"Thanks for returning my call," he said. He is a retired clergyman. Someone that I worked closely with fifteen years ago, but now I hadn't seen or talked to him in years.
"Sure," I replied, "what's up?"
I was standing outside of the Rusty Spur Saloon in Scottsdale, AZ. It had been a packed day full of meetings and I had one hour to myself prior to a dinner meeting. The Rusty Spur has live music almost all of the time and is a real cowboy saloon disguised as a hole in the wall. I love it.
"Well, it is my son-in-law," he continued in a halting voice that betrayed emotion. "He worked for ten years doing industrial cleaning, but he hurt his back on the job and got laid off. He doesn't have any health insurance and can't get treated. He wants to return to work but can't until his back gets fixed. Now they are in real danger of losing their housing. We'll try to take care of them but it is difficult..." His voice trailed off.
"So I thought that I should call you and you could guide me on what to do."
"Absolutely," I said. "First we need to get him enrolled at the J. C. Lewis Health Center so that he can get his health care needs met. Then we'll evaluate the housing situation. Don't worry, we'll get it taken care of."
"This is embarrassing," he confessed to me.
"Listen," I shot back, "I've been doing this a long time. It just happens. The reasons are never good ones and the circumstances are never quite right. Don't worry about it. It is what we do."
So yesterday, on Martin Luther King day, I was returning phone calls and followed up with my friend. I'd left a message with his wife who thanked me again and again for helping.
Mid-day, I took a break to attended the Bored Meeting, the daily lunch collection at Fannies On the Beach. Just as I sat down my cell phone buzzed and it was my friend.
I told him the exact things that his son-in-law needed to do and he wrote down the instructions.
"You really are a saint," he said as I finished.
I busted out laughing. "There are a lot who think I'm a son-on-a-bitch."
"Well, then you're a saintly one," he laughed.
The heaviness had left his voice and I knew that hope had been born for a family that is doing everything that it can to stop homelessness from corrupting it.
More than anything else I think, this work is about creating hope for those who have lost it. Because without it, no one accomplishes much anything.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Fool on the Hill
On Paul McCartney's album "Tripping the Light Fantastic", he does an amazing version of the Beatles "The Fool on the Hill." The song describes how everyone thinks the man on the hill is a fool but he is really the one who sees things in crystal clear vision. It has always been a favorite of mine, but on this version which is pulsating live, Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech is layered over the music.
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! We're free at last!" King proclaims though freedom had yet to be achieved when he spoke these words.
Then McCartney sings again, "But the fool on the hill see the sun going down, and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round."
I find it very powerful and very moving.
In my life, I have met Coretta Scott-King twice. I was invited to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and sat where King preached every Sunday. I once was at a meeting in the offices of the Student Coordinating Council for Non-Violence which King helped launch and it was the same conference room table and chairs that he sat in.
I've also made by pilgrimage to the King Center and touched his tomb. I've read all of his books, listened to his speeches countless times, and read numerous books about him and the movement (the best are Taylor Branch's 3 volume set on the Civil Rights Movement and the marvelous "Martin and Malcolm"!).
A few years ago, Julie and I hosted our dear friends Carlos, Verna and Chelsea from St. Martin for a month in our home. They are from St. Martin, are black, speak more languages than I will ever master, work hard, and I love them dearly. We had a party for them at the pavilion and people from Union Mission, Tybee Island, and across the country came. We ate Southern food and danced into the night.
Two friends from Canada came, Paul and Nancy, and at some point someone commented to them, "Only Julie and Mike can do something like this."
What "this" was happened to be a fully integrated crowd all having a good time dancing and eating and celebrating life together. And enjoying the hell out of it! Black, white, gay, straight, Canadian, American, Caribbean. Those who can dance and those who can't.
Paul and Nancy were shocked and when they told us later of the comment, I remember filling with great pride. They were perplexed that such things are still an issue.
But alas, they are. In the American south, a lot of people still resent Martin Luther King. But then again, every prophet in the Bible was resented. Why should this one be different?
In the Bible, (I paid lots of good money to learn this) there are major prophets and minor prophets. The gage is how big was the difference they made. The United States has had a great many minor prophets, but only on major one. Martin Luther King. And I really don't give much of a damn what others do or don't do on this day, but I honor him and celebrate one man's incredible life!
Was he perfect? No. But who is? Did he do things that made an entire nation better? Yes! Did those things that he did make the entire world notice? Yes! So, today my heart will dance. Because it is free to do so. At last!
