Homelessness...
I am to sleep rough in the centre of the city on Sunday night to raise the awareness of the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust's fundraising campaign to purchase the Night Shelter Buildings. It has sparked quite a lot of media attention. But various media people have said, "We should do an article on 'homelessness in our city' featuring the problem." A reporter asked, "Do people have an accommodation problem in the city?" To such issues I want to answer, "It is a far deeper problem than just finding a roof over their heads! It is a 'life issues' problem." Some people who have a roof over their heads live in smelly boarding houses on a mattress chucked on the floor amongst filth, with hardly a change of clothing, wearing socks and jumpers with holes, going from crisis to crisis in their lives. They sometimes become homeless, but homelessness is a symptom of what is going on. An article or feature studying homelessness would have to take on these wider issues. They will sometimes go back to failures of the education system. Sometimes they will go back through generations of dysfunctional families. Sometimes it can be directly attributed to the economic system and the technological revolution that is going on. Sometimes it is the availability of drugs and legal highs. Often it is a mixture of all these and more.
Unstructured lives... hopelessness.
I was reading the court news the other day and the judge was dealing with a recidivist drink driver and all round rat bag who, through alcohol abuse had caused mayhem once again. The judge told the offender, "You have an unstructured lifestyle." As I read I thought that is a correct description of so many lives I encounter. There may be a variety of symptoms. For this offender - alcohol related problems. For another they can be hooked on legal highs, out of money and in a mess. For another they could be trying to live beyond their means on a benefit and in a financial mess trying to look normal. For another - ongoing inability to cope with the relationships of life. For most of the above they are unemployed and unemployable. Sometimes many, for a variety of reasons, develop mental health issues. But again and again, "Unstructured lives" sums up their situation and a feeling of hopelessness. They are deep in the poo one way or another, and unable to climb out. Much homelessness is the symptom of these lifestyles.
People watching blues...
Often when I walk to my brewery chaplaincy I pass an agency which tries to help these people. I know many of their clients because they have been a part of my drop-in centre. I walk past and I see up to twenty of them moping around outside where they can smoke. There they sit sometimes talking, often in dull silence virtually chain smoking. Banjo Paterson in his poem "The man from Iron Bark" describes people in the barber shop by the words, "their heads were flat, their eyes were dull, they had no brains at all." Every time I see this crowd I think of that line. It is a picture of unstructured lives, sucking in and breathing out lethal, expensive tobacco smoke, with nothing else to do and no likelihood of changing till they die an uncomfortable death as the systems of their unused bodies and brains give up.
The other day I was down the street in "that" area of the city. There was a legal high shop. I watched all these unemployed people wandering aimlessly about the streets, again smoking. A big number popped into the shop to buy their legal highs. Sometimes there were raised voices where groups yelled angrily at each other. Just a whole bunch of unstructured lives, just existing until they get to be old people and die. That's not "life"! I find myself wondering what can be done to bring structure, hope and some sort of life back into them? I rack my brains for possible solutions. Somehow our society leaves them on the scrap heap of life. Surely, surely we can do something? How do we avoid new generations of these sad people? Last Sunday I was driving home from my walk. I saw a man who attended the drop-in centre walking, so I offered him a lift. I dropped him at the home he was sharing with his family. His daughter was at the front of the house. Now in her twenties, I have known her since she was 12 years old. She has grown, been tattooed, been involved with drugs, bad people and had a baby in prison. She is now out and was calling her baby as I pulled up to drop her dad off. Our eyes met, and I waved. She nodded, her eyes were full of hopelessness, anger, dishonesty and sadness as she looked away, I suspect purposely not wanting to really encounter me. I drove away deeply sad... she had been a nice twelve year old and we had fun back then! What is ahead for her and her child?
Deep Sadness...
Most people live ignoring these folk's plight or even existence. I wish I could. Each is a precious person. I have no answers, but just this aching sadness. I identify with the sense of passion and agony seen in Jesus. Luke writes; - As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace! (shalom?) But now they are hidden from your eyes." And in a similar scene in Matthew's gospel; "How often I have desired to gather your children as a hen gathers her children under her wings, but you were not willing." In these phrases there is a deep sense of sadness and hopelessness at the predicament of the people of the city. That is me. Why must I be burdened by this sadness and not find an answer? It is a real pain to live with. It reminds me of the Johnny Cash song, "The man in black." How do I describe this pain? It is like one who loves from a distance watching the one they love suffer. It is like a parent watching a child struggling with life. It is like sitting by the bedside of someone in pain or struggling to breathe - you want to do something but cant. While I live positively and always seek to enjoy and taste the good things of life, I live with this sense of sadness because I know others who seem to wallow in mud. While I laugh readily and enjoy a joke, somehow deep inside I continually ache for these people. It is an experience of grief, but a grief that motivates my attempts to make some difference. Sorry to share the heaviness, but that is me tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment