Saturday, July 05, 2003
i have slept all day, up for a an hour or so. just exhausted. finally i got up and rented a movie and ate dinner. D., 19 dropped by to talk. he has been clean for a few days, and is struggling. i then went out for outreach. alot of people are high on speed, can hardly communicate with them. 22 year old j is in the doorway. i have known him since he was 14, he is hiv postive, and has tried every program in the City. i think he has just given up. he is a bright person, who writes beautifully, but has been in the scene so long he knows no way out, and i think at this point does not want out. i have tried to get him to a clinic to get hooked up with services, but to no avail.
the daily scripture was the calling of Matthew. jesus was criticized by the religious of his day for hanging out with the "sinners". it is the same today. Holy Redeemer Catholic Church is complaining about the homeless coming to their masses, and dinners; a church on polk does not want either me or the homeless around them. as always--those who are the upright want nothing to do with those who do not fit into their world.
i was once one of the righteous, but now, just one of those "sick ones" as jesus refers, and because of that i am at home with him, and that is enough. it is really strange how those who so much say they want to know God, miss her at their doorstep.
and so the night ends as it began with the Psalms as I read compline.
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Friday, July 04, 2003
tonight has been crazy as always. various individuals are high on speed and are all over the place. i spent and hour listening to k, who is 21, and just got out of jail. he took some E and was paranoid, scared. there was the constant neediness, wanting more food, needles, there is never enough, people are so needy, that they are an endless well. when they express such physical need they are really expressing a very deep emotional need, that cannot be filled.
my friend mary and i was talking to day that studies are showing that peoples brains change from drugs, but also from the way they live their lives over time, and how many of the people i serve will simply remain on the streets. people want a solution, but there is no quick solution. why help people who continually abuse themselves and others. I can only answer with the words of Jesus in Matthew 25: "As you have done it unto the least of these my brothers and sisters you have done it unto me." i
punkpriest@cs.com
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Thursday, July 03, 2003
the past two days have been my normal pattern of work, talking, listening, and preparing a meal. but more and more i the intensity bears down up on me, to point i just want to get on a bus and go somewhere for weeks. there is 19 year old b. who came by last night, his veins are collapsed, his foot was bloody from a dull needle; 20 year old p with an abscess on his rear, want go to the doctor for fear of not making money, and there is 40 year old tara, who is in a wheel chair from a jump of two stories, hosptital let her out with no place to go. the intense suffering and self-abuse, that is an endless cycle. today is the feast of st. thomas, like him i so often doubt, and like him i see the presence of Jesus in my life, and believe, without which there would be no reason for living. only in that faith does life make any sense--and only in that faith do i stand in hope.
river sims, punkpriest@cs.com
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Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Today has been my usual day off. Went and saw Matrix Reloaded on Imax, very theological. I had lunch with a friend, K. today and we were talking about how homeless people are being blamed, demonized as a block for the economy and all other ills of the City. Once again those who are weakest become the football to be kicked. I believe we need to push people to see the individual, to see that person as Jesus. There is a mean attitude in this City, and attitude is a thing of the heart not politics.
Last night 22 year old C. shared with me how he had been in treatment, had a job, and relapsed. he felt like he had failed, and had no hope. I shared with him that we have no hope when we don't get up and try again. As long as we keep trying, there is hope. And so here he is, homeless, prostituting, and terribly afraid.
People ask me what solutions there are, and i say that for me the solution is in the individual, and that i find that in what i do. I see all of our life as a pilgrimage with and to God and it is in that pilrimage, that journey that we work out our salvation, our purpose, and meaning in life. And the secret to the journey is to just keep on keeping on.
River Sims, punkpriest@cs.com
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Monday, June 30, 2003
San Francisco, Pride Sunday, and St. Peter and St. Paul Memorial:
Today is Pride, the City is full of people at their wildest. My friend Mikael commented our desperate people on the street seem, (he once worked for me). He commented: "This appears to be 'survival of the fittest' at its best." And that is what it seems. There are desperate people, and they grab, and snarl for a little piece of food or money. This is a reflection of a City who has demonized the homeless, and have pushed an attitude of fear.
Today is the the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. Peter gives me hope. He denied
Christ, he ran away, and yet he became chief of the apostles. What his relationship to Christ shows is that the call of Christ if to follow him in the path of service, not a call to be perfect. We will fall, and fail over and over, but like Peter we simply get up and go on trusting in the grace of Jesus.
I have been thinking alot about death lately, my own fears, and about my own journey. I see this journey of life as a movement, a pilgrimage to the meeting of Jesus in death. My journey is a struggle with the divine in coming to Her. I listen to my kids, and I see their struggles are simply like all of our struggles, a struggle to find meaning, purpose in life, and to find that in death as well. The use of drugs is a means to escape the suffering and the pain of living, and I see my faith journey as that as well. My faith has been the one foundation that has stood me well and it is in that I stand. So the journeys of all of us move to the same goal, and it is the choices that we make in our foundation that determines the quality of the road we travel.
(River Sims, punkpriest@cs.com
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Sunday, June 29, 2003
The weather is back to normal, foggy, cool summer night, perfect as always in beautiful san francisco. people often asked me what i do, and when i say "be a friend" they have a hard time understanding what i mean. basically we live in a society that needs to fix everything, and that sees "systems" as the solution. well systems are failing, and people are suffering. for me it is working with the individual one on one, relating to that person as another human, seeing the Christ in that person. it is like giving jk his 19th birthday gift tonight, just a cheap radio, but it was the only gift he had received today. it was like spending time with chris last night over a slice of piazza, just listening to him telling me how are a time he is having, and how he is leaving because it is so hard here, making one more geographic. it is buying 19 year old jamie a pepsi tonight, as he talks about being dope sick, and being unable to make money. to some this may be a waste of time, but for me these of moments of knowing someone. if we are to solve our problems of poverty today it is going to require changes in society, ie equal distribution of wealth, and this means there must be a revolution of the heart. we live in a society of fear, polticians in this city use fear of homelessness--ie it is the homeless fault we have a bad economy to push their agenda, bush uses fear to start wars and to conquer countries. we must have a heart change to caring for people as indivduals, to meeting them where they are.
so much for my preaching, God is good.
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