Today at the Mission

I had breakfast with a bunch of guys this week in a lovely little cafe downtown. They all seem so young, but they're so incredibly smart, so funny, so real. The room has floor to ceiling windows overlooking the street and, as I sat there enjoying the eggs and coffee and conversation, a flash of red caught my eye. It was Dame Melba, dressed in her cardinal red overcoat and equally eye-catching red hat with its floppy brim, holding a white canvas bag close to her waist and, in the other hand, a sturdy cane. She walked, slowly, carefully, unnaturally, the length of the street, crossed at the lights and, after several minutes, disappeared from view.

Dame Melba was a fixture on the streets downtown for years. She suffered from mental illnesses, one of which was paranoia, which made her believe that the doctors were trying to kill her. She was impossible to house: she hoarded bags and bags of what any reasonable person would deem garbage. After a few months in any apartment it was filled from floor to ceiling with bags, there would be a path through it from the front door to the bed and the toilet; on the bed only enough room was left clear for her to sleep on. Her case workers tried a dozen times to keep her in an apartment. Dame Melba had also been in and out of the shelters and, eventually, she was prohibited from staying in any them; refusing to take her meds led her to dangerously violent episodes. She slept on a bench outside the library or the Sally Ann, all of her possessions in garbage and shopping bags. She shouted and swore at passersby. She was arrested for assault. She was happy, laughing, luminous, mad, lovely, lighter than air, heavier than all our prayers, unsinkable, wild-eyed, violent, polite. And, as I look back on it, I'm amazed at the number of people who knew of her, who brought her bag lunches and bottles of water, who went looking for her with clothes and blankets in their car. One day she disappeared from our world, the way spring disappears into summer, without anyone ever seeming to notice. I didn't hear her name mentioned for almost a year. Then, early one morning I encountered her downtown. As we passed one another on the sidewalk there was a flash of recognition in her eyes, a hint of a smile and then, almost as quickly, that unmistakeable dullness returned to her features; the dishwater greyness of those who are heavily medicated.

As I watched her carefully negotiate the length of the sidewalk I wondered if she was a success story. Not our success story hear at the Mission, and certainly not mine, but a success story nonetheless. She had not been at the edge of madness but well beyond the sharp border where this reality ends and so many others begin. And now she's back. Well, sort of. She has an apartment of her own, a case worker, assistance from Social Services, stability, a life that looks and sounds so much like yours, and mine and millions of others. And yet I'm haunted by that vacuous gaze, that flash of brilliant light that was then swallowed up in a fog that I can't quite name. I've seen her in my mind, a dozen times, in that red coat and floppy red hat, slowly passing by and I think she represents something that is not quite success, but certainly not failure either. It seems to me that the system did the very best it could. Yet there's these other thoughts that keep swirling through my head and I hear Jesus making a statement that surely seemed like madness in his day  - "You must be born again."  

I consider that, carefully, slowly, each word melting like chips of ice on my tongue, and long for something more than the appearance of being whole for Dame Melba, for real healing. Yes, I am indeed thankful that she is no longer sleeping on a bench in the middle of winter's howling fury, but ache also for transformation to be completed, for her woundedness to be overcome, for her spirit to soar in the extraordinary normal-ness of a life well lived. All of creation groans as it awaits redemption and I believe - to the soles of my feet believe - that this redemption will come. I have hope, true hope, that there is a welcoming light and love beyond this life and in that hope - and for that hope - I live, seeking to drape it like a comforting shawl over the shoulders of others, seeking to draw others into that light. This is no small part of what it means, I believe, to be born again: that in all of our weakness and failings, in all of our brokenness and pain we become the carriers of hope, the birthing mothers of hope, the womb of redemption, the nursery of restoration. We become hope.

No, we can't fix the world, but perhaps we don't need to. Perhaps hope is enough. For Dame Melba, for the women in our shelter who greet me each day with laughter and pleasant banter, for the men standing outside the door smoking, for the kid behind the counter at the convienence store, for our splintered families and strained relationships and stressed out co-workers and for everyone who is surrounded by people and yet dying of lonelieness, perhaps, for today, just to see hope in the world is enough.