Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Six middle and high school volunteers from Idaho Falls, Idaho arrived at the center on Friday to help cleanup. They were on an urban immersion. And so, after giving them the 20 minute tour of what we do and what we’re about I looked over longingly at the Seldom Seen Acting Company whose rehearsal I was missing. I decided, instead of cleaning up the center, to ask the Company if the kids could be included.

An amazing thing happened.

The Company was brainstorming new ideas for its second production, Season II of the Seldom Seen Acting Company. They were putting ideas for plot, character, place, and language on index cards. The Company was kind enough to include the young volunteers. So the Idahoans all sat timidly down, having just learned that the guys in the center were almost all on-the-street homeless people and many former drug users and ex-felons. There’s something special about youth, however, which allows the fears and stereotypes to drain away so fast: the kids jumped into the mix without fear. One suggested “an immigrant” as a character, another offered “mental patient,” and “junkie,” and a third put “hospital” into the mix of places.

After brainstorming about a dozen ideas for each category, each Idahoan was placed with a member of the Company and assigned the task of picking one idea from each category. The pair was then to create and perform the makeshift scene in front of everybody and report what they learned. The performances that ensued were hilarious, touching, silly, and completely earnest. For instance, I myself was a mental patient playing a scene with my Idaho friend who was a junkie. We were in Africa and were fighting over clothing and haircuts. Oh, and our language was gibberish. In another scene JR was a grandfather rooting on his grandson who was a Warriors basketball player during the Championship game (he won and the grandfather was proud). In another, Isaac was a counselor for a kid who was convinced he should drop out of school.

And finally, the best for last: a scene between Jesus (played by Dennis) and a hospital volunteer discouraged by the lack of results in his field and convinced it was time to quit. Imagine the scene: a white, suburban, young man from Idaho prostrated and praying to a very black, uneducated, ex-dope fiend born and raised in Oakland. The contrasts alone were enough to make the scene stunning. Beneath what appeared to be irony, however, was a resounding truth: the wealthy kid of the “1/3 World” that has the privilege of enjoying the fruits of life was praying to the poor “2/3 World” that is on the verge of dying. The poor is Jesus according to the spirituality of Dorothy Day, the Liberation Theologians, and (dare I say it?) Frederick Oznam and St. Vincent de Paul himself. And in this scene, the poor man literally was Jesus. This picture should be on the front cover of any book about solidarity. It was truly priceless. This was solidarity. This was the embrace of the poor. The impoverished black man (Jesus nonetheless!) was gently whispering words of encouragement to the privileged kid. Heady theologians subscribing to Ignatian spirituality wait their entire lives for a moment like this. And here, a fearless kid from Idaho unwittingly finds himself wrapped in the arms of Jesus. His faith was great, indeed.

Don’t you see: the kids got to be homeless! They got a chance to really, truly empathize. They were forced to perform the thought experiment, to think about what life would be like on the street. This is making a difference. Imagine, now, how many seeds were planted in these kids. What kind of effect will this experience have on them? What kind of effect will my experience have on me?

Everybody bought into it. For a moment, we were all together as one.

You see, there’s no better service that volunteers can do than to interact with our clients—to simply be with them. This fellowship is what causes the fears and stereotypes to drain away. It just happens that these people previously considered sub-human (homeless people, black people, gay people, immigrants, substitute any marginalized population) all of the sudden get viewed righteously as part of the human family. This is what the Champion Guidance Center does. This is its greatest strength and its core mission: to restore dignity. When a person rejects another both the person rejected and the one doing the rejecting lose. Because not only are the clients less dignified on account of the discrimination but those who discriminate themselves, even if they do it unconsciously, also strip away their own dignity. You hurt yourself when you turn away from your neighbor. So, this fellowship restores dignity to both the one “being served” and the one “serving.” I believe, and I have to believe, that pain and suffering is nothing more than a failure to bring this awareness into consciousness. The Champion Guidance Center is in the business of breaking the veneer separateness. That’s what we did for those kids on Friday. And that’s why it was so special.

