The old man had an attitude before I even showed up. By the time he got in my car, he had more than choice words for me and everyone else he would encounter that morning.
I should set my alarm earlier.
His place to live had problems.
And if it weren’t for me, maybe his knee wouldn’t hurt so much.
We walked into Street Church with plenty of time to eat breakfast before worship. But breakfast that morning was muffins and donuts vs. the pancakes and bacon he had been hoping for. That was my fault too.
The busy gathering of neighbors, fresh off the cold weather shelter bus was noisy that morning as we began our Christmas worship service. And the Lord was not with my friend as he screamed obscenities to quiet the room. If only I had “higher standards” for the kinds of people I let in there on Sunday mornings, we wouldn’t have such problems!
On the way home, I made sure my friend was last to be dropped off. And then, I leveled with him.
“What’s really going on,” I asked. “Is there anything you really want to talk about?”
“Here it is Christmas and my own family won’t call me,” he exclaimed. “I always have to be the one to reach out. They don’t want anything to do with me.”
“Have you called them?” I asked.
“NO!” he fumed.
“Do you talk to them like you have been talking to me this morning?” I asked; and for the first time that morning, he was silent.
“I have a suggestion, if you’d like to hear it,” I said quietly. He shot me a glare out of the side of his eye.
“Why don’t you try calling and, even if you get their voicemail, maybe say something like: ‘Merry Christmas. I love you. That’s all’.” As I looked over, big pools of tears welled up in his eyes. He fought to maintain the gruff persona he had carried all morning, but he melted quickly right there in my passenger seat.
“Want to try saying it?” I asked.
Tears streamed down his face at this point, but after a few moments he choked out the words, “Merry Christmas. I love you. That’s all.”
I have received many a desperate call over the years from a family member who had run out of ideas for helping their loved one. Be it a child, a sibling, a parent or spouse of someone facing homelessness, the struggle is real for families where no amount of resources, expertise or love leads to a solution.
Sometimes, Micah has been able to team up with families, building the bridge between organic care of blood relationships and societal systems that seem impossible to access. More often, the work centers on the individual. As people gain stability and improve their financial situation, they naturally address other aspects of their well-being; and it becomes easier to rekindle relationships. Until then—and it can be a long “then”—the yearning of current and formerly unhoused neighbor to belong to a family unit can be devastating if not debilitating.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to make enough next of kin calls after a neighbor’s passing to know the desire for reconnection is not lost on families of those who experience homelessness. The calls usually come with a story or two, painful memories and joyful ones, and a variety of statements, like:
“I haven’t heard from him in more than a decade.”
“I really didn’t know how to help her.”
“I did love him. I hope he knew that.”
As much as I believe that neighbors become homeless when they run out of relationship, these conversations are reassurance that dislocation from community of origin never replaces humanity’s inherent belonging to one another.
It is tempting to judge either family or neighbor for the things that separate them. Why can’t people make better choices? How could someone let a family member become homeless? But compassion asks different questions.
Consider the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32).
How hard must it have been for the father to let his son try life his own way? And the son who thought an inheritance was all he needed to stand on his own two feet. How much courage must it have taken for him to swallow his pride on an empty stomach and return to his father, with no expectation of familial status than a household servant? How must the father’s heart have broken all over again when the older brother could not share joy for the younger’s homecoming?
“Do you realize, then, what Jesus is teaching?” writes Timothy Keller. “Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently.”
Regardless of our response, God the father cares deeply about all things lost and eagerly awaits the homecoming.
As for my friend, he could stay mad about the ways he remained disconnected; or a simple phone call could move him that much closer to reconnection. I could get in my feelings about the man’s attitude that Christmas. I could blame his family for not returning his phone calls. Or I can explain once more how desperately God needs all of us wants the world to be one again.
But its far more complicated than that. So, I’ll keep trying and start with this:
Merry Christmas. I love you. That’s all.
– Meghann Cotter
Executive Servant-Leader
Micah Ministries