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Other reflections from the Street Retreat
November 25, 2006
Honolulu
“…When I walked to the I H S women's’ shelter women were sitting quietly waiting for lunch… maybe we did stand out… they announced their lunch at noon and women with families went first, then others. Not everyone went up. Some just looked elderly, not homeless…They heaped rice, chili, ham, pineapple, biscuit, pumpkin pie on our plates. At one point I went to get some milk from one of the serving tables. The server said it was only for children and pregnant or sick women. He took it away. I felt helpless somehow…” “…I wondered if anyone would give me water if I asked. I didn’t want to ask…” “…I started to wander but ended up helping—first passing out mints, then folding plastic forks/knives into paper napkins, handing those out, greeting those entering the serving line—looking really looking into their faces and not judging, at one point as the Christmas carolers sang, I felt myself overcome with emotions—really crying at the end. Just this moment—to be alive, feel it and let it be as it is.”
“…the chance, and choice, to walk slowly since there was no mandated destination to obscure or frustrate the opportunities for deliberate interactions…A new perspective. It is not so much that we had a specific mission today, but rather that we had the setting in which to do something very different than what was expected for us to be doing in a typical day.” “After lunch I walked to Aala park and sat on the first bench I found in the shade. Very soon after I met Chris. He walked up and sad down. And we talked and talked for a couple hours. He was hitting on me, but seemed to accept my no’s too. He was good looking, charming. We talked about all kinds of things. Dead bodies he has seen in Honolulu on the streets. His uncle, who he is afraid is dying because of alcohol. The whole time we talked his uncle was passed out about a ½ a block away. Chris was keeping an eye on him. I asked him to tell me a story. He told me about when he was a child and had once caught this huge bass after much effort, big enough to feed his whole hungry family…” |
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Copyright © 2000-2008 Faithful Fools Street Ministry |
“I’m open to surprises- that Chinatown is not about homelessness.
Rather it is
as much someone’s home as a place where street folks sleep out of doors. There
…seem to be regulars… I met a man named Bill, African American retired disabled
Vietnam war vet who had been married and divorced twice, had children who were
part Hawaiian and even grandchildren… and a gentle voice that spoke of struggle
and suffering but was still kind…” 