That’s why, when somebody asks me “what do I do when a homeless person asks me for a dollar?” I say, “you respond with love.” How would you, for instance, respond if it was your brother or sister approaching you on the street? This is the response we are called to give as family members of this human race, as Christians. What would you do? Well, you might start by offering him some food and maybe even put him up for a night or two. Impossible? That’s exactly what Dorothy Day did. That’s what Steve does. It’s what the Champion Guidance Center is desperately, desperately trying to do with Marion Village.

Do you get it yet?

Friday, July 07, 2006

Steve told me this one day while I was here: no matter what we do during the day, what happens, what are our worries, stresses, or concerns, we can’t help but be on the positive side of life. I am thankful for the opportunity to be on the positive side of life for a year. It has been transformative (as promised!) above and beyond all expectations. John Sutton asked me yesterday, when I told him that August 5 will come too soon, what was the best thing about it. I responded that I’ve learned to be open. In one sense it’s a gained ability to interact, communicate, and find friendships with people that are dirty, smelly, crazy, and generally socially unacceptable. In this way I’ve blossomed my natural pity—my penchant for including the classroom outcaste, for refusing to cut the freshman tennis player with a heart condition, etc. In short, I’m a far cry from Day One when Steve told me after realizing I was having trouble interacting, “a good way to break the ice with them is to say hello.” But in a deeper sense I’ve come to understand how abusive some of our guys are to themselves and how hard we can all be on ourselves. Also called by Steve, "cranial rectal insertion." At this point, if I had to answer succinctly the question, “why are people homeless,” I would respond: self-loathing.

Seeing sadness here has been unavoidable—it is so stark, obvious, physical, and different from my personal history. We witness rock bottom experiences. There are many kinds of people that find their way to the Champion. Some of the more touching, for me, have been the unexpected ones: the professional on the brink of emotional and relational breakdown who gives us service, the young volunteer grappling with addiction, the white collar criminal, etc. It makes JR’s monologue from Sleeping: It’s a Wakeup Call just a twinge weightier: “all people, from all lifestyles, are welcome.” And each rock bottom moment is special, sacred, and precious because we get to pay witness, to participate in, and every once in a while to actually be a catalyst for…hope.

But it is hard to pay witness to constant rock bottom. Sadder still, than seeing all the misery, is thinking about all of the people who are on their way down, the ones who will need our center in the future, “the addict” as we say before the customary moment of silence during Twelve Step meetings, “who still suffers.” I started wondering about all the others. I began seeing the sadness in my own life, in the lives of some of my closest friends, and within the privileged community from which I came. I found out, for example, after years of friendship, about a close friend’s traumatic childhood. I’ve come to realize that crack cocaine may be a drug of choice particular to the community we serve, but addiction is universal. In other words the center with its vividness forced me to confront suffering which, upon closer inspection, I discovered in areas previously hidden by materialism and distraction. In this place I have faced a tough choice: to either embrace trauma or else completely break down myself. I think this is why people are scared of the Champion. It forces us to make that choice.

I think self-loathing manifests the sadness which is medicated through our addictions, whether to crack, alcohol, sex, violence, gang banging, money, or power. So when I say I am thankful for the opportunity to be on the positive side of life, I mean I’m grateful to have learned self-compassion. Self-compassion floods in immediately after embracing trauma. Buddhists find wellsprings of compassion by visualizing suffering. I have been forced to see suffering and I have chosen to embrace it...sometimes, kind of...at least, as best I can.

It is in this way that I have received far more than I gave this year. It is also in this way that August 5, 2006 very much represents a beginning, rather than an end for I have learned a great lesson—it seems to me one of the greatest—for it can’t help but be shared.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

"The Lord Provides" a.k.a Karma Exists UPDATE

Today, the very day the first posting of Karma Exists, the guy and his brother walked into our center. The guy's face lit up, he gave me a huge man hug. His brother was older, not younger it seems; too embaressed, perhaps, to come in the first time. It's a striking contrast: a young, short hyperactive guy with freshly cropped hair dressing, walking, and talking just like Eminem together with his older, tall, long-haired, laid back brother walking, and (not) talking just like Kurt Kobain.