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! We're free at last!" King proclaims though freedom had yet to be achieved when he spoke these words.
Then McCartney sings again, "But the fool on the hill see the sun going down, and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round."
I find it very powerful and very moving.
In my life, I have met Coretta Scott-King twice. I was invited to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and sat where King preached every Sunday. I once was at a meeting in the offices of the Student Coordinating Council for Non-Violence which King helped launch and it was the same conference room table and chairs that he sat in.
I've also made by pilgrimage to the King Center and touched his tomb. I've read all of his books, listened to his speeches countless times, and read numerous books about him and the movement (the best are Taylor Branch's 3 volume set on the Civil Rights Movement and the marvelous "Martin and Malcolm"!).
A few years ago, Julie and I hosted our dear friends Carlos, Verna and Chelsea from St. Martin for a month in our home. They are from St. Martin, are black, speak more languages than I will ever master, work hard, and I love them dearly. We had a party for them at the pavilion and people from Union Mission, Tybee Island, and across the country came. We ate Southern food and danced into the night.
Two friends from Canada came, Paul and Nancy, and at some point someone commented to them, "Only Julie and Mike can do something like this."
What "this" was happened to be a fully integrated crowd all having a good time dancing and eating and celebrating life together. And enjoying the hell out of it! Black, white, gay, straight, Canadian, American, Caribbean. Those who can dance and those who can't.
Paul and Nancy were shocked and when they told us later of the comment, I remember filling with great pride. They were perplexed that such things are still an issue.
But alas, they are. In the American south, a lot of people still resent Martin Luther King. But then again, every prophet in the Bible was resented. Why should this one be different?
In the Bible, (I paid lots of good money to learn this) there are major prophets and minor prophets. The gage is how big was the difference they made. The United States has had a great many minor prophets, but only on major one. Martin Luther King. And I really don't give much of a damn what others do or don't do on this day, but I honor him and celebrate one man's incredible life!
Was he perfect? No. But who is? Did he do things that made an entire nation better? Yes! Did those things that he did make the entire world notice? Yes! So, today my heart will dance. Because it is free to do so. At last!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Helping Haiti
As soon as I logged on my computer yesterday I had a message from my friend Dr. Jose Vargas-Vidot. He is a winner of the Robert Wood Johnson's Community Health Leadership Award and lives in San Juan. He practices street medicine there and is something of a national hero as a champhion of the poor. He also practices in other South American nations where health care is lacking.
So of course he is off to Haiti. He wrote me asking if I could help collect donations of tarps, generators, medical supplies, water and such. How could I not? The disaster in Haiti is of Biblical proportions.
Then, I learn that Dr. Jim Withers of Pittsburgh's Operation Safety Net is also heading down there to help too. Jim is also a Community Health Leader and a good friend.
So we are putting out a call to all of Union Mission and to all of our friends. If you are in a position to help, please help.
Keller Deal in our office 912-236-7423 is collecting the things to send to Haiti. I vouch for Dr. Vargas!
From the way that it looks, it will take all of us doing whatever we can to help Haiti.
Tank you.
So of course he is off to Haiti. He wrote me asking if I could help collect donations of tarps, generators, medical supplies, water and such. How could I not? The disaster in Haiti is of Biblical proportions.
Then, I learn that Dr. Jim Withers of Pittsburgh's Operation Safety Net is also heading down there to help too. Jim is also a Community Health Leader and a good friend.
So we are putting out a call to all of Union Mission and to all of our friends. If you are in a position to help, please help.
Keller Deal in our office 912-236-7423 is collecting the things to send to Haiti. I vouch for Dr. Vargas!
From the way that it looks, it will take all of us doing whatever we can to help Haiti.
Tank you.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Best of the Best
Earlier this week Union Mission was recognized has 2010's Best Non-Profit Organization to work for. We were one of 50 companies chosen from across the country and we will be covered in the April edition of the Non-Profit Times.
Last year, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce recognized Union Mission with a Best Company of Savannah award.
Prior to that, Georgia Trends Magazine honored Union Mission as a Best Company to work for.
Of course I am very proud of these things. What makes it happen are the people who actually do the work of preventing and ending homelessness in Savannah. They are an amazing collection of passionate caring people who encounter dispair every day. They face it head on and mold it and shape it until hope is born. From hope comes success and year in and year out, hundreds of people find their way home again.
