Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Seen and Unseen

I just got back from a retreat in Austin given by Mobile Loaves and Fishes an organization that works to feed and rehome the homeless, and at the sametime create relationships between them and MLFs volunteers.  It is really hard to define all that MLF does (mlf.org).  

This was my third Street Retreat.  Each one has been totally different and I have learned something different each time.  This was my first time doing the 3 day retreat.  What I learned this time was more about myself  that I may share later but I wanted to share an observation, what we see and don't see.

I am amazed at what we see and don't see.  When I walk down a street I notice the beautiful earrings in a store window or a nice bit of architecture, but the homeless man in a huge coat carrying a backpack and bedroll I walk by without a glance.  Which do I value more?  Can I truely value life more if I don't notice a person before a thing?  Where am I storing my treasure if I see consumable things before I see someone made in the image and likeness of God?  I think that is telling.

After the first day out on the street I saw more people.  I looked at and spoke to "them".  They were still "them" and I could see them.  It's a terrible term "them" it is not "us".  It was strange that by the second day I was becoming more invisible, or it seemed to me.  People quit giving me glance or a smile as I walked down the street.  We actually had the joy of being kicked out of a library for nothing more than some of the people in our group carrying a bedroll.  We were just reading quietly and keeping out of the rain but we were told we couldn't be in the library with a bedroll.  I felt I was in a sort of no mans land at this point.  I was not homeless, but wasn't acceptable in the non homeless society.

We met a young woman flying a sign at a street corner.  Part of our group tried to talk to her.  I don't know why I didn't.  I had some change left over from buying water earlier and gave that her, but I didn't talk to her.  They tried to get her to join us for evening.  She was young and pretty and new to Austin I was afraid for her.  I prayed for her as they talked to her.  She started to yell and I felt I could feel her pain.  She seemed to be in an immense amount of pain.  We couldn't force her to come with us.  I will never forget her.  I will see her.  I never want to not see anyone again.  Her yelling felt like someone wanting so much to be heard and seen and not being heard and seen in the way she needed for so long she didn't see us as maybe people who wanted to see her and hear her.  We all need to be seen and heard and we all have impediments to being seen and heard.

Alan Graham, Steven, and Sarah our street Shepards see people.  Maybe that is what MLF does best. It tries to teach us to see each other as we are, warts and all.  They have no romantic ideas of our brothers and sisters on the street being all saints but they see that we can learn from them as much as they can learn from us.  We can form community.

This all got me thinking today, what else and who else do I not see.  Do I not see the elderly?  Do I miss seeing the young people around me?  I was struck on the second day the people who did see us.  A man who gave up the sidewalk for a woman in a hoodie who was sunburned and a bit smelly, and an older man in a suit who said hello to us and looked us in the eye.  I wonder who those people were.

My goal is to not see the things in the shop window as much but to see, instead, those around me.  To keep my eyes open to those around me and to hear them as well.  I want to see people and not to condescend to people.  I want to form relationships with people and not merely minister to them.  I don't want to do this to simply for myself, to be thought of as a good person.  I want to see, hear, be, love, and give.  In return I hope to be seen, heard, and loved, only.