a scary truth...?

Yesterday I joined Care Through Touch for our annual Holy Thursday foot massage service - where a whole bunch of people (most of them priests, nuns, and monks in a sabbatical program at one of the GTU's Catholic schools) who fan out across a bunch of our service sites and provide foot massage and clean socks to homeless and low-income people. I was a supervisor, and I ended up sitting in the drop-in center waiting room and chatting with a couple folks who hang out there. One of the people - a white woman in her late 40s who is homeless due to leaving a long-term, heavily abusive marriage - was telling me about her difficult journey. She seemed to sum it up by saying, "You know, I never would have expected myself to be here, to lose everything. But I've found wonderful things: I'm reconnecting with my body through massage, I'm making friendships... Having everything stripped away like this, I'm rediscovering what's important to me. I'm realizing that I must rely on human relationships to survive. None of the rest of it matters." This reminds me of what Mama has told me: where she grew up, your "retirement account" is your family - you help them in their need, and they will help you in yours. As I talked with this woman, I reflected on this rather scary truth. In fact, it's a dangerous truth. One of the many ways to find meaning in suffering is to realize the survival of the human spirit in the face of unspeakable suffering. Another way is to realize the power of relationships and many tiny acts of caring for each other. The danger is in assuming it takes that kind of suffering to come to this realization. Or to assume that everyone will reach the same conclusion. Someone could also reach this stage in the woman's life and say "You can rely on no one but yourself." In fact that's probably a necessary survival story for at least a while, in dangerous situations. And frankly, I would say most homeless folks - while many do survive solely through their interdependence with each other -  would not reach this conclusion. More often, I have heard about how the system eats you up, and even with hard work it is difficult to keep permanent employment when you are also struggling with finding safe housing and affordable meals. And that's without struggling with shame/guilt/anger over past mistakes, mental illnesses and/or addictions.

But I return to the truth that this woman told me: In the end, for me too, it is the relationships and interdependence that keeps me alive. But I'm afraid to tell this story, because it can be easy to conclude that homeless people are somehow more noble for their suffering, or that the degradation of poverty is somehow "good for you."