I saw my shoes on Kurt Kobain today, the very day I told the story to the world.
"The Lord Provides" a.k.a. Karma Exists

So I'm writing an email to my sister about how I'm doing random acts of kindness for the little one in her womb for whom I am to be a spiritual guider (shout out to Jazzie...that's the baby's nickname given by my sister's college friends who had a penchant for the New Orlean's Jazz Festival). I'm telling my sister that I'm doing these random acts of kindness without having really started doing them. You know, one of those promises type things, it's like stock option karma.

As I'm banging out this email and guy pops his head into the office asking for shoes for his little brother--some sneakers. As we recently stopped giving out major clothing (anything other than t-shirts, underwear, and socks) there were no shoes in our hygiene room. I glanced down at my own feet and asked him what size his brother needed: size 12. I decided that since I had two other pairs of shoes at home he needed my size 12 Pete Sampras sneakers more than I did. So I gave him my shoes. He was shocked saying, "you're not kidding are you?" He left happy.

I walked around the center in my socks figuring that the worst thing to come of all this is a half day without shoes and a long walk home. When some of the guys saw me with no shoes they asked me what happened. I explained that I gave them away. In about 45 minutes a donation came in and David brought me into the storage area. There was a pair of brand new Wilson Pro Staff tennis shoes size 12 that had come in with the donation.

So I took them. This is a literal, physical example of, when you serve, receiving more than you give. You see, my Pete Sampras shoes were half a decade old. Now I walk around with brand new tennis shoes. At first, I felt guilty about this. I mean, the brother should have received these new shoes because, while I may not be able to afford shoes this year, I'm confident in the fact that I'll leave this place and, eventually, be making a living wage. This guy and his brother may never get there. But I'm learning to live in the moment. I'm learning to receive as much as to give. Who am I to say that the guy and his brother won't be making a living wage and who am I to be so confident that I will be? Besides, I gave him my shoes before the donation came in; if I hadn't he might have left completely shoeless and then the new shoes would have gone to somebody that didn't need them.

It's like when I sit down to eat some donated food with the guys. When I first came I thought I had to deny myself: I should let all the poor homeless people eat and then I can eat if there's anything left over. But now I take part equally.

It's this kind of thing that really makes me believe in karma. If you give from your heart, out of pure generosity, without any strings (or, as Steve says, "maybe just a few"), then you are repaid in multiples. The cosmic forces, it seems, didn't want me to walk around in socks all day--to reap the arrogant rewards of prostrating myself in front of the poor like some sick modern Pharisee. I gave the shoes because somebody else needed them. I received some shoes because I needed them.

My JVC administrator commented later that she felt like giving me a hug and then slapping me in the face. Is it obvious that she's a nun? I took this to meant that my undertaking was heartfelt but misguided. It took me about seven months into this year to realize that I could, literally, give the shirt off my back in this place if I so choose.

But you know, sometimes a man just needs some shoes. He doesn't need your program for living, he doesn't need your ideas on how he's mentally ill, he doesn't need a lecture.

Besides, it was all for Jazzie.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

In late February some members of the Seldom Seen Acting Company and others from the Champion Guidance Center went to the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco to see a professional production of August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean." As the Company's director put it, noBODY, charges more than the A.C.T. The A.C.T. is where the rich go to play. Interesting then, that a troupe of homeless men and women and their friends should be in attendance. Much thanks to the people of A.C.T. for their generous donation.

The evening was complete with a pre-performance trip to a lavish New York Deli immediately across the street from the theatre. It was one of the best meals of my life.

For two hours or more the men and women of the Champion Guidance Center--11 of us in total--ate like kings (and believe me when I tell you that not a crumb was left untouched), drank coffee and coke, and laughed big belly laughs. We made fun of each other constantly and told jokes left and right. It was, in the truest sense, an experience of family. And what a diverse family! Afrian Americans, latinos, white, homeless, transitioning folks, teachers, social workers, educated and uneducated alike. Let me tell you, we were jiving. We brought out the best in each other. You see, at only the slightest of opportunities, the joy of the human spirit is evident down at the Center. There is much sadness, indeed, but in the midst of all the pain, allt he suffering, all the depression, violence, anger, rage, and sorrow, just below the surface of all this negativity, there is a sensitivity. The Buddhists would call it "bodhichitta." It is a change in experiences, like going to a play in San Francisco, which often allows the spirit to break free.

