Saturday's Guests

It's been a rather long time since last I posted on this blog.  The Push-Ups blog gets most of the action.  There I can be quick and light and picture-heavy when necessary.  My alter ego.  But at The Reluctant Suburbanite my "altar" ego makes its presence known.  That bared down, pared down, often raw deep down part of me which questions the world and its God.  At least the God I'm getting to know and recognize as the great Creator and Sustainer.  Those questions often lead to answers.  And not always to neatly trimmed and clipped around the sides and across the top.

I should rightly be asleep.  Though this is a common refrain for me, it is all the more true in this case as I've had possibly two hours of shut-eye in the past two days.  As I wrote much earlier today, my Friday night and Saturday morning were spent at my church as a volunteer, caring for a group of local women in need of food and shelter who rotate from church to church all around Murfreesboro courtesy of a pilot program called "The Way of Hope" which started this past winter.  Though these women find safety and comfort in our building more than once a month, once a month is all that our actual members are needed to actively participate in the program.  Two to three women, along with a male duo, are required to spend the night at the church with anywhere from five to twenty five women (guessing on the average numbers as in the beginning they were lower, more recently, as the service becomes more widely known and used, the numbers are growing).  At least one volunteer needs to remain awake at all times.  Last night, my high intake of caffeine, coupled with the excitement stemming from having four-fifths of my family helping out, kept me fully alert until five AM, at which point I crashed for an hour before joining my husband for a quick trip to Wal-Mart for the food we would pack for the ladies' lunches.

It was a huge success in my book.  An outdoor picnic with idyllic spring weather.  Low drama factor.  Well-behaved little boys.  That perfect homemade chocolate cake provided by our very own Barbara Earp.  And the enlightening time of fellowship via board and word games with our music worship leader, Josiah, our guitarist, Kirby, and our college-night barista and regular Sunday attendee, Kay Jaeger.  Though it's always rewarding when the women who stay with us let us know that they've had a pleasant stay and then extend blessings and thanks with sincerity, it isn't necessary for my peace of mind.  Because though the program is extremely important to me on many levels and I understand how vital it is to our community, my volunteering is an act of love to my church.  It is an act of appreciation for our pastors and the elders; for the lovely ladies who show up early to greet our attendees at the door with a smile of welcome that I know is 100% genuine Church at Cross Point; for the dudes and dudettes on stage who get us into harmony and melody with open hearts; for the members who forsake the Sunday message for the sake of ministering to our children; for the couples and families, new and old, and the individuals, who fill our seats with their presence and open their hearts to praying for others even as they, in turn, often require prayer for themselves.  After seven years of attendance, I can wholeheartedly refer to myself as an avid Cross Pointer, and a pointer toward the cross.  And it is all a very good thing.

In the wake of all that goodness, with the scents of sausage and bacon yet lingering in the air of the large open room where I join with fellow believers on Sunday, hang out with homeless but hopeful women one Friday a month when possible, and watched my middle child exchange marriage vows with her Army man almost two short weeks ago, my plan was to deliver my two young women charges, one with two small children in her care, to their hang-out destination for the day . . . and then take a long nap before walking Hankie Dog.

However, there was an alternate plan out there not of my devising but not outside of my liking or reckoning.  The two twenty-something ladies, dressed to flatter their youthful figures, hair and makeup complimentary to their African-American skin tones, realized that they had recalled wrongly the hours of a particular place where they had planned to stay.  They had nowhere to go.  Now, I could have told them I'd drop them off at the mall with their bag lunches for the next seven or eight hours and that would have been within my rights to do.  It was definitely within the parameter of my volunteer duties as outlined in the program.  But I often neglect to recognize parameters.  And without consulting my husband, not even thinking I needed to do so, I blurted out, "You know what?  You are welcome to come stay at our house and hang out.  I'm not going anywhere and it's comfortable if you can handle a cat and an active but friendly dog."

And they accepted my offer.

Zachary played with the five year-old boy ALL the rest of the morning and right up to five in the afternoon.  He dug out his old bicycle and pumped up the tires.  Found a good safety helmet and his trusty skateboard.  Introduced his young charge to the neighbor boys.  And even took him for a tasty trip to McDonalds.

Inside the house, Hank took charge of the toddler, alternately licking him to within an inch of his fearless little life (the kid was not afraid of Hank IN THE LEAST!) and beating him with that tail-with-its-own-zip-code.  The toddler, in turn, kept Hank fed with a steady stream of snacks which were first half-consumed by him and then finished off by the white wonder pup.

I managed to garner my share of hugs and kisses from these sweetly-behaved little guys, snapping off pictures whenever I could (with the permission of their mother).  The younger woman, Brittany, who wants to be known as Brit-Brat, responded to my questions with an awareness and intelligence well beyond her twenty years.  Though she knows her parents well, she's spent much of her childhood in foster homes, fending for herself in her later years, in Michigan, before moving to Tennessee just a few month ago.  Even in her present situation, she loves Tennessee and has formed a fast friendship with the other woman and mother, Pauline.  Brittany often walks to work, leaving herself plenty of time to be early for her Dollar General Store part-time job, so as to show her boss that she is worthy of gainful full-time employment and eventual managerial training.  Often, she arrives an hour early and hangs out a the grocery store while waiting to start her shift.  She would like to find an apartment with Pauline so that the two of them could work different shifts, care for the boys, share expenses, and build on their fast friendship forged under the duress of life's hard knocks.

It's not every person in this program that I would have asked over to my house.  I couldn't discern danger or manipulation in these girls.  (I'm a mother to grown children and am over 40; I can call them girls.)  I had occasion to watch them at Cross Point through the evening and on into the morning.  And as the balance of my marriage goes, when I allow my guard to lower out of compassion and personal history's empathy, my husband's antennae go up and out in direct compensatory gesture.  That's probably not a bad thing.  I don't fault him in the least.  And in the end, he allowed these perfect strangers entry into our family home for the balance of our fatigued Saturday.  When Brittany discovered she had been scheduled to work on her day off, Jimmy rode with us to her place of employment, listening and talking in equal measure, shining a bit of his fatherly charm on her.  (We both agreed that she reminded us of our own Sarah, so close in age, and displaying that unique brand of self-confidence and personality that shows in her attitude and demeanor.)  I later dropped off the little brothers and their mama at tonight's location for food and shelter, swapping numbers so that we could get that bicycle to her little man once they found an apartment and settled in.

They are not the kind who will remain homeless for very long.  There is no affect which suggests mental illness or drug/alcohol abuse or serious domestic crisis without the ability for resolution.  And because of these things, their time in the emergency shelter system can actually be more difficult to manage.  Preparing for work amongst other strange women embroiled in drama and impaired by major issues takes focus and an ability to shut out trouble makers.  Caring for small children within a larger body of females without children but with strong opinions on how parenting should occur and how children should behave can be challenging.  I was a child myself during the times I spent in church housing and local shelters.  People, staff, volunteers -- they're all nice to children.  And unless they are predators beneath the kindnesses, their kindness is real.  But homeless adults can face all manner of criticism and judgement, condemnation and derision.  As difficult as it was to be homeless as a kid with a memory and awareness, I do believe that the depression and self-doubt of adult homelessness might be downright crippling.  I hope never to find out.

But I do hope that it is in my future to continue to counter the negatives of all herein outlined with the love and purposefulness that is mine to share with my fellow human beings in need.  Life is plenty hard enough without the added daily worries of how shelter and food the basics of surviving will be met.  Especially in a country such as ours where excess is the name of the game for so many.  Living on the fringes while rubbing elbows with folks who are overflowing in abundance to the point of excess is disheartening, to say the very, very, VERY least.

See how I ramble when tired.  See poor Jane run . . . and ramble . . . and trip down the stairs and into bed . . . because she dozes at the keyboard . . . and her daughter insists she stop . . .