For the last several days the refrain in the song that occurs right at the dramatic end of the movie Places in the Heart has been running through my mind: “Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling …calling me to come home.” The song is not in our hymnal, but it is familiar among congregational circles. It is about our lostness to sin, and our being called by Jesus to return to our rightful place, our true home, abiding in his love. I was one of those children who couldn’t spend the night away from home until I reached high school because I got homesick. I would go to a friend’s house to spend the night and have to call my parents to come pick me up and take me home. Going off to college was more of a challenge for me because of my homesickness.
Just yesterday I was about to leave the Winn Dixie parking lot, and an obviously homeless man strode past me. His face was red with windburn, his gaze was blank and expressionless, his hair unkempt, his clothes smeared. He walked as if time were of the essence; walked as if there were some unseen purpose towards which he was journeying. He had a full backpack. He never looked at me. He didn’t look at anyone. His only semblance of ardor was to persist eastward. He was probably in his thirties…hard to tell. I wondered what might his story be; where he grew up; who his parents were. Were they still alive? Did he have any brothers or sisters. Was he educated? How did he end up this way? Does someone miss him? Is he homesick? How long will he live? He stayed on my mind all day. I don’t know why… Just a life among many lives.
Homelessness, of course is an increasingly daunting problem in our culture. Most experts say that a vast percentage of homeless people are either mentally ill, or substance abusers, or both. Also, we know that a great number of them are veterans of war, which in no small way I’m sure is connected to their mental state and substance abuse. We see them every day making their way to someplace hidden. They live in a dark world within our world; a parallel existence far from our own, far from home, kept alive by some dark blood of loneliness and indignity; and yet they are part of us, the human community, and when one part of the body suffers, so does the whole of us. There are organizations that tend to the homeless, and All Saints participates in such organizations. We’re not solving the problem, but perhaps it is enough for a day to prepare a meal for one of our lost; or enough to provide a week’s worth of shelter. There is dignity in those things, and dignity among other things is a blessing for one such as these, a human life, a life loved by God, dignity, some tenuous proof thereof…maybe in our loving these our least, there is an iota of joy given them, perhaps…maybe a memory… a sweet, soft, tender memory of home.
Thank you for your post, which prompted me to think about “home.” This homeless man’s plight truly is heartbreaking and brings to mind various passages in Scripture that exhort believers to be mindful of the materially poor and homeless. Thank you for this reminder to demonstrate concern for and compassion toward those in material, physical want.
Your post also caused me to think about the deeper, underlying cause of homelessness (and all misery in this world): the idolatry and self-worship that drove Adam, and me in him, from Eden. We were created to glorify and to find all of our satisfaction in the triune God: our “home” was with Him. But when Adam believed that he, ultimately, knew better than God what was right and true and good, God — who is sinless — had to banish Adam from paradise. “Home” for every one of us became spiritual wandering, believing the latest fad, trying to find solace and wholeness in persons and in things other than God. “Home” really became Hell.
I certainly didn’t deserve my new “home,” but I am eternally grateful that the Last Adam made this broken world his home for a time and actually went through Hell so that, by faith in Him, I could be restored to God’s family (Ephesians 2:14-18).