An Array of Vapour
Too often ending with a choice
that betrays the desperation.
Vapour disperses to become air,
as briefly perceived as the echoes of their eulogy.
Many find the courage to continue
in synthesized prescriptions that silence and sedate,
for there is now nothing but the ends of tethers
for those who care for a living.
Yet, people are the collateral damage
of the repeated attempts
to rebuild Babel’s tower on our soil.
They see the spire piercing hell,
and are sectioned.
The sufferers become the scapegoats.
Frozen in the system’s lens,
and in the winter’s cold.
Yet despite the script
recovery can germinate.
Crystalized vapour can proudly exhibit
the humble kintsugi beauty
of anterior struggle.
Homelessness is not simple. When economic, emotional, political, medical, mental, relational, romantic, sexual, spiritual, and social issues combine in such a way as to make someone destitute, how could it be simple? The above poem was written after I spent the better part of five years working for New Hope, a wonderful, local homelessness charity in Watford, northwest of London. The poem looks through many of the complex issues surrounding homelessness, and tentatively towards recovery. In this essay, by sharing some of the insights gained from and poems inspired by the amazing people I encountered while working with New Hope, I want to offer you four reasons to get involved in the work to help the poor in your local area.
Serving the Homeless Opens Your Eyes to Suffering
In October 2010, when I first started at New Hope, I was fresh out of theological college at the tender age of twenty-two, and I was naïve. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, full of theological theory and good intentions, I would approach keywork sessions (one on one support sessions where we assess the service user’s needs and try to find appropriate support and move-on accommodation) looking for that “Good Will Hunting” moment. I imagined that vulnerable conversation where the defensive dam holding back the dangerous waters of healing would be breached, and the person I was working with would bare their soul and find a new perspective, allowing them to fully engage in life, with support. I hadn’t realized it, but I was looking for a quick fix. I wasn’t trying to hide from the pain. I wasn’t encouraging people to “suck it up” and “get on with it.” However, due to my own limited experience of tragedy, I couldn’t know how deep others’ wounds were, and how constant the pain of their privation.
Looking back, I can see a number of breakthrough moments where I shed this naïveté layer by layer, and grew in my capacity to understand, and therefore to love well, those whom I was serving. Sometimes these moments came with extreme tragedy, but sometimes I was knocked off of my feet by more mundane moments of everyday suffering.
The following poem was written after a key work session with a young man whose parents had kicked him out the day after his eighteenth birthday. He told me they had warned him what would happen if he didn’t find a job in time. Although he was speaking calmly, as though he felt he deserved to be in this situation, I was struck by the utter pain in his eyes. I’m sure he wasn’t an easy teenager to have at home, but as he spoke I could see a boy in agony, exhausted by the search for belonging and scared about the future.
Agony 1
Agony doesn’t talk, it shivers.
It tries to blink away expression
in wallpaper clichés.
It is the bloodshot eyes beneath.
Agony maligns teeth in tension.
It thinks in spirals of acute intentions
in the deliberate delirium
of endless cause and effect.
Serving the Homeless Opens Your Eyes to Grace
The tragedies encountered while working with the homeless serve to strip one’s naiveté, but they can also chip away at one’s resilience and compassion. Among those who work with the homeless, it is not uncommon to become completely disillusioned and hard-hearted, or broken and burnt out. Thankfully, there are ways to protect oneself from these occupational hazards. One of the most important lessons I learned was to appreciate how the simple and small things can make a huge impact on people’s lives. Through caring for the homeless I learned to recognize the mundane miracles that can give strength, transform the perspective of the everyday, and strikingly shine the presence of God into suffering.
I often think of the Christmases I spent working at the night shelter. The night shelter is an emergency accommodation for people who would otherwise be living on the street. Normally this is short term, and aimed at helping the guests move to more stable housing as quickly as possible. For some homeless people, Christmas is an opportunity to reconnect and try to mend broken family relationships. However, for most it is a very painful time where they cannot go outside without either their daily needs for food and shelter, or deeper needs of family and relational connection, being literally flashed in their faces by advertisements, shops and decorations. Every Christmas at New Hope, we would give our guests a simple gift pack of new socks and underwear, something encouraging to read, and some writing materials, which they often used to get back in touch with family members or old friends. The Christmas dinners we cooked and shared together would serve to ease this painful day and actually make some good memories in the midst of desperation. I would always take a moment to watch the demeanor of even our most isolated guests transform as they started to feel accepted and had somewhere to belong, and I will never forget these moments of beautiful fellowship. By finding simple ways to serve the homeless at this time of year, your perspective on Christmas will be illuminated as you take part in the Incarnation by becoming the hands and feet of Jesus to those who would otherwise have nowhere and no one.
I also want to highlight another memory. One of the most profound reflections of grace I witnessed was when a professional podiatrist volunteered to come and take care of the feet of our service users. There was one particular man I had been working with for a matter of months; let’s call him Chris. We didn’t know how long Chris had been living on the street. He had no paperwork, no ID, and there was no legal record of him under the name he had given us. It had taken members of the staff the previous two or three months of visiting the church porch where Chris kept his sleeping bag to build up enough trust for him to come into our day center for some soup. Chris’s ankles were swollen around his black woolen socks and mud-caked boots. He told us he hadn’t taken these off for over a year. Bible verses about foot washing washed over my mind like waves as we peeled those socks from his blistered soles and twisted toes. I thought about the miles Chris must have walked since becoming homeless. I witnessed a miracle as the professional podiatrist, volunteering her expertise, started to wash and cleanse his feet; they were slowly but surely transformed.
