Big Book Release Day!

Sunflowers at Jeff St
Originally uploaded by paynehollow

Another excerpt, from pastor Cindy

Used to be, I’d cry just about every night.

For Bruce, who wanted to quit drinking, but never could. (He fell into the river one night in a drunken stupor and died ­ I find myself missing him every year at our Fall Retreat. He was always such fun.)

For Sarah, who married Tim thinking that he’d never drink again, and the way that she fell to pieces (I mean it when I say “fell to pieces.” I saw it with my own eyes. She crumpled in at her waist, and fell one knee at a time to the hospital floor) when she found out that he’d tried to kill himself.

For the little lady dressed in white who would stand outside in the street on cold winter nights and call up to our window for us to let her in.

I was reminded of that this morning when Carol, our new field placement intern from the seminary, burst into tears. We were sitting in my office, and she’d been at our church a grand total of one week. This particular morning, she’d helped to staff our Hospitality Ministry for homeless men and women for the first time.

“It’s like another planet,” she said once she was able to talk. “It’s this whole other world that I could have lived my whole life without seeing or knowing about.”

She started crying again as she told me about the scene that had touched her, or hurt her, rather, the most. She described a thin, African American homeless man. By her initial description, he could have been anyone of three dozen or so that we see every morning.
But this one, she said, this one was suffering from the effects of a stroke and could not move his arms. “When he sat down, he couldn’t put his arms up on the table.” She paused.

“Another man had to help him put his arms up on the table so he could put his head down in his arms. And, and, I was so touched,” she could barely speak. “I was so touched by the tenderness of the other man.”

As I listened to her reflections on this horrible new world to which I’ve grown so accustomed, I realized that I don’t cry much anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve found my place, my piece, a way that I can make a difference.

Maybe it’s because I’m part of a community of people who have also found their places and pieces, and there’s a great sense of comfort in knowing that you’re a part of a community that is truly doing what they can. Or maybe it’s because I just don’t notice it so much anymore, don’t see how utterly wrong it is for a man who can’t even put his arms on the table to be living on the streets.

I don’t know.

But I’m glad, I’m so glad that Carol, who still cries, has come to be among us.