One love

Last night we spent several hours trying to help two young teenage girls who are homeless with their family. The chaos, fear, and deep hurt of homelessness have finally become too much for them. The family is getting all kinds of counseling, but the constant dialogue and reminders of their devastating situation only seemed to increase the tension. Last night their anxiety reached a peak and they couldn’t calm down.

They were crying for the protection of their father – if their father only knew what kind of situation they were in, he would stand up for them and take care of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s their father’s irresponsibility, drug use, and angry violence that put the family in their present need. He actually lives nearby, but takes no interest in his kids. Paradoxically, it is the church volunteers who are providing the shelter, their counselors, and even their mother who are the enemy – the ones from who they are trying so desperately to escape. A little love, real help, sometimes gives permission for all the repressed emotion to break loose, and I suppose it’s true that when we begin to feel safe, we may hurt the ones closest to us.

I knew I couldn’t relate to them as a minister, sensing deep down that approach would only make matters worse. I had to relate to them as another person, a human being, beyond the barriers of generation and life experience that separate us, to somehow connect with them in an expression of real relationship and genuine caring. Approaching them at this level, in simple friendship, calling them by name and listening to them - we could feel the Spirit moving and working among us.

As we talked, I found myself genuinely moved and identifying from my own childhood with their pain and fear. The reality was that it brought tears to all our eyes. I could identify profoundly with their feeling of abandonment.

Once again, as many times as I have neglected this lesson, I am reminded that the heart of our religion is love. Our deepest desire, really the only one that matters, is that we know that we are loved – deeply, securely, unconditionally, and profoundly. Just as important, to know that our love matters to other people, and that our power to express love is accepted, welcomed, and creates happiness and hope.

Once again I’m reminded how equal we are, young and old, homeless and housed, whatever the differences that separate us as persons in this world, and that it is such a rare experience to grasp the depth of that reality. None of us can ever truly realize it in this life how greatly we are loved, and how beautiful and life-changing that ineffable love can be. If we have that knowledge, we have the fullness of our religion and of life itself. Without that knowledge, there is really nothing that matters at all. No doctrine, philosophy, discipline, or professional service will substitute.

Maybe I’m being too simplistic. The emotions of last night are still strongly with me. Nevertheless, it’s how I feel – today, just as through the rest of my life.