Stewing on "street people".

Living Rough – Closing doors... a story by my wife.

You ask the question “Who is this person, living rough? Who do you think you are, pleading for our sympathy and dollars?” (We at the Night Shelter are asking the people of Dunedin for money to purchase our buildings.) 

Well who am I? Sometimes I’m not sure who I am. To survive my story has changed over the years. Even when and where I was born gets a bit hazy with the meds my body has been hit with. Childhood! Well some of that I would rather forget. Not that it was entirely their fault. I guess I was a bit of a bastard. I thought I was just like everyone else but from the jeers, teasing and beating maybe I wasn’t. It was my fault I guess. The teachers tried, but I could not keep up.  It was a fast downhill trip, gathering speed and bumps. I suppose I wasn’t the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when the classroom door closed behind me for the last time.

A job?- Yes I had a job, but not much of one though. I didn’t have to read so I could get by until -  “ Sorry we don’t need you now. The job has changed.” and the door closed behind me again.  I couldn’t find another, What the hell can I do anyway?  The booze made me feel better.  I guess I looked like a ‘sitting duck’ to the drug dealer but it was something to numb the pain. 

My life was mindless drifting ,‘til, great - an open door!  There were others like me to share my story with, things to do, a meal, some hope.  I had found a daytime drop-in centre. I felt better, more normal, ‘til “Sorry, there’s no more funding.” and the door closed behind me once more.

Shit happens in heaps I reckon. Not long after that, Mum died. Life hadn’t been much for her either. She’d loved me somehow; she was my ‘life line’ and at least I had a home to go back to. Eventually they came and said “Sorry the house is on the market and the door closed behind me again.

Wandering the streets and a mate said “There’s room on my couch” - well thanks. Here was a roof over my head, and more, drugs and ‘all sorts’ coming and going.  “Where’s the money you owe?” this guy said one day.  He had caught up on me.  That led to a trip to E.D.  At 4 a.m. they kicked me out and I went ‘home’ to be told “You’re not welcome here.”   You guessed it the door slammed shut and out into the wet cold streets I went.

Sheltering in a doorway, maybe it was the cold, or the hunger or tiredness, but it seemed there was a line of people, looking like a jury, ready to judge me and my future. One looked set to beat me up again. Was he the guy from standard one? The ‘suit’ said, “Well drugs! What do you expect!”  Was that the dealer or the lawyer? Another, I couldn’t see her face. Guess she didn’t want to see me now. Some pretend me and my sort don’t exist. Another muttered, “What’s the government doing about it anyway? What are social agencies for? Why haven’t they done something? Get them off the streets.”  Life for me is a black hole. What’s the use? Life is crap. There is no future for the likes of me.  I know I am shit, but nobody really knows how I feel. I have learned to hide it, or block it out by acting tough.

As the faces faded with daylight I thought, “if only I could get warm? Breakfast would be nice, somewhere safe, someone to guide me out of this mess.”

I know I’m not the only one. The others I used to talk to, they struggle too.  Mental illness, anxiety, depression, addictions, things that others just don’t understand and can’t cope with. We’ve all had family and friends who have now gone or given up.

The benefit! Well I’ve always struggled to make it last till the next one. Every week I say to myself “This week I’ll do better” and then I stuff it up again.

“Hey, you don’t have to spend the night there.” this stranger says. He takes a scrap of paper from his pocket and writes the address. “Be there at 7pm.”  The Night Shelter! The light above the door looked hopeful. The door opens to “Hi mate, come in”.  Warmth, the smell of food and a friendly face, was it too good to be true? Would I be judged good enough, is it safe, would the money run out here and the door shut again?

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Notes and reflections on the story…

This is not the story of any particular person, it is “made up”. But sadly it is a true story.  The story originally was written by my wife Jean when we were mulling over people’s reactions to those who need the night shelter.  I have edited it a little. Jean has written it out of her experiences of running a Friday Night Drop-in centre at our last Church for eighteen years.  We have also had forty years of encountering “street people” and reaching out to them in various ways. Jean did the bulk of the food preparation for our drop-in centre and was like a surrogate mother for the people who came.  She would take around plates of food at different times during the night and engage most in some sort of conversation. So the story is typical of the things that have happened to people often referred to as “street people”. As I read it to edit it, various people came to mind that I knew had experienced these realities.  I knew the people that Jean had in mind and the story is not over dramatic or false. It is a very abbreviated and simplistic story. Most stories of decline happen because of a complex web of interactions, failings and rejections. The theme is that experiences of “closing doors”, real and metaphorical, finally leads to people being imprisoned by their own sense of inadequacy and a real loss of hope.