And then came the play. What a powerful experience! This was art--both the play itself, the effect it had on the Company, and the Company's presence at the theatre. The connections between the characters in 1904 Pittsburg were powerfully similar to the current life situation of African Americans living in downtown Oakland. The similarities were uncanny, extending all the way down to sayings, modes of speech, even clothing. When someone inquired about Solly "Two Kings," he responded, "I'm blessed. I'm blessed." This very same response can be heard from Dennis--the resident Deacon in our community--in much the same voice.

Row J, seats 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and Row D, seats 1, 3, and 5 responded with their hearts and they responded in different ways at different times. Oftentimes we laughed big belly laughs when the rest of the audience fell silent. They didn't get it. Other times we were deathly silent or offered a supportive grunt--the kind you utter when somebody shares the bare naked truth even when it hurts--when the rest of the audience felt pulled toward laughter. You see, you have to understand, to live and breath the African culture in America. I was priveleged to identify with certain parts because I happen to be an observer of the play's modern day counteparts at a homeless drop-in center in downtown Oakland. But don't you see: the play was written in their language. There was no intellectual, ivory tower leap that they needed to make. There was no thought experiment to undertake. The play was their play. It literally used their words! And so, one of our illiterate friends can exit the play singing the old negro spiritual from the trip the City of Bones and wonder where his own two pennies are going to be found. He got it.

We were smoking cigarettes at intermission and Dennis was concerned about his money. A friend of his, a Company member himself, apparently owed Dennis. I told him he was being too much like Ceasar. He said "I ain't like Caesar, I'm like that man with the stick. If he don't give me my money I'm going to break his bones!" How could I argue with that?! He could have said that in the play without it skipping a beat. Our men are real life versions of the lives portrayed on stage by highly skilled professional actors. But these actors were so good, so polished, so rehearsed, that their life, to me, was almost indistiguishable from the lives I see lived at the Champion Guidance Center.

Man I wish we could have spoken with the cast.

I wonder how many of the audience members hated Caesar; but how many of those same people turn a blind eye to capital punishment. Afterall, the law is the law and without the law there is chaos.

The juxstaposition of Christian dogma against African tribal ritual is a tightrope walked daily by our guys. In the Center even the preachy tone that the evangelical brothers often undertake when sharing from the Gospel or from the Old Testament always carries this twinge of a more spiritual, more mystical experience. The more vehement their argue for Christian dogma the more vehement the belief in spirits, ghosts, and devils. Dennis always talks to me about the Devil's influence. He really believes in a personal Devil--someone or something out there trying to influence people to make wrong choices. This personification of the Evil One is something outside my realm of beliefs--a thought that I reject. But in the context of Dennis' spirituality it seems to have roots in African spirituality. The characters take a trip to the City of Bones, they perform something that looks like an excorism, they cast out the Devil. The dialogue in the play about how God threw Lucifer out of heaven and how he really did not treat others how he would be treated (surely God wouldn't have wanted his own self thrown out of heaven) represents the point at which Christian teaching falls short of speaking to the African. It was superimposed on them anyway, was it not? But nevertheless the story of Jesus Christ resounds. Aunt Ester wounders why Peter denied Jesus three times, three times. Mythical charaters--Aunt Ester counted among them--are always good teachers. The holes in the Christian dogma were apparent to Solly. The contradiction between the Old Testament and the New Testament were explored.

Aunt Ester talked about how everyone come into her house looking for something but what they're really looking for is love. This is exactly what our guys are looking for. Everybody has a hole in their soul, everybody needs their soul washed. They need love. And they need to face their deamons, they need to face God, their Gatekeeper, they need to say "My name is Joe Adams, and I stole the bucket of nails."

She told the intruder to go and get her purse and she would give him $2 out of it. She trusted him regardless of his obvious reputation as a scoundrel. This is what we do at the Center. We trust the scoundrel, we give the keys to the center ("the keys to the kingdom") to the low-down rotten drug dealer, the pimp, the hustler, the prostitute.

