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Web Journal of an Alien Street Priest
This blog is about the daily activities of Fr. Damien Sims of San Francisco and his work on Polk Street with prostitutes and the punk culture.
Saturday, June 28, 2003
Today has been hot as hell, reached an all time hi here in sf. i spent day at beach near montera, it was excellent.

these past two days have been stressful. As a friend of mine said yesterday: "These are desperate streets." i met a friend in the tenderloin yesterday and as we were going to eat i intervened with brad as he was into a fight with some guy, for stealing his drugs. last night 19 year old glen was in and out of my place. he was paraonid, just simply crazy, my guess a combination of mental illness and use of drugs.

i believe this desperation is a reflection of what we see going on nationally. we live almost in a police state. we spend 54 billion on the military, and cut programs for the homeless. the atmostphere of violence that is being perpetuated nationally is being transferred to the streets.

people have been rude, and mean to me. they grasped for the last crumb of food, and of my attention. tonight i cried because joe got angry because i was talking to someone else and said: "o u go for the pretty ones." he is getting older, and he does not make money like he used to. i become a container of their anger, their fears.

there is an atmosphere of anger, and blame to people on the streets in this City, and when i am asked why i continue to love and care, all i know is that each of these people are the body of christ, that each in his or her own way is jesus. as i have continued my journey with the ignatian eexercises i am aware of the abuse, and pain we all cause, and we all need that same grace.


posted by River  # 12:13 AM
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Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Today has been hot. I love the heat, and the night that is warm. People will be out, but today has been a day in which I have been doing much reflecting.

I am working on the Exercises of St. Ignatius, and in week I we center on sin. As I look at my own life I find how I have repeatedly done things that are dark, and as I look at the world in general I see that all of our lives are filled with that darkness. I also see how God has used those dark times to bring good some way or another. I cannot imagine doing anything else than
what I do, but if I had stayed on the path of local parish ministry I would have been absolutely
bored.
Ultimately we depend on the grace of God, know that our call is to seek to be faithful one day at a time, and when we fail, know that God helps us up and we move on.

And so we come to the end of the night. It is hot as hell, which I like, and the streets are packed.
Ritchie, 19 was on the corner trying to pull a date for the first time. We talked about his needs, and safety issues, and I gave him some food and my card. He seems so scared, and so nervous. He has been using crystal for a number of years and so that is why he has wound up here on Polk

Jake, 25, who has been postive since he was 15 is laying on the sidewalk, rather out of it, and I talked to him, and he mumbles something about getting hooked up to services, and I told him I would take him to the clinic.

Richard, 21, needs a bandage for an abscess, want take time to go to the hospital. The streets aare ful of desperate people, all crying out, all reaching out. I watch some of them on the path of self destruction day after day, and it saddens and drains me. The more I am here I know the rrreason I do this is because each and everyone is the broken body of Christ, and this is what Jesus would do.


posted by River  # 7:56 PM
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This morning I gave the last rites to "Guadlupe", a street person I have known for 9 years. She was raped and beaten several days ago and remains in a coma. I found myself overwhelmed with grief and sadness. She laid there unknown only to a few, visited only by me and another minister. But to God she is of infinite worth. People often ask me why I do what I do, it is because in moments like these I know that God is most present, and this to me is what it means to be human--to love, to care, and in so doing God becomes incarnate.

posted by River  # 2:11 PM
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CONTACT: Father C. River Sims
1550 California Street, No. 6-320
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415)305.2124