Feet
There’s something so striking
in caring for others’ feet.
Because toes tessellate
by misshaping each other,
pushing and giving way
like office personalities.
Elegant in their uniqueness.
Hidden in their ugliness.
Beautified in the scars or walking.
Serving the Homeless is Living Out the Gospel
So far, the reasons I have given for getting involved in homeless work have been focused on the transformation of those providing the service, not those for whom the service is provided. I have a specific reason for this. It is because the value of this work does not lie in measurable results, but in human encounter, and the giving of love that doesn’t require validation after the fact.
Before working with the homeless, I heard many Christian leaders say that all broken people really need is love, and that when you show them love, their lives and attitudes automatically transform. This is deeply problematic because it underestimates the depth of people’s hurt and presents love as a formulaic solution. Yes, the most broken and self-destructive people have usually been neglected or abused by those who were supposed to love them. And of course, I agree that we should show patient loving-kindness to these broken people, especially the sort of listening love that takes the time to find out the hurt beneath the presenting problem and then goes to great lengths to seek healing and wholeness specific to each person. But I do not agree that if you faithfully do this, they will be automatically transformed. Although such action does give the space for transformation to begin, in my experience the self-destructive behavior often continues. The truth is that, even for those who are able to sustain their recoveries and reintegrate into wider society, relapse is often a big part of the recovery process. This doesn’t mean it’s not worth the effort taken or time spent. If you care for someone—listening, loving, advocating on their behalf, helping them take up and manage responsibilities—and they end up committing suicide, it does not mean that the love given has been wasted. What this does mean is that sometimes the hurt runs too deep. Sometimes people’s needs and recoveries are too complicated. This also means that love can never be reduced to a formula. When people’s brokenness is so complete that no amount of support can break through, the work of Christ reaches past all abuse and violence, through the very gates of death. In helping the poor, we partner with Christ in living out the Gospel. We love because he first loved us. The following poem was written while working in-depth with a teenager who was so broken and self-destructive it seemed impossible for him to engage with any help or make any meaningful changes. The more we worked with him, the more we discovered the extent of the abuse he had been subjected to. The poem speaks to the desperation of the situation, and to the hope unique to the reality of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Absolution 2
I’ve seen the scars of your
developing years,
they match the knuckles
of your guardians.
Know this,
you are an innocent perpetrator
of the darkest of sins,
for those were your suckling years.
And as a cub you learned to bite
and as a man you’ve learned again
and the way the walls hit your fists
is now your solace.
Now the only escape
is a punishment you cannot live through,
a love your guilt will not let you receive,
and a childhood your self-consciousness will not let you re-enter.
The only escape
is a punishment
and a love
and a childhood.
The only escape
is death and new life.
Serving the Homeless is Revolutionary and Transcends Politics
Our societies are becoming increasingly polarized and divided. Whether it is partisan politics, the management of and response to COVID, or any number of social issues, there always seem to be new things for family and friends to disagree over. At a time of social, economic, and political instability, made worse by a global pandemic, the homeless are increasingly overlooked and need more support than ever.
It is exactly in this situation of polarization that the direct action of helping the neediest in your community becomes revolutionary. If you look closely, every city and every community has places of need and people who are struggling. Your local places of deepest need are where you can transcend political differences, gain a true perspective on human need, and refuse to take part in the culture war. Because acting out of compassion and love, conserving the dignity of struggling people, and helping meet their practical needs is to deliberately place yourself outside of the echo chambers of your political and economic circle. The following poem takes Jesus’s words in Matthew 8:20 at face value in speaking to homelessness. It also says that Jesus would not have had a place to rest his head in our tribalized sub-cultures, just as he didn’t in his own polarized time. Like him, we must undermine the social barriers, break out of them, and live by a different set of rules as we enter into the places of need, being available to comfort and offer what help we can. This sort of direct action speaks louder than political speeches, Twitter hashtags, and even protest marches. What’s more, it is part of what it means to be a disciple.
Disciple
Matthew 8:20
The disciple’s identity is not
Simply progressive or conservative.
Conserve what is just and noble and true,
Progress into greater justice and truth.
Burn past arrogance, the empire and rot,
Resist the march to the prerogatives
Of the day, obsessed with what is new.
Beware the small print of your loyalties
That try to justify atrocities,
Sacrificing for the greater good,
Dehumanizing one who disagrees
And transforming fervour into wormwood.
Foxes have their holes and birds have their nests,
But the Son of Man had nowhere to rest.
1 This poem has previously appeared on Peter Lilly’s blog, along with a video reading. https://peterlillypoetry.blogspot.com/2012/06/agony.html
2 Previously published in issue 2 of the online poetry journal, Heart of Flesh. [https://heartoffleshlit.com/issue-two/peter-lilly/]
Peter Lilly is a British Poet who grew up in Gloucester before spending eight years in London studying theology and working with the homeless. He now lives in the South of France with his wife and son, where he concentrates on writing, teaching English, and community building. His recent and forth coming publications include Dreich Broad, Paddler, Archetype, Spillwords, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Ekstasis Magazine.
twitter: @peterlillypoems