Disjointed … The story is a bit disjointed and had my grammar checker screaming on my computer. I edited out a bit of its disjointedness but then it lost some of its authenticity. When you converse with many of these people their conversation is disjointed.  They speak often in blurted out short sentences or phrases and you have to make the connections. Often too their voice dies away, it is like they are scared of the sound of their own voice.  Sometimes I am sure they are uncertain of my reaction so they just “dip their toes” in to see if I am accepting or interested in their story.  I wonder how many negative reactions have caused them to lose confidence?

Loss of confidence and hope … I hear people saying that these people do not help themselves, and I often agree.  But as I have mixed with them over the years, in spite of bravado, aggression and “know-all” behaviour, I have come to see that it is a real loss of confidence and a deep sense of hopelessness that keeps them down at the bottom of the heap. I recall taking one with me to Habitat for Humanity. I would coax him into doing stuff, simple stuff like drilling a hole.  After all sorts of bravado and excuses to avoid doing it, he would say, “I can’t do that. I’m crap.”  I discovered again and again, he was simply scared to try.  He did have the skills, but any self-esteem had long been knocked out of him.  That is a consistent theme among these people, hidden often by a tough demeanor.  The aggression we sometimes experienced in our drop-in centre was often like that of a wounded, cornered animal struggling to cope, fluffing up their fur to scare others off.  And they often have no hope. When I lay in bed at night I often think of something good, something positive I can look back on or look forward to. Something I can complete. Maybe a run or walk I want to do. Maybe a task I am looking forward to, or one I have done well. But in the darkness these people have nothing positive to reflect on nor to look forward to. When you have nothing to do and little confidence to do anything, life is a struggle just to get through each day.  There do not seem to be any positives to hold in mind. It is then that smoking, drinking, marijuana or legal highs look attractive. What else is there?

Those that change… I have seen some change.  Change, when it happens, happens in small steps.

Friendship… I once sat on a fence outside the Church beside a glue sniffer. As I sat with him the people going past would stare at us. They did not have to say anything, just their looks said, “You are scum!”  These people live with that every day. We had one very intelligent drop-in centre guest who had mental health and socialization problems. He came into the drop-in once and declared, “There are two “normals” looking for you down stairs.”  (Indeed two of my friends had come looking for me.)  That is what these folk live with. They feel abnormal. To change or even just to cope, they need to be loved and accepted by “normals”. Just in small every day conversation it can make a difference. Even if they cannot change, you are doing a great service if you treat them as normal.  It helps them feel better about themselves. I had one man out of the blue in the street say to me, “Thank you. I just want to tell you - thank you.”  “Why?” I asked, “You always talk to me in the street. You say my name. There’s people in my Church who won’t do that, they look away, they pretend I am not here.” 

 Introduce small steps… There was a young man who stopped and talked when we slept rough in the centre of town. He talked of running the three peaks race, a very high achievement indeed. He has represented NZ in the “Homeless Football World cup.”  When he first came to our drop-in centre he was a heavy drinker, argumentative and in a mess. Two years after my first introduction to him he rang me up and confessed over the phone that a year or so before he had stolen the Church vacuum cleaner. Now he is a changed man. It has taken many people who have been his friend, and many small steps but he is on a positive journey. I played table tennis with him. I suggested the football and joined him in that. I talked about my running and said that maybe he could do it. But others have been there in his life introducing small steps. He has had the friendship and then courage to take those small steps and he is a very different man.  The friendship tells him he is worth something. The small steps give him something he can look forward to.

The Night Shelter? What part does the Night Shelter play in this? It is a small way of saying, “You matter!”  These folk often live on the edge and can easily run out of options and end up homeless.  They have this feeling that society spits them out the back end and they do not matter. In some way the night shelter says, “There are some who care.” I think that can make a big difference, even for those who never need it. They know that there are people who care enough to have it available. It is a worthwhile venture. 

Our lovely foster daughter and sign writer me.

Pania

"Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes."