I am in Phoenix right now at a meeting of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Local Funding Partners Program. Over the course of the year, the RWJ staff and several of my fellow Committee members rececive weekly updates on what is going on at Union Mission. We all collected for dinner last night to kick off two days of meetings. As I walked into the room, I was immediately congradulated by several of them over all of the things that Union Mission has accomplished in the past year.
"You must be very proud!" one of them told me.
"I am," I replied. "I work with some amazing people!"
Last year, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce recognized Union Mission with a Best Company of Savannah award.
Prior to that, Georgia Trends Magazine honored Union Mission as a Best Company to work for.
Of course I am very proud of these things. What makes it happen are the people who actually do the work of preventing and ending homelessness in Savannah. They are an amazing collection of passionate caring people who encounter dispair every day. They face it head on and mold it and shape it until hope is born. From hope comes success and year in and year out, hundreds of people find their way home again.
I am in Phoenix right now at a meeting of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Local Funding Partners Program. Over the course of the year, the RWJ staff and several of my fellow Committee members rececive weekly updates on what is going on at Union Mission. We all collected for dinner last night to kick off two days of meetings. As I walked into the room, I was immediately congradulated by several of them over all of the things that Union Mission has accomplished in the past year.
"You must be very proud!" one of them told me.
"I am," I replied. "I work with some amazing people!"
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Collecting Stuff
If you haven't seen it for yourself then you've seen pictures of it. A homeless person is pushing a grocery cart that is packed to the point of overflowing, full of stuff. His stuff! Her stuff! They do not have a home but they have stuff.
I can walk into the Grace House dorm right now, as I have done a thousand times before, and be absolutely amazed at how much stuff a homeless man can have.
"You got too much stuff to be homeless!" I once told a room full of homeless men.
Of course they looked at me like I was an idiot. They do not have a home, a family, a significant other, or much of a significant anything. They no longer have hope, desire or much dignity left. So they buy, find, or collect stuff. And their stuff is what they hold on to when they no longer have these other things.
There was this homeless guy that I was working with many years ago. Cliff came in off the streets and we slowly brought him along. An addict, he had lived on the streets for years. He regained his dignity. He rediscovered hope. He got a job and was very excited when he got his first pay check, but he was even more excited a week later when the package that he had ordered arrived. It was from the Hair Club for Men! He had spent his entire first paycheck on the desire for more hair!
But I learned something then. Homeless people want the same things that the rest of us want. They want a nice home and good friends. They want to feel better about themselves. They want to be healthy. They want to be valued. They want better hair. These desires are no different from you and me.
Yet, when people live in poverty for years, they have a tendency to find their value in the stuff that they have. This reinforces stereotypes that the rest of of us have about poor people. So what if a family has amassed three different television sets in the first apartment that they have ever lived. Julie and I have three televisions in our house! (We used to have five but we have downsized!).
But when a poor person has three televisions, it means something different. It means they are wasteful or make poor decisions. But what they are really trying to find is worth. Because they don't feel like they have any.
Hopefully, one day they will discover, like I hope that all of us discover, that it is not what we have that gives us worth. It is who we are.
I can walk into the Grace House dorm right now, as I have done a thousand times before, and be absolutely amazed at how much stuff a homeless man can have.
"You got too much stuff to be homeless!" I once told a room full of homeless men.
Of course they looked at me like I was an idiot. They do not have a home, a family, a significant other, or much of a significant anything. They no longer have hope, desire or much dignity left. So they buy, find, or collect stuff. And their stuff is what they hold on to when they no longer have these other things.
There was this homeless guy that I was working with many years ago. Cliff came in off the streets and we slowly brought him along. An addict, he had lived on the streets for years. He regained his dignity. He rediscovered hope. He got a job and was very excited when he got his first pay check, but he was even more excited a week later when the package that he had ordered arrived. It was from the Hair Club for Men! He had spent his entire first paycheck on the desire for more hair!
But I learned something then. Homeless people want the same things that the rest of us want. They want a nice home and good friends. They want to feel better about themselves. They want to be healthy. They want to be valued. They want better hair. These desires are no different from you and me.
Yet, when people live in poverty for years, they have a tendency to find their value in the stuff that they have. This reinforces stereotypes that the rest of of us have about poor people. So what if a family has amassed three different television sets in the first apartment that they have ever lived. Julie and I have three televisions in our house! (We used to have five but we have downsized!).