The economic frustration experienced by Citizen is rampant for the guys that come into the Center. As Citizen said, "every time I get some money, seems like it belongs to someone else." The woman who signed up for Homeless Court just last month wrote a letter about the gap in her income: "I'm always behind in something," she wrote. Citizen lamented how the mill promised him $2.50 a day, they gave him $1.50, they took $1.25 for "room and board." But when they didn't feed him he had to spend $.50 on food, leaving him $.25 in debt every week. There was not getting out. Emancipation made freedom the law, but the sharecropper system implemented after Abraham Lincoln's made it impractical.

The line about the situation being Abraham Lincoln's fault garnered many laughs from the audience. Most were probably from the white folks dismissing it as ironic. But the laughs from our guys may have been more like laugh you laugh just before you start to cry. You see, Abraham Lincoln gave the African freedom but didn't provide any support systems for taking advantage of it. It's like when the Allied troops rolled into Nazi concentration camps and the prisoners walked out of the gates confused, totally incapable of understanding what had just happend. When captivitiy is extended for a long period of time, freedom, it seems, is dislodged from the psyche. That's why Solly cried when he got to Canada. The air didn't smell different. Food didn't taste different. All he knew was his family was still on the battlefield in the United States and he had to stay on the battlefield until everybody was out of it. Freedom seemed hallow unless you were raging against captivity.

I am forced to wonder, now, "how free our the people we serve?" Sometimes it seems we still have yet to make the Emancipation Proclomation a reality. Lyndon claims, as a black man, to be a member of history's unwanted race, and I think there's some truth to that. But I tell you, on this half day, for at least several hours we were wanted. You see, within the story told by August Wilson--the one about Solly Two Kings and Ceasar and Aunt Ester--is the story of August Wilson himself, a giant literary figure and an African American. Thanks to August Wilson, the men of the Champion Guidance Center were able to hear their own story--the story of their history, their spirituality, their love life, their mothers, their fears, and their dreams--told by a fellow just like them. But August Wilson's story (both the one who wrote and the one he lived) is one of hope. Because he made it, he created purpose, he shocked the world of playwriting and he stuck it to everybody when he refused to stray from his singular purpose of chartering the map of the African American experience for all to see. The message, to me, was that August Wilson had made it to Canada, he had been released from the Nazi concentration camp, and then he pushed on. He waded through the hangover of slavery, of sharecropping, of Jim Crow laws, and of the corporate glass ceiling. He freed his mind and dedicated his work to awakening the minds of his own people. This steadfastness was a great act of compassion. Like the Buddhist monks who find enlightenment only to remain on Earth so that they may share the message, like the recovering alcoholic who found serenity only to return to help others along the path, August Wilson found freedom and, like Solly, steadfastly fought to help others find the same.

Monday, July 03, 2006

The homeless population is the United States' untouchables. Part 1: The Homeless as Outcasts.

This blog will argue from analogy that the most impoverished citizens of the United States in Oakland, California served by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County Champion Guidance Center exhibit similarities to and in some contexts are actually worse off than, the citizens of India's well-known (and currently illegal) bottom caste--the one not even recognized as existing in the eyes of their Creator--the untouchables. I assume most reasonable Americans cringe at the thought of an untouchable caste and probably breath a sigh of righteous relief that such a system would never be tolerated at home. My hope is that this sentiment may be used to break the veneer of self-denial, to eliminate the gap between where America thinks she is and where her economic health actually lies. My hope is that after America cringes at herself, she may begin to heal herself.

According to National Geographic Magazine, "Untouchables are outcasts—people considered too impure, too polluted, to rank as worthy beings. Prejudice defines their lives, particularly in the rural areas, where nearly three-quarters of India's people live. Untouchables are shunned, insulted, banned from temples and higher caste homes, made to eat and drink from separate utensils in public places, and, in extreme but not uncommon cases, are raped, burned, lynched, and gunned down. The primordial being does not claim them" http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0306/feature1/).

I will use my experience at the Champion Guidance Center to argue that the clients we serve fit the above definition. Not unreasonaly my experience could, with some tweaks, be universalized to encompass all of the homeless in Oakland and the United States. As with any analogy, the parallels are not exact; in these instances I argue that the American homeless man's situation is actually worse than the Indian untouchable's.

The Homeless as Outcasts.

