the saga continues

last nights drop-in was a busy one. They've been realy busy lately, and not only is it the end ofthe month but it was also raining last night - tensions were running high. There werent too many scuffles but one guy after dinner started yelling and pounding his chest and looking for a fight - then proceeded to push over tables couches etc. He got taken out and just continued to cause a ruckus in the parking lot.Anwyays, woudlnt you know asIdragmyself onto the subway around midnight, who is getting on the same car - and alot more drunk. oh dear.

The situation with S. cleared up entirely last night. I though he was avoiding me so i followed suit and didnt tryto make eye contact or anything. At a certain point he came over adn was like oh drop it! yeah you pushed buttons but i dont want to lose our friendship over this. I appologised for crossing boundaries and we hugged. hoorah! And myself and his girlfriend are on good terms as well. I dont want to speculate about how the two of them are doing (i know theyre broken up but that is always changing).

Today during arts drop-in G. smashed a brick through the front windshiled of a van of one of the staff members here. That was a great time.

mistake?

Before I continue Louie's story, I need to write about some stuff thats been going on recently, or else I'll never catch up!!

I really messed up yesterday... big time! I have a good good friend on the street, I'll call him S. I love him like a brother.. he's always been great to me. Oh man I'm going to have to get into a lot to expalin this story. Believe me or not, a lot of the policing downtown is corrupt (shock!). I've seen the imprint of bootmarks on the friends chest... but usually theyll just strap a phonebook to someones chest and beat them with a bat to break their ribs but leave no marks. I had a friend, G. who was handcuffed then pushed face first downa flight of stairs. It happens, some of the cops are FANTASTIC, but it happens. Anyways... the cops know a lot of the guys out there real well, like know their records and stuff. My buddy S. has a record.. he's been involved in OC since he was a kid, and has collected and stuff for the hells angels for decades. His major charges have been assault. He and his sisters were raped for years by a family member and when S. turned 18 he found the guy beat him with a crowbar and left him for dead. The rest of S's major assault charges were all agaisnt pedophiles as well. The cops know this. The cops also have their hands tied... or pretend to atleast.

A guy whose been hanging out ont he streets recently allegedly raped a 6 year old girl last week. The cops were out looking for the guy and apparently wanted to hurt the guy but didnt want to get their hands dirty. They know S.' record though, so of course... who do they take the picture to, to ask if he's seen him and oh-so-subtly slip in what the guy is being charged with. Needless to say, although S knew he would just be the cops pawn, he wanted to beat the shit out of the guy. It's called street justice, and apparently I'm too naive to understand. The cops also offered s protection if he would 'take care of it'. It's not uncommon for cops to ask the guys on thes treet who is going to take care of certain thigns, cops or skids. It's either the cops will arrest someone and who knows the process it will all be, or the cops can turn a blind eye and be sure street justice will occour - and they don't have to get their hands dirty.

So myself and L come walking by S jsut after the cops leave him and he's FUMING - like ready to go kill this guy. I havent really developed an opinion or philosophy of harm reduction, but hte buddy I was with took him to a park north of downtown, bought him a bunch of beer and a bottle of wine, got him drunk and put him to bed. He claims that if L. hadn't done it there would have been a homicide on our hands. That's a scary thought. I get street justice, I really do. I get that thigns are different out there and if you mess up you get punched out. But just because I don't agree with it doesnt mean I don't get it.

S and I have had a few great God talks. He even came to L.'s baptism to support him. His opinion is, however that he cant believe in a God that would forgive pedophiles and people who would hurt women and children. legitimate. and he feels condemned by God. S beats his street girlfriend up.... I think only when he's drunk.. but it's pretty bad. She didnt have to tell me, it's quite obvious, I just didn't want to believe it. Anyways, after having sat with her on a number of occasions as she's bawled about the abuse she's suffering I have gotten pretty stirred about it, so yesterday more in a moment of desperation I just asked s straight out if he beats her up. bad mooooove. I thought we were close enough that I could go there, but I've realised that just becuase someone will let you in really far in one area of their life... there might be another area that youre jsut not allowed to touch. this was it for S. He flipped on me, and figured it was her that told me (though id heard dit on the street long before she told me) and stormed off. Oh man... did I ever worry and regret myself silly yesterday.

oh if i could write forever... but bed calls :)

To explain my ridiculously long absence:
1) I have been spending sooooooo much (perhaps foolish amounts) of time on the street, which has left little time for anything or anyone else
2) My computer has died! ressurection postponned indefinately.