But when a poor person has three televisions, it means something different. It means they are wasteful or make poor decisions. But what they are really trying to find is worth. Because they don't feel like they have any.
Hopefully, one day they will discover, like I hope that all of us discover, that it is not what we have that gives us worth. It is who we are.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Orchanized Chaos
Keller Deal's desk looks as though it was hit by a mail truck. Stacks of papers spill over everything and there is the appearance of total disorganization yet when I ask her for anything she somehow magically pulls it out from underneath a large stack that appear to be on the verge of tipping over.
Luella Sander's desk on the other hand is immaculate and I sometimes feel that I am standing in an office exhibition in a furniture store when I wander in there.
Jow Panky's went to the same school of organizing that Keller Deal did and a second mail truck crashed in her office. Joy is older than Keller however so Joy's endless stack of papers are at least in organized stacks though no one understands the except Joy. It would likely take an excavation team several months to identify everything that is in there.
Skip Eloge's office is also immaculate but this is likely because he spends all of his time trying to master email and has no time to clutter his office with other things. Skip is setting the tone for a "green workplace" at Union Mission.
Going the other way, Jeanette's desk is organized and classical piano music seems to come from one of the drawers. Across the room, Donna has mulitple desks and seems to use them all at one time. This office has mastered the art of appearing both organized and unorganized at the same time!
Lauren Milmine's office seems sparse. I'm uncertain as to why this is as she also uses two desks at once and has other furniture in it but whenever I wander in, it is like Lauren is on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
And my office is, of course, perfect! Mainly because any piece of paper that comes my way I give to Keller, Skip, Lavanda, Joy, Luella, Jeannette, Lauren or Donna. That way it looks as though I am in complete control.
Collectively we are organized chaos. But then again, that is what this work is all about. People's lives fall out of control and a chaos takes over. They come to Union Mission and we work with them to bring order to the chaos so that lives have meaning again.
Yesterday I was at Dutch Town and found myself locked out of the community center. The staff had gone and no one trusts me with a key so I stood there pondering what to do when this elderly black man approached me. He told me that they had all gone to lunch.
I went to introduce myself but he already knew who I was. I asked him which unit was his and be proudly said "501".
He had come to us from the state prison where Union Mission has a pilot project for releases. That was three years ago when he entered the J. C. Lewis Health Center as a sick parolee.
From there he moved to Grace House and then Beyond Grace and now is one of the first tenants of Dutch Town, a brand new 48 unit apartment complex for chronically homeless people. Order had triumphed over chaos.
So I returned to the office and it took me a full five minutes to find Keller Deal under the stack of papers that she was working under. Once I did though, we started again bringing order to it all.
Luella Sander's desk on the other hand is immaculate and I sometimes feel that I am standing in an office exhibition in a furniture store when I wander in there.
Jow Panky's went to the same school of organizing that Keller Deal did and a second mail truck crashed in her office. Joy is older than Keller however so Joy's endless stack of papers are at least in organized stacks though no one understands the except Joy. It would likely take an excavation team several months to identify everything that is in there.
Skip Eloge's office is also immaculate but this is likely because he spends all of his time trying to master email and has no time to clutter his office with other things. Skip is setting the tone for a "green workplace" at Union Mission.
Going the other way, Jeanette's desk is organized and classical piano music seems to come from one of the drawers. Across the room, Donna has mulitple desks and seems to use them all at one time. This office has mastered the art of appearing both organized and unorganized at the same time!
Lauren Milmine's office seems sparse. I'm uncertain as to why this is as she also uses two desks at once and has other furniture in it but whenever I wander in, it is like Lauren is on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
And my office is, of course, perfect! Mainly because any piece of paper that comes my way I give to Keller, Skip, Lavanda, Joy, Luella, Jeannette, Lauren or Donna. That way it looks as though I am in complete control.
Collectively we are organized chaos. But then again, that is what this work is all about. People's lives fall out of control and a chaos takes over. They come to Union Mission and we work with them to bring order to the chaos so that lives have meaning again.
Yesterday I was at Dutch Town and found myself locked out of the community center. The staff had gone and no one trusts me with a key so I stood there pondering what to do when this elderly black man approached me. He told me that they had all gone to lunch.
I went to introduce myself but he already knew who I was. I asked him which unit was his and be proudly said "501".
He had come to us from the state prison where Union Mission has a pilot project for releases. That was three years ago when he entered the J. C. Lewis Health Center as a sick parolee.
