Across the Great Divide

Shelter Report: Another Faceless Death in the Desert.

Talk at the Day Center today focused on the death of a homeless man who was a periodic guest at the Center. His body was found in the desert by some of the people we serve, who reported it to police. The sparse story in the paper said only that the man had been attending a "party" in the desert over the weekend and police considered his death a homicide.

Some party.

There was a lot more information circulating here, including a graphic description of the body and some other details attributed to the police that were probably not from their investigation but may prove true anyway. What is true is the victim had trouble with alcohol that caused him to lose his family, his home and his livelihood. He died near the last place he worked, where he was fired for being drunk on the job.

One man has already been arrested in connection with his death.

David didn't really stand out at the Center. Though I know a lot of guests by name and would probably recognize his face, I can't place him. I wish I could. One of few things we can do reliably when we volunteer is to see each person who passes through our doors as an individual human being — the opposite of what the homeless typically encounter on the street.

But at noon, we close, and the streets never do.

Shelter Report: Having Patience.

One guest at the Day Center was telling me, "You're really patient. You could be a doctor. I was going to be a doctor but everything bothers me." He pauses to bang on the shower door to tell his friend to hurry up. (The friend's been in there about three minutes.) "I'm not patient. They told me 20 years ago to put myself in a box and not go outside of it." (Bam, bam, bam on the door.) "Now it's kind of scary to come out of the box. Hurry up, let's go!"

I tend to write about the Day Center as a place of comedy, caring, intellectual stimulation (today chess games and a theological discussion went on in front of me) and pathos (a young heroin addict in treatment talks about sleeping during the day because if he's on the street too many people pester him for his connections).

But we also see evidence of the hard edge to life for people who don't have stable housing.

Today one of the regulars showed up with a damaged eye that was almost swollen closed. A couple of the guests were telling him it looked bad and he should have it looked at. What happened? one asked. Poked it on something, he said.

This can happen when you live along the river and are making your way through the tamarisk after dark.

Later in the morning, a woman showed up with cuts above and below her eye and a swollen cheek. Fell off a bike, she told our supervisor. Also possible, since bikes are a main mode of transportation for many of the local homeless.

Later, we found the two had gotten into a fight the night before.

It's possible to look at addiction, dysfunction and irresponsibility and cite it as justification for cutting social programs and spending public money more "productively." Many of the people here will not escape the cycle they are in. But some of them do, and you can't always tell who they will be.

Today, a young woman who's had some hard times with her kids and a bad marriage came in on her way to court to "correct my mistake" — getting her divorce finalized. She looked good. She looked happy. And most important, she looked ready for something new.

 

 

Self-serving or Serving People: My Dinner with Teachers.

A dinner party last night got me thinking about the interface between political rhetoric and where people's hearts really are. Of the seven gathered at the table, two were former teachers, one taught seventh grade and a fourth worked in a high school and was also involved in its drama productions.

Despite the depths of Colorado's educational funding problems and the precariousness of teaching jobs — seen in increasingly challenging classrooms, threats of layoffs and the red tide against "public employees — the table talk didn't go there.

Instead, it focused on the kids: The hard-working ones, the medicated ADHD kids, the malingerers, the amazing ones, the autistic one, the singers and dancers and shot putters and drug users. And it was spoken with an  awareness of and concern for their nutrition, upbringing, social circles, inspirations and prospects.

An ex-teacher inquired about one of his former students and whether he'd stayed out of trouble in high school. The math teacher, who taught a "gifted" class in addition to classes for kids with behavioral problems, said her gifted group was largely made of kids who might have been considered normal a generation or two ago. She also expressed mild regret that she'd passed on an opening to teach science (her specialty) because she believed science positions would be the next ones to be cut.

That's as political as it got last night.

This morning, back in the realm of daily news and conflict, I wondered how the conversation at a table of political job holders might go — say, appointees who rode the coattails of November's victory and are now intent on shaving government down to size as they collect nice paychecks and enjoy benefits just like other public employees. Would their undirected talk focus on the people they serve