The fact that I have been spending so much time on the streets though, has given me a lot of material. I'm convinced I'll enver be able to write on here all of the stories and reflections that I wish to write about, but I will reflect on the most profound. And the most major thing that has happened in the last few weeks is just that - major!

It all started about a month ago now - after work on a monday night I felt an intense urge to instead of hop on the subway take another walk around through yorkville. It was already late by now.. around ten I think but I stopped upon a drunk guy I knew just barely, named Louie. He was a little drunk and panning so I sat down with him. Now is when I wish I were more disciplines in keeping this up, becuase I really forget the topic of our conversation that night. I think he shared with me some of his stories.. affirming how tough a guy he was.

Two days later, I again found myself with a strong urge to walk around the city some more after work. I found my dear friend G. rocking back and forth on the ground ionfront of the bay street subway entrance. I sat down with him and for the next hour or so sat teary eyed, being informed over and over again of the gruesome details of his childhood sexual abuse. Then Louie came strolling along, also pretty intoxicated and he sat down and him and the three of us just chilled for a bit, then i decided it was probably time to head home. Louie offered to walk me to the subway so off we went. We ended up stopping in an alcove at yonge and wellesley and talking there until about 4 in the morning. He kept asking me why I was there and what I was doing on the street and why I talk to a piece of shit like him. I continued to try to tell him he wasn;t a piece of shit, that he was beautifully and wonderfully made. He wouldn't let up on asking me why I spent so much time on the street with the boys until finally I said something along the lines of "I think God has asked me to be here" and he was... astonished. We talked for a while about how God loves him, and he kept telling me things like "I'm a bad guy... you don't know.." and to make a looooooong conversation short, he had a conversion of sorts out on the street that night. At some point I brought up Jesus and he just went quiet.. and I told him a bit of my story, and at a certain point he just began saying " I believe you... I really believe what you're saying is true..." I should mention that this is hours later, and he had sobered up alot by this point. He then began pointing to the street lamp and talking about how he wanted to shine brighter than the light. I was really nervous throughout a lot of the conversation only because of his desperation. "This Jesus guy better be able to help me out because im f-ing sick of this", or he would look up with a growl-esque (is that a word?) look on his face as if to challenge God to a fight, and say something like "you think you can help me out? well, lets see... bring it on big guy"... So I just prayed and prayed that God would show up in power and glory and overwhelm his spirit. It was a very long and beautiful and difficult conversation to try to write out and sum up. But it was absolutely astonishing to me. The spirit was moving in remarkable ways. He prayed a simple and beautiful prayer, asking Jesus to help him out... that he was sick of the life he was leading and wanted a way out.

The story continues... but it is close to midnight and I have to be in the park early tomorrow morning. stay tuned... dun dun dun

Last night was a hard night, and to explain I'll have to start from back a few weeks ago, and tell the story of L. L. is the reason I was MIA for a few weeks, as he was consuming much of my time and I wasn't making it off the streets till the wee hours of the morning for a while.

I guess this all starts back at the OCAP rally. I went to this campout thinking it was just a barbeque and a night in the park for folks who have been affected by the recent closures of more shelter beds and more detox beds, and the crazy lack of affordable housing in the city.

If there was more time

Oh the things I wish I could record on here, and oh the things I wish I would write about if I had the time or emotional capacity. I'd write about how street ministry has totally messed up my theology - how I find it nearly impossible to fathom someone beyond redemption. I want to write about how I think that the street community is more like the early church than we are. How I know I'm safe on the streets, why I don't believe in bad guys, and why I keep letting my heart get broken again and again because I refuse to not get my hopes up...

There is a reason I haven't updated this in so long, but I finally have a morning off, so buckle up, theres a lot to catch up on. Firstly, I'm exhausted... I haven't had a morning off like I do today in a few weeks now... I'm going to try to get home as early as possible tonight so I can rest then as well.

It seems that a new wind has blown in onto the streets recently, and a bunch of people are making incredible steps towards health. The Inuit man who does the beautiful soap stone carvings is 2 weeks sober, selling artwork to shops in yorkville, and looking ten years younger than I've ever seen him. My buddy W got picked up and is in jail, and although it always sucks when someone gets picked up, he needs this opportunity to get clean. The man G. that I've mentioned often is up north at treatment, though it was many a fiasco to get him there. He's there, sober, and doing well. I've heard more talk from people about straightening out in the last 2 weeks then I have in months, and not just talk - there is action.

