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Sometimes I have this feeling that my life is just too unreal to believe. It struck me the other day when an elvis impersonator came to one of the grass-roots faith communities I am a part of. It was just surreal. This night has been one of those nights. Bill* called me for a pick-up again. After our last episode, he signed himself into the psych ward of the hospital for about a week. He was getting treatment and then one day he disappeared for twelve hours in the pouring rain, only to show up again claiming voices led him out into the streets. He stayed a few more days to treat a mysterious blood infection that was eating his body, then went back to the streets and his home under a local bridge. This time Bill owed his heroine dealer $60. He had given the dealer his false teeth and crucifix as collatoral for the days fix (there’s something poetic there). Again, I gave him the money, but this time I told him he had thirty minutes to come back with his stuff or I was calling the cops to bust him and his dealer. I was a half-block from the projects where he bought his stuff. Bill seemed to think I was in some kind of danger just being there. After some drama, Bill went with me. He wanted to stop by his old apartment on the way to the hospital so he could shower. His not-so-long-ago-homeless mother was living there now with a couple of “guests” (read informal ’subletters’ or ’squatters’). In the hour-and-a-half it took for Bill to finally get clean, shave his beard, and cut his hair, I sat with his mother — obviously on heroine again, though we had helped her get clean about a month and a half ago — and her two friends, all high. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, even while smoking a cigarette. She would begin to melt, and then suddenly jurk half-awake and say some gibberish or make a comment about the conversation. The other two competed from my attention. Dan*, a flamboant gay made more so by whatever he was on, really seemed to want to help, but he kept bragging about doing this or that glamourous or “cool” thing, and then asking me “what’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with that?” It think he wanted me to say I thought he was cool, and that I didn’t think he was wrong or a bad person. After the hundreth time the phrase was used, I began to think Dan had a validation issue. Chrissy*, the other friend, told me that she had lukemia, but had been cured, had a hearing implant, but got better, still owned a thoroughbred ranch outside Dallas-Forth Worth, had walked coast-to-coast in a few days in 500 mile clips for March of Dimes in college, had married two southern hicks, done eighteen months in a federal women’s prison, had a vast book and DVD collection, and much more. The amazing thing was that they did this at the same exact time. In stereo. Four marginalized people with substance abuse problems in one night, all chain-smoking, talking, and wanting something from me in the same studio apartment smaller than the average livingroom. I don’t know what to think. This morning I wrote a post for my co-blog http://philaletheia.com called Soulster’s Christian Ethic. In it, I claimed that Jesus gives us a missional ethic — one that implores us to take responsibility for those who are not even friends, or even enemies. I don’t think it incidental that I wrote that post just to have my words tested the same day. In many ways, these people are my enemies (though at least one I also count as a friend). They take my time, money, and resources, but they give me nothing in return. They constantly lie and manipulate me. Their thanks is worthless — just manipulation and lip-service. Occasionally, they verbally abuse me. They are participating in the erosion of society itself. At the best, they are tiring. At the worst, they are harmful. There is no possible benefit in me helping them. I have no inward motivation left to help them. But I know this Jesus who took this kind of abuse and still moved forward in missional action. I don’t fully know why, but that grabs me and sets a fire in my soul. Maybe it is because Jesus has acted missionally upon me, and in me. I could be I’m just digging for validation like Dan or Chrissy, but have hid it so sophisticatedly behind mock-altruism. Or, it could be my life brushing with something transcendent and it is capturing my imagination and creativity. *Not her/his real name.
Original content by: http://blog.thetruthtree.com/?p=13.
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