From there he moved to Grace House and then Beyond Grace and now is one of the first tenants of Dutch Town, a brand new 48 unit apartment complex for chronically homeless people. Order had triumphed over chaos.
So I returned to the office and it took me a full five minutes to find Keller Deal under the stack of papers that she was working under. Once I did though, we started again bringing order to it all.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Losing Home
Sometimes you don’t want to go home again.
For most, I guess, it happens in college or when you first move out of your parent’s house and you are on your own for the first time. Those first trips home, you expect and demand that your parents preserve everything as it was so that you can have you cake and eat it too. But then the day comes when you arrive and realize that it is no longer your home. You are a visitor and it has an uncomfortable feeling about it. Suddenly, you no longer want to be at your old home but you are wishful for your new one wherever that is.
Home has changed.
I remember driving through the state of Tennessee on a freezing December night to get home for Christmas with my parents. The wife and kids had left a week earlier so I was alone. This was as lonely as I have ever been. I sang Christmas carols at the top of my lungs and couldn’t wait to return home. When we arrived, my folks were into my kids, and I really didn’t want to be there any way. I wanted to be beside the ocean. So we went and got a room in what is now the Atlantis Inn and spent the day after Christmas there. Mom and Dad kept the kids.
I was glad that I was there. I strolled along the beach. I wandered into Doc’s Bar and listened to the music and played bumper pool. I think that my first wife stayed in the room. At least that is the way that I remember it.
The next day, we picked up the kids and returned to Louisville, where I was experiencing way too much success way too early in my life. And I resumed crashing and burning, which is what I was doing at the time without knowing it, but somewhere in the back of my head I knew where I wanted home to be. Not at the old home, but on this island. On Tybee, like most islands as my friend Jane Fishman taught me, where everybody is either running to, or from, something.
I was running to. And it happened. I have lived on this clump of sand for 21 years now. Only St. Martin competes with for my love of this place.
Anyway, home is a relative thing. It comes and it goes. Every morning I walk into a shelter and greet people who have lost home. I welcome them to where they are. Because where we are, is home. And if we do not know that, then the problems begin. And we all have enough problems.
So, stop reading and take a look around you. Smell it. Feel it. Touch it. Welcome home! Because that is where you are!
And if it doesn’t feel right, leave. If you have lost home, find it again. Because everyone wants to be at home, because in the end, there is no place else worth being!
For most, I guess, it happens in college or when you first move out of your parent’s house and you are on your own for the first time. Those first trips home, you expect and demand that your parents preserve everything as it was so that you can have you cake and eat it too. But then the day comes when you arrive and realize that it is no longer your home. You are a visitor and it has an uncomfortable feeling about it. Suddenly, you no longer want to be at your old home but you are wishful for your new one wherever that is.
Home has changed.
I remember driving through the state of Tennessee on a freezing December night to get home for Christmas with my parents. The wife and kids had left a week earlier so I was alone. This was as lonely as I have ever been. I sang Christmas carols at the top of my lungs and couldn’t wait to return home. When we arrived, my folks were into my kids, and I really didn’t want to be there any way. I wanted to be beside the ocean. So we went and got a room in what is now the Atlantis Inn and spent the day after Christmas there. Mom and Dad kept the kids.
I was glad that I was there. I strolled along the beach. I wandered into Doc’s Bar and listened to the music and played bumper pool. I think that my first wife stayed in the room. At least that is the way that I remember it.
The next day, we picked up the kids and returned to Louisville, where I was experiencing way too much success way too early in my life. And I resumed crashing and burning, which is what I was doing at the time without knowing it, but somewhere in the back of my head I knew where I wanted home to be. Not at the old home, but on this island. On Tybee, like most islands as my friend Jane Fishman taught me, where everybody is either running to, or from, something.
I was running to. And it happened. I have lived on this clump of sand for 21 years now. Only St. Martin competes with for my love of this place.
Anyway, home is a relative thing. It comes and it goes. Every morning I walk into a shelter and greet people who have lost home. I welcome them to where they are. Because where we are, is home. And if we do not know that, then the problems begin. And we all have enough problems.
So, stop reading and take a look around you. Smell it. Feel it. Touch it. Welcome home! Because that is where you are!
And if it doesn’t feel right, leave. If you have lost home, find it again. Because everyone wants to be at home, because in the end, there is no place else worth being!
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