Stories

This weekend I met a women who most would have labeled a crack head.  She told me a story about how when she was on the street, one day she felt an overwhelming sadness and despair.  She sat on the street corner at Hastings and Main and cried and cried and cried and people walked past.  She said if just one person had of stopped and looked at her, seen her humanity and asked her how they could help, she would have felt like she was not so alone.  Now many years later, she has found the love of God, is in recovery, and struggling to become whole again.   I thanked her for  honouring me, for letting me into her circle and telling me her story.  From now on I will take a risk, notice and engage the people on the streets instead of walking past, shaking my head and judging that they actually want to be there or had the capacity to change if they truly wanted to.

This weekend I met a man who was out on a weekend pass from his sentence.  He was born into an organized crime family and his earliest memory is being thrown thru a wall by his father.  He spent his childhood being beaten and screamed at.  He spent his teens and adult years beating and screaming at others.  He now spends his weeks sleeping in a cell with 3 other men, crammed in tight with a shared toilet.  Some would say he got what he deserved. Some would say this is justice.  Some don't care that he is as every bit created in the image of God as you and me.  I thanked him for honouring me, for letting me into his circle and telling me his story.  From now on I will remember that those big grey bleak buildings along King Road  house humans, sons and daughters of the same One Who created me.

This weekend I met a woman who's parents threw her out when she was 13.  She ended up on the streets then in foster care, where she was beaten and screamed at. She witnessed things no 13 year old should ever see and did things that no teenage girl should ever do but somehow, with nothing but determination and will,  she got through it, went to school, got a degree, then a masters, and is now working on a PhD.  She is beautiful, smart,  and successful.   She spends her weekends teaching convicts and community members how to communicate in non violent ways.  I thanked her for honouring me, for letting me into her circle and telling me her story.  From now on I will not allow my envy to inform my assumptions that everyone who is highly educated and successful had good fortune or got a hand up or a hand out or a head start on the rest of us.

This weekend I met a man who's mother died when he was 13.  His heart broke, and his dad told him to stop his blubbering.  In the pain of loss over his mother he started to wear her cloths.  His dad caught him and so began a cycle of beatings and abuse.   Something happened inside of him, so much so, he forgot who he was and longs to be someone else.   In fact, he believes he wants to be a woman but is ambiguous and afraid. He is certain he is not gay, he has a girlfriend and yet feels female.  He said if he had the money he would become transgendered.  I thanked him for honouring me, for letting me into his circle and telling me his story.  I thanked him for understanding that I did not fully understand but that from now on I will leave these questions to God and remind myself that my call is to love.

Something happened to me this weekend.  It has nothing to do with "us and them" - it has everything to do with "me and you".  My eyes are opened to the possibility that the moral high ground is not where I want to be.  I would rather take the love graced into my heart by the Creator who made all, loves all, and pursues all and simply be present and available to those who need to know His acceptance, finally, truly, and for real.