This Homeless Year
by Carl Mazza
Persons who are or have been homeless know what it is like to be overcome by the feeling of powerlessness. This reality is now widely shared by many, from all walks of life, in the wake of the unspeakable events of September 11. We are left wondering if, any more, we are masters of our fate, with the power to influence the world around us for good - and the destiny of our children's world for the better.

My daughter, Alessandra, stood on the rooftop of her apartment building in Brooklyn while she and her friends watched the World Trade Center collapse. As the buildings crumbled, even so did our unshakable confidence in the world and its order. My daughter spoke in chilling terms of the depth of her feeling as those once so seemingly permanent buildings crumbled before her eyes. Something inside each one of us as surely fell to pieces.

It is as if the whole nation has suddenly become homeless. We have grown closer together, drawn through our common uncertainty, fear, anger, and heartbreak. At Meeting Ground, as in other communities where homeless folk gather, we surely know what this is about.

Bearing one another's burdens is a part of what it means to be in a community among other homeless people, and the fellowship itself is a part of the healing process. Our togetherness helps relieve the isolation and loneliness we feel, and it gives us the chance to help each other. Our path to healing begins with our being able to give to others again, and that is perhaps a bit of what our nation is learning right now. The outpouring of support, generosity, and selfless service has seemed to come naturally from the common shock we have all felt from losing our once secure, unshakable "home."

Early in September, just before the world-changing events of September 11, I received a letter from a friend who for decades has been a supporter and encourager of all who yearn for peace and justice in our world. He has been retired for many years, and now lives alone. He wrote: "For around ten months now, a homeless friend, Jim, has lived in our storage room which has an outside door so he can come and go as he desires. We have breakfast together every morning before he heads out to sell newspapers. The most amazing thing is that this has helped me more than him. It has really shown me that hospitality is vital to our well-being."

Saint Augustine pondered for years on the possibility of having hope and optimism for the future. He was devastated by the sacking of the city of Rome in 410 A.D., by the "terrorist" barbarians who seemed to have free reign within the bounds of the once completely secure Roman Empire. The violation of that formerly impregnable city was stunning.

He found his light in contemplating what he came to call the City of God. He meant by "city" - not a place, but rather a community. It was through the brightness of human fellowship that Augustine found the clear path to God's reality. From the context of great calamity a road to new life was discovered. In the same way, my friend discovered that path, almost inadvertently, as he simply tried to act as a good neighbor to a homeless man, and found himself walking a mile with him in his personal tragedy.

The beauty of our life is not fashioned in the brick and mortar creations of human pride. Rather, it is the simplicity of kindness, social justice, warm friendship, and compassionate work by which the stirring of our great humanity comes out, and the true force of the divine within us is let loose.

I think Augustine would have been as shocked and demoralized as we all by what happened on September 11. Yet, equally so, heartened and restored by the wealth of human fraternity which pulled together to work for good in the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy. From the tireless rescue workers digging night and day through the rubble for survivors to the countless selfless acts of generosity of so many who cared - from raising money to donating blood. Clearly, we have awakened to something great within us.

Such actions of heroic giving existed, of course, before September 11, even as they were a part of Augustine's world before the sacking of Rome. Yet, there are those great and quiet moments when that which has been so ordinarily true becomes profoundly and obviously so. We perhaps knew, before September 11, that our wealth as a society was something far apart and much different than material or monetary affluence. Yet, after the event, when neither healing nor comfort were forthcoming from our material wealth, we turned instinctively to each other for power, reassurance, and confidence. Even words seemed empty, and only the genuineness of our actions and the most sincere caring really mattered.

This has, indeed, been our grounding over the past two decades in our community at Meeting Ground. What vast resources may never accomplish, a simple act of friendship completes in the life of a homeless woman struggling to care for her small children, or an old man living in a storage room. It is not that the resources of the State do not matter-they do, and are much needed. But it is to know that only the warmth of human contact and the touch of a kindred soul will truly suffice to restore life which has, at once, been broken.

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I am here because there is no refuge from ourselves. Until I can confront myself in the eyes and hearts of others, I am running.
Until I suffer them to share my secrets, I have no safety from them.

Afraid to be known I can neither know myself nor any others; I will be alone. Where else but in our common ground can I find such a mirror? Here, together, I can at last appear clearly to myself. Not as a giant of my dreams, nor the dwarf of my fears, but as a person, part of the whole, with a share in its purpose. In this ground, I can take now root and grow. Not alone any more as in death, but alive to myself and to others.
- Anonymous - a resident at Meeting Ground