrive here...wishing for some of that obliviousness to come alongside my newfound anonymity...I realize I have no shot of ever having that again.  Homelessness continues to break my heart, and continues to be a driving force behind what I'm doing in social work. My field placement is passionate about human rights and happens to be deeply involved in issues surrounding homelessness and particularly some terrible laws that have been passed in Massachusetts in the last year.  Two of my 6 clients in my caseload are homeless or have been homeless in the last 6 months.  For all the effort I took to get away from this issue....I feel like I'm actually so swallowed up in it and it's so a part of my life, I may actually be linked to it forever.  For all those months that I wished to be here, I now wish to be home some days...I wish I knew what was happening in my guys' lives...I wish I wasn't so anonymous now.  I feel a deep sense of pain when I think of winter coming and the fact that some of our guys may not make it through and that I, in my haste to leave, probably didn't get any real closure with them.

I was riding on the Red Line up towards Harvard yesterday after work and I was standing alongside a multitude of other business people...all of us in our fancy outfits with our books open or IPods on.  I must admit...I've had enough really interesting bus/subway experiences that I tend to shut out life with a book, but I happened to be standing right alongside a guy who was not willing to be shut out.  He was clearly intoxicated and was rambling on about how his wife had died and about how we all thought we were better than him, and a multitude of other things that couldn't be deciphered over the din of the train.  I was just thinking yesterday of how long the Red line train is...and how strange it is when people happen to meet up with people they know on it.  What are the odds really that you would happen to be on the same train, let alone end up in the same car....out of the 20 odd cars on the train.  Now you can choose to just apply this to the likelihood of running into a friend...or you can apply it to the likelihood that you end up standing next to the one person on the train who actually needs some attention.  Figuring that my book could wait and that I could stand to abandon my "no eye contact rule"...I let this guy divulge his life a little bit.  And he was completely pleasant...and he was hurting really badly.  As I look back on that moment, I realize that I don't blame anyone for not paying attention to him, because he was relatively obnoxious, but I would have blamed myself if I hadn't paid attention. People looked on uncomfortably as this guy engaged me...probably thinking I was in over my head or stupid....or both.  And he said his two bits and got off at Central station and I'll probably never see him again.  He won't remember me, and I likely won't remember his face, but for two minutes he was allowed the chance to not be anonymous.

To say that my faith was strengthened while I was at the House of Charity would be a bit of a stretch.  It was really desolate.  It felt really hopeless a lot.  I felt really abandoned in a place that felt miserable some days.  But on the outside of that experience, as I look in, I find that I have a great deal more perspective, and I feel my faith growing as I process it more.  God is so present, even in the most dire circumstances.  The House of Charity is a place where God moves daily...in really big ways and in really small ways.....and it is so much easier to see from the outside in how specifically he is moving.  Along the movement front, one of my dear friends who I completed a church internship a few years ago is getting married in two weeks.  He is absolutely the most thoughtful man I have ever met...he is dedicated to God, he is passionate about people, he loves his son more than anything in this world, and now he also loves his bride-to-be in a way that is so self sacrificing and so beautiful. This man would come to the House of Charity to help with Urban Plunges for the church interns and would just melt into the environment...talking with the clients and listening to their struggles and offering a pat on the back or prayer.  He reminds me of why I am doing what I am doing.  He used to be a client at the House of Charity.  If I had been working there 6 or 7 years ago, I might have known him personally as a meth addict and thought he was a "hopeless case".  Instead, I know him as my friend and an inspiration and enough reason to keep fighting the good fight in this upward battle against homelessness.  I'm reminded when I look at him of how precious second chances are, and I'm challenged to consider my place in being a part of facilitating those second chances as I keep on with my career.



Shameless plug time.  The Poor Man's Meal is this weekend at the House of Charity.  In case you are in Spokane and want to support a worthy organization, please consider this one.  I love the House of Charity because it provides a "no strings attached" approach to serving others.  There are a lot of very selfless and loving people that work there, and I must say a big part of my heart remains there today and with the mission that they carry.  It starts at 11:30 and your ticket price is a donation...I believe its $10.00 a person.  Believe me, the meal alone is easily worth the $10.00...Tami is an amazing chef.  House of Charity runs very nearly on private donations alone, and in this rough economic time, they need all the help they can get.  Thank you for listening to my heart on all of this...love you all!