The first description of untouchabes as "outcasts" defined as someone considered a non-human, is readily apparent. Let's work form the macro level on down. First, they are ghetto-ized into a specific geographic loation. Right now, this location is usually an urban location near downtown, unless downtown happens to be a genetrified tourist attraction, as with the Gas Lamp District of San Deigo California. The evolution of this is incredibly interesting. For downtown were presumably formed because they were the centers of economy--the place for the weathy to shop, eat, and recreate. The homeless, during these times, were relegated to rural outposts. (Note here the definition's pervasiveness of prejudice "in particular in the rurual areas." The only place where homelessness seems to receive attention is in the city center. Choosing to not even acknowledge people, as with the homeless in rural areas such as Native American Reservations, seems to me, to be worse than prejudice.) But when the poorer and more colored people arrived in the city centers seeking work the wealthy suddenly fled, creating strip mall paradises and a whole new land called suburbia. We have Orange County, California, as evidence--a classic "white flight" response to the influx of poor people to downtown Los Angeles.
Unlike the former Indian situation, the government as in the policymakers, of American have not (yet) endorsed this ghettoization with its words (another essay might argue that its actions have in fact done this). But the government, as in the people, has, however, in other ways collectively stamped approval for this situation. The word "ghetto" itself, for example, has morphed in American language from a description of a social catastrophe ("ghetto" as the precursor to prison camp), to a glorifed almost honorable situation. Rap stars "from the hood," are often revered, although one would note that, after they amass enough wealth, they usually move to elite, mostly white, suburban neighborhoods--a clear sign that the ghetto (in both the more recent vulgar sense as well as in the more traditional social mode) is, in fact, not a very nice place to live.

What other evidence have we to prove that the homeless of America are considered outcasts, that is, non-human? First, we must select our definition of human. Shall we take the United States Declaration of Independence where enlightened Europeans declared that humans are those beings with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Or should we use the United Nations Delaration of Human Rights where it defines humans as those beings with "the right to life, liberty and security or person (Article 3)," and "the right to not be subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 5)," and " the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state" (Article 13), and the list goes on. Perhaps, for reasons of brevity and lest my sentiments be interpretated as "unamerican" either because I didn't use the Declaration of Independence or because, if I use the UN's definition, I might just be hanging too much of America's dirty laundry out for all to see, I should use the Declaration of Independence.

So humans are those beings with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At St. Mary's Center just across the street from St. Vincent de Paul, they hold a funeral ceremony for all of the homeless clients they serve who have passed away. Need I say more? Another client who came to me for the Homeless Court described, in letter form, his desires to return to prison (a violation of liberty) and to seek the death penalty (a violation of life). You see, the situation of these people is so dire that the most extreme versions of possible evidence are actually true. Per the above the homeless are literally dying, every single day. Per the amount of Homeless Court cases the homeless are literally denied liberty, every single day. The pursuit of happiness? Not possible without life or liberty.

What is next in our definition? "People considered too impure, too polluted, to rank as worthy beings." Here again, even if we interpret the terms in their most extreme sense in hopes that America really isn't like India used to be, we still find ourselves unable to deny their truth. Our clients are literally impure and pollutted: they walk into our center dirty and smelly. At Project Homeless Connect I saw a staff worker follow a man around with disinfectant spray--disinfectant spray! He was a germ. Our clients have diseases too, not just the metaphorical kinds of disease like being raised in a culture of violence, but the literal ones like HIV, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis C. They are polluted literally: they live in smog-infested cities and use the space where the rest of us put only the bottoms of our covered feet--the sidewalk--to rest their heads. They are pollutted metaphorically: they are the most vulnerable targets of America's corporate marketing conglomerates. 100% of the homeless people who staff and run our facility smoke cigarettes. Every single one. What else needs to be said! Perhaps the word of an artist--a black, homeless, educated artist--may awaken your senses to this pollution: "Out in the streets the game goes on get your money buck the heat, smoking each others' lives filled with deceit. Just another nobody down for the kill, a statistic part of this year's bill. Whole generations of my youth break dancing right behind me into new corporate concrete steel hells, smelling of death caught up in player spells. Silly foxybrowns, Lil Kims broken black Barbie girls strung out on lucky charms, play things finding worth in folls gold, big cars, diamond rings, prisoners of material things, with no out date for all the pain life brings."