Final Night Without a Home

The title to this post is either fantastically blown up or incredibly self-righteous.

With that being said, I am spending my last night inside Bittner. Since the breaking down of my family's vehicles (a common occurrence), Dave has provided a temporary refuge for me to leave my things (which I am thrilled to say at last consists mostly of books). Sometimes "my things" includes me, as he is living on the top bunk with an empty mattress beneath him.

I car-pooled with Mr. Hoffman, a member of my family's church, back to Hanover today to pick up the family van which I will drive Thursday to Virginia for the Peacemaking Conference at Eastern Mennonite University. I also wanted to grab more books and instruments and fresh clothes for tomorrow's move-in to the SALT House in Harrisburg (see first post).

While I am excited to have a place to call "home," at least for the next few months, I simultaneously mourn the escape from the transient life. No bed has been mine, and often food comes as if I have transformed into a bird provided with morning worms surfacing from the damp earth. I will miss dependency: the privilege of being blessed and seeing the joy on the faces of those priding themselves in their ability to bless. I hope this unintentionally reciprocal love does not become absent as I move into the new world.

Tomorrow I begin reaping and storing away in barns. I pray I do not grow complacent, having more than most. I pray my barns are soon emptied and I am in need of divine intervention even more than I have in this phase of impermanent settlement and migration.

I came into this endeavor with the thought that I could somehow be united more with the homeless people I fleetingly attempt to serve by intentionally displacing myself. It worked, in some ways. For example, I know what it means to be lonely. I know what it feels like to not have a personal gathering space to which I can invite my friends. All planned interactions occur on public grounds and are therefore merely skin-deep. When a baby escapes his cradle, it is no longer a baby; likewise, when I escape my own sanctuary, I can only retain my long-standing identity in part.

Second (and the last which I will mention), this attempt at living in solidarity with the homeless has taught me that socialization is perhaps the most valuable necessity. So many times I have craved a meal, but so more often I longed for the next time I would run into someone I knew. Not having a meal plan, the dining hall is not always a viable option. The good thing is I have conjured the courage to make new (but often shallow) acquaintances and learned a few names and faces, but the tragic realization is that even your loved ones can forget your plight, and so long as you remain smiling, they may not even see it. So either the street-roamers must mourn with megaphones or pursue the stranger to get any attention. The stranger and passersby will not be troubled much to give a penny or his bread, but his time cannot be lost, and the human need for comradeship, echoing from Eden, is often driven away through personal advancement.

However, I am not one of them yet. I am not a typical homeless man of our age. I have not fully wrapped my arms around voluntary poverty, and even if I shall, I must banish self-righteousness and remember that their poverty is not an act of their will. They are no less "other" to me now. I hold my stereotypes firmly in the back of my mind, and I still think of serving in the sense that I am big and powerful and am going to save the world by helping because I am the hero and only hope. I am only slightly, if at all, humbler after my past month's experience.

So I sit on this mattress, no sheets, just a comforter, knowing tomorrow I will have a bed to call "mine." But still, it's not mine. It's God's, right? So if a naked child approaches me tomorrow, I am to offer it to him and take my spot on the floor for the evening, correct? Of course not, that would be compromising the rules and interests of the institution! That would be endangering and bothersome to those who may not want to leave their comfort zone, say my peers and authorities.

But we all pass away and return to dust. Nothing we hold in our hands today can come with us tomorrow. Therefore, let us live exclusively for all neighbors. Like Dorothy Day, Peter Maurine, Ammon Hennacy, our hospitality must be dangerous and we must be willing to breathe the Kingdom of God from our insides so that it is distributed among the world, a power able and willing to crush all forms of human government, economic principalities, and cultural powers to unite us in works of mercy.