Today, the first day of February, I woke up deeply depressed and in the middle of nightmare of being rejected and ignored. However, this morning when I went our for a St. Vincent De Paul home visits my spirit went up and I was consoled. On the first visit there was a three year girl home with her mother. She kept smiling at me and when I gave her some silly attention she would laugh and continue looking at me. The faces of children, especially a three year old, have a way of lifting my spirit no matter how down I may be.
On our second home visit there was with middle aged woman living alone whose only financial income was disability. She had asked for a voucher for a washer and dryer which normally we do not give to women without children. With approval of the person who assigns us our home visits we went to talk with her today about her needs. When I walked into her fashionably decorated duplex home I started to wonder if I was mistaken to be there. She was easy going and soon we fell into our conversation about our life experiences. It turns out she was along in the city with no family. She had lost her job and in missing one payment on her mortgage she had lost her house. A person came to her assistance in moving her stuff to the apartment but she turned out to be part of a scheme to rob her of possessions. The police were not interested in charging the persons who conducted this scheme.
Her car sat in front of her house, with too many repairs needed for her to get it running. She does not get out much because of a walking problem but the other day she had to go to the doctor. She purchased some bus tickets at a local store and in the process lost her debit card. By the time she noticed her debit card was missing it had been used to purchase $260 of liquor. The bank said they were investigating but for now she was out of the money.
As she gently talked and I listen to her stories she told me the story of how, at a young age, she was raped by a man. She had information on the person and presented it to the police who said she should not have put herself in the position to be raped. Without a good police investigation the District Attorney would not charge the man. This was a deep wound on her soul. Yet she talked about her faith and how that sustained her. I ended up giving her a voucher for washing machine which she could keep in her kitchen on the second floor. For drying she would need to go down in the basement and use the dryer of the woman downstairs or, as her mother used to do, hang her clothes up in the basement. She was a woman of eloquence, who suffering with courage,was a source of consolation.
This afternoon I got a phone call from a Church leader who had deep problems with me for advocating our Cry of the Poor Petition blaming me, as other Church leaders, for the message not being heard. I also got an email from a MU administrator in peacemaking department at Marquette University scolding me for sending a one line email about details of Nonviolent Study Group I was signed up for at Marquette University. This person had ignored me for over three years and now was demanding we meet at a certain time when he would set conditions for me to work with the Peacemaking Center at Marquette. Why make it so hard to work together for peace and justice?
These two experiences were depressing and I felt I had to respond, not react, in an honest, peaceful way.
Tonight my wife and I brought a meal down to the family homeless shelter. As usual there was lots of smiling children around to lift my spirits. One of the mothers and I started to talk. She had moved back to Milwaukee, after thirty years in Virginia to be near her ailing mother. She was surprised by the segregation of African Americans she found in Milwaukee and the difficulty of finding a job although she had over 20 years of experience working in a hair salon. Although she was struggling her faith in the God of all of us kept her going. She, like the children, were a real inspiration of consolation to me.
So I started off the day down, had one big up, two small down experience and one more up I think the day was even between consolation and desolation. One of my special saints, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of Society of Jesus, told us to examine our consolations and desolation’s and go after the consolations. So I choose the ups and accept the downs.
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