Let me introduce Pania our foster daughter. She is living in supervised care with four other friends now. Pania is now in her thirties, but came to us when she was just nine years old. She is a Rett syndrome sufferer. We had decided we would be prepared to adopt another special needs child, and apparently there was a need to adopt older children. We were introduced to Pania and she became part of our family. We were advised not to adopt her, because as a foster daughter we received some financial help toward looking after her. It is always jarring to call her our foster daughter, because we love her, and indeed the family loves her as if she was our natural born child. When she came to us her ailment was not diagnosed, but with research, visits to pediatricians, and finally a confirmed diagnosis by a visiting world expert in Retts Syndrome we knew what she and we were up against. Pania can walk and can feed herself with assistance. Pretty much everything else she needs help with. She cannot speak except through the occasional sign (tapping her mouth) body language and through her beautiful eyes. We brought her out for a visit to the holiday house our other daughter and her husband were staying at for the long weekend. She just loved sitting beside me and being included in the conversation. This photo was taken during that time. Pania has taught me so much and caused me to appreciate and not take for granted so many things most of us can do without thinking. Some have said that such people should be aborted, but certainly if I never met Pania my life would be so much poorer. I love her to bits. Her smile is a real joy to behold, and her eyes are beautiful. I sing to her, "Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes, ... I'll never love blue eyes again."

The first panel partly completed. The second was easier and an improvement.

Sign writing
I have been doing some sign writing. The Dunedin Night Shelter trust is getting into a campaign to raise money to purchase the buildings we currently rent. We want Dunedin people and groups to get on board and have called it "How do you eat an Elephant?" recognising that it is a big sum we want to raise. I have done two panels we will use in the publicity for this campaign. Before the advent of computers and power points etc I used to do quite a few posters and banners, but lately have not needed to do many. I found doing these two panels interesting. Three changes since I was doing it often.

• I do not have the patience I used to have. I tend to rush things along.
• I need reading glasses to do the work.
• My hands shake a lot more than they used to do. I do a good ripple effect. :-)

Anyway it has been interesting.

Like "WOW!" - what a week.

Madness
I have not posted on my blog for over a week, simply because I have been too busy. There have been a few nights when I have been wanting to write, but when I sat to do it I was simply too tired. Here is a catch up.
Saving souls.
My last post was about saving the souls on my slippers. Last Friday night we had a full drop-in centre and I was busy playing table tennis, washing dishes and socialising.  I went down the hall to a pool table and saw a bunch of guys playing pool. Some had mental health problems, others intellectual limitations but they were enjoying pool together with a others watching and enjoying the game. Here was companionship, healthy laughter, sportsmanship, acceptance and just life affirming fun. I play table tennis with guys who love to beat me. I see them come alive at the end of the table, enjoying their skill, appreciating mine and sometimes telling me about their life.  Last Friday night I thought about my tongue in cheek blog post, and was reminded, I am saving souls. I am helping to bring into often troubled lives life enhancing friendship, companionship and happiness. I am saving souls, not in the old religious sense, but facilitating a measure of love, acceptance and wholeness in peoples living.
Sunday lunch
Our foster daughter with intellectual (and physical) handicaps has moved houses. She is in a house with others and they have full time care. They had a potluck lunch for families, so my wife and I, my daughter and son-in-law joined in. Now I would not wish handicaps on anybody. Being involved with people with handicaps can be a gut wrenching, heart aching and hard work journey.  But as we met the families of other residents, brothers and sisters, parents and others, and the carers in the house, somehow working and living with folks who have handicaps brings out the best qualities in humans. There are few pretensions, just open honest enjoyment and appreciation of the simple things of life. I was sitting next to Pania (our 34 year old foster daughter) helping her feed and singing softly too her. A lady nearby assisting her sister grinned knowingly. "Do you have secret songs you sing too? We do that don't we?" as she nudged her sister, "I love it" she said.  However challenging they are, our experiences with Pania continue to enrich our life.
Funeral
Last Monday saw me leading a funeral for a 91 year old Church member. He had been a well known businessman in town and his late wife was my mum's cousin, so I had known him since my childhood days. He taught me how to play table tennis. In the early 1960s when we were young teenagers we complained to my father that "there was nothing to do!" He told us to get off our butts and do something for ourselves. With his encouragement we built table tennis tables and decided to begin a table tennis club down at our Church. This man had been a table tennis champion so my dad asked him to come down for a couple of Saturday nights and teach us to play the game.  The Table Tennis club expanded and became a youth group of around 40 people (at times) - but I am still playing table tennis. I led this funeral and got so much positive feedback. A man who has recently retired and was awarded a Queens honour for his career as a journalist on TV said, "You have a gift. Every time I attend one of your services I am so impressed." I told him I was looking forward to not doing them because it does cost. "Oh I am aware of the personal cost such work involves." and he mentioned his own experiences on TV.  It is interesting. On Sunday prior to my normal Sunday service, and Monday the day of the big funeral, while eating my porridge at breakfast, my hand was shaking as I lifted my spoon to my mouth, spilling milk and porridge back into the plate. I wondered why I get so stressed and what such stress is doing to my body?
Night Shelter Street Appeal
Last week the Night Shelter had its street appeal. We ended up doing rushed preparations because the man who was to run it resigned and left us with the task at a late stage. I needed somebody to ring volunteers and sort out who collected where and my ever patient wife (who knows I hate cold calling) stepped into the breach and put in hours of phone work over the last couple of weeks. So this week has involved delivering and collecting buckets and standing for several hours at a time collecting money off passers by. (as well as trying to fit in my normal work) It is always an interesting experience. I think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times somebody under 30 put money in. (not counting children sent by parents) Young people just ignored our presence as they walked past.  The most frequent donors by far were women over the age of 50.  Perhaps it means that such generosity will fade out with the next generation? Or perhaps we become more compassionate and generous as we get older? Or is it that we just have more spare money to give as we age? It may just be that young people these days do not carry cash? Having said that some students offered to help collect. It was delightful. We went to gather their buckets and these two girls were sitting in the doorway of this supermarket having a ball. One had the Night Shelter poster and was jostling it to gain attention, the other had the bucket. They were all smiles and laughter and the people seemed to be responding. We have not counted all the money yet, but the results look good. Last night as we collected the buckets we were foot sore and exhausted. While collecting I realised that I know so many people. On one particular two and a half hour stint at a supermarket I had conversations with so many people I knew. I met this woman I used to run with years ago. I had not seen her to talk with for quite a few years. We dropped into easy conversation again. Ministers, ex-firefighters, drop-in centre folks, people from past chaplaincies and others stopped by to have a chat. One encounter was with a stranger. He dug in his pocket to find cash. Out dropped a nail, a screw and a paper clip. I asked if they were from his last job. With a grin he admitted to picking these up off the footpath. "I do that!" I exclaimed. We shared our gathering/hoarding hobby, and how we store our finds, laughing at how our friends and relatives react. When he left he gave me his card.
MRI scan
On Thursday I went for my MRI scan, a check to see if I have prostate cancer, or any cancer "down there". People had warned me about how claustrophobic it would be and of the terrible noise. I found it OK. (perhaps because I was expecting worse) I closed my eyes and nearly fell asleep.  I await the results. What will be will be.... I don't really have time to worry about it.
Will I fight it?