Part of the ordeal that was getting G on the bus to treatment was the using and drinking he did in the days leading up to his starting day. Last thursday ... no the thursday before, drop-in had just ended and the staff were debriefing when we heard frantic frantic ringing of the doorbell, which is not an uncommon thing at Sanctuary. The door was opened and Steve ran in "G. is having a seizure outside." Doug walked over and phoned 911. Seizure's are a strange phenomenon at Sanctuary. There are many both real and fake, and of the fake there are both conscious and unconscious. I ran outside to the park beside Sanctuary where G was, and had no idea which this was. Earlier in the night he had been sprawled on the ground in front of Sanctuary yelling at anyone who would listen about his childhood abuse, and accusing people of making fun of him for it when they tried to help. He has a strange capacity to call us at Sanctuary sisters and brothers one minute, then all sorts of obscenities the next, insisting that we think of him as 'a project' when the furthest is true. Anyways, he was rocking back and froth and shaking, and he'd snap out of it every few seconds and try to get up or walk a few steps only to fall down again, repeating 'I need a toke, I need a toke', a toke being a hit of crack. The park beside Sanctuary gets a lot of traffic from street folk, so withing the few minutes before the ambulance was there, G. had attracted a small crowd, including a young native guy, F. When the ambulance came and were trying to get him to come with them and to put him on the cart, F. broke down and insisted that they needed to take him to detox. 'I just can't get sober' he repeated between sorrowful pleas. Of course, the ambulance had to decline. I tried calling to get him a bed, but the city has closed so many detoxes I knew it would be a long shot - there of course, were no beds. G. got taken away in the ambulance and F. started lamenting about how he was going to kill himself. Immediately a couple of street brothers circled him, repeating statements like "pull the fuck up". The pressure to toughen up in these situations is so intense. I went over to talk to him about his desire to kill himself and they got mad at me, saying that F. just needed to pull up and shut up.

Speaking of fake seizures, one was had this past Thursday. We endearingly (well, sometimes) call a group of people who come to Sanctuary "The Family". They are a group of people who are in housing, and all weaved into strange and ever-changing familial relationships. A couple on the fringes of the family was arrested as they walked through the park on Thursday and a great big man, G. fell to his knees and started shaking. Its a strange thing to deal with when you know someone is 'faking' a seizure. I knew his anger and feelings of lack of control were legitimate, but I didn't want to legitimize and affirm his contrived physical response. I tried talking to him telling him to take deep breaths, and his girlfriend asked me to help move him to the lawn. Well he wouldn't let us budge him... a sure sign that he wasn't actually physically seizure-ing. Finally a nurse came out and got him to stand up and walk inside with her.

Anyways - back to positive steps. Sanctuary owns a house called "Lucas House" where 4 men who've previously lived on the streets learn to live indoors and in community. We've recently gained possession of another house, and though it doesn't have a name, it already has 2 people who are confirmed to move in on Friday. One of them is a good friend, Steve. He is... ACK this post is to be continued.,.... gotta get to work

Back at it

So after a great week of relaxation, I'm back at Sanctuary, and back on the streets.

A beloved woman from our community, and the mother of a great great friend of mine died last week. Her name was Patty Wink and we had a memorial for her at Sanctuary on Wednesday. Many people both from the streets and not had only wonderful things to say about her... she will be missed.

Last night was a stressful drop-in. I found out from two women who I'm fairly close with who are both on the street that they are pregnant - within a few minutes of each other. I think that it is so important to celebrate all life so of course I congratulated them and tried to get excited with them - though I am well aware that pregnancy on the street is rarely intentional and seldom welcomed. For one of the women it's her 9th child, and for one it's her fourth. It's so tough. I cannot imagine the stress of pregnancy when you're addicted and in a ridiculously codependent relationship, never mind the fact that you're sleeping on the sidewalks of Toronto at night. I know that the kids will be taken by CAS and that breaks my heart as well, not that I would support a mother keeping her child when she is in the midst of an addiction and life on the street. What is hopeful however, is that pregnancy is one of the only and most common way that women on the street get and stay straight and clean. It still doesn't happen much or often at all, but pregnancy can be a huge motivating factor for a woman to reexamine her life and ask for help. I hope and pray that these women might consider their babies as big enough motivators to take some healthy positive steps. Hopefully their violent and abusive boyfriends won't sabotage them if they do - there are so many obstacles.

There is a man, R. who i've known for a few years who is known for panning outside of the Tims north of yonge and bloor. R. is a great old guy with a heck of a lot of character. He got a visitor tag somewhere and has been wearing it on a lanyard around his neck for months - which is hilarious. Whenever I ask him why he's a visitor or where he's visiting he just chuckles and says somehting like "oh you know..." He's from the older generation on the street who drink and drink and drink, but aren't into crack or heroin or any of the other dangerous drugs that a lot of the younger people (i mean in their 30s and 40s) are more generally into. Some of the older guys, and many native people I know take a sort of pride in the fact that they're just drinkers. But oh, do they drink. Yesterday R. was sitting on the bench in the park drinking a bottle of listerine. It is not uncommon AT ALL for alcoholics on the street to drink mouthwash, amongst other things. They drink 'rub' which is rubbing alcohol, I've seem a friend drinking cologne, even heard of a group of guys who were drinking watered down hairspray. They get so sick... poisoned. Listerine is the most common though, people drink bottles of it day after day after day. So R. was drinking Listerine and was in worse shape then I've ever seen him - he'd wet himself and was falling all over the place - it is so hard to see friends killing themselves. If anyone doubts the power or existence of addiction they need only spend some time in the park outside of Sanctuary. No one grows up dreaming of spending their days on the sidewalk drinking mouthwash everyday until they collapse. Sometimes it's hard to keep hoping for something better for these guys - when it has been their routine day in and day out for year and years - decades even. Hope is exhausting sometimes... because I know that it takes work.. and nothing short of a miracle for some of these guys before they know even a tiny tiny bit that they are loved, precious, fearfully and wonderfully made. I think of people who walk by my friends and spit on them or throw garbage at them, and how it might be difficult to convince one of these passers-by that the 'thing' they are spitting on is really something - no someone - to be absolutely treasured, adored, delighted in, loved, valued, prized. That is the truth though, and the way God feels about them. It would probably take work to convince a stranger of that... times that by about a hundred for how difficult it is to help someone see it in themselves. It is easy to believe you're garbage because then you can go on treating yourself and acting like garbage, but to let yourself believe that you are a temple in which God resides... that's hard.

Speaking of hope - there is a GREAT book everyone MUST read called "Bent Hope" by Tim Huff. Go read it riiiiight now.

And usually when I'm at the point where I'm ready to throw in the towel because there is so little tangible 'success' in street ministry, something happens that keeps me hoping. Last night a man who I've gotten to love and adore over the last 8 or 9 months came to drop in pretty messed up, as usual. We've talked alotttt about his addictions to crack and alcohol... how he equates them to an abusive lover that he just cant get enough of and can't get away from. He was talking to me yesterday about all the money he's wasted and I made some dumb offhand comment about how many kids he could have fed in africa by now - I don't know why, it just sort of slipped out, then I reliazed that it was probably a pretty dumb thing to say, but he just sort of sat there. He had been talking about all of the things HE could have had - a car, a place, nice clothes, etc. and I mentioned the thing about the kids and he just paused... and it was cool because he sort of explained how getting a car, place, etc. would never motivate him to stop using because those were things for him, and he didn't think he deserved them anyways, but that if he could do a 'god thing' with the money then it might be worth it. I'm glad my comment slipped out when it did. Anyways, he spent some time talking to other staff during the drop-in and at some point decided that eh wanted to go to Ottawa to get straight and sober. He has some family out there. So he talked with some of the staff about having a plan and stuff and they got him into a detox in Ottawa. When someone commits to taking a positivev step its a pretty big deal and we take it seriously. So last night after drop in at about 11pm myself and Steve drove him to detox in Ottawa. It was great having those hours with him in the car where he felt safe to share more of his story and his fears. Whether he really absorbed any of what we were telling him or not, he will remember that we were willing to drive him there in the middle of the night - and he realized that it was because we genuinely love and care for him, and it was really cool to see him actually let himself believe that. Oh I pray pray pray pray pray that this will work out for him.