I received an email on Wednesday in which the national leadership team of our denomination informed me that they are going to put forward a remit for confirmation in September, which includes a "Statement on Marriage and Sexuality". If passed it will not allow me as a minister of this denomination to marry, bless or endorse a gay couple and it gives their interpretation of scripture to back this up. I will not be allowed to make public statements affirming gay relationships. Now we are congregationally governed so I do not think that constitutionally they have the right to dictate such things. Secondly I disagree with their stance. I have already broken their proposed rules by sharing my thoughts on this blog site. I do not know the consequences of disobedience? Maybe I will not be endorsed as a "minister in good standing" and will not be able to marry anybody? Are they going to excommunicate me? They want responses by Tuesday? I groan inwardly. Do I want to buy into a fight with 19 Sundays to go until retirement? But it is a justice issue? It is also a denial of our ethos and history? We are meant to be open to diversity? Watch this space. Whatever I do, I will lose the battle. People in scary times look for authoritarian leadership, they feel safe. In these days when all religions tend to be conservative, they have the numbers to defeat any protest I raise.  But life is not black and white. Such directions are not life enhancing, are not within a spirit of love and compassion. I think God would want us to live in loving life-affirming relationships, and is not as concerned about the gender of our "intimate other" as they make out.  They are the modern day pharisees. I doubt they would recognise Jesus if he could physically came back amongst us, and would possibly crucify him again.  Lord, hasten the day of a broader more life giving, more real faith expression.  I sense the noises of an emerging progressive Christian movement. It is so needed. 

That has been my week. On Tuesday I fly to Wellington which is still reeling from a powerful earthquake, and still experiencing aftershocks. Another busy week awaits.

The Kingdom of God

In my reading for Sunday I came across this which I think is worth a listen. 

After years in Church ministry I am convinced that most Churches, Christians and non-Christians (who think they know) have essentially misunderstood Jesus. There is a part of me looking forward to breaking free of the distorted religion of the Church and not having to feel like I am carrying distorted baggage or having to compromise.

The Dunedin Night Shelter now has a website. You might like to check it out. There are several ways you may be able to help us out.

Sometimes I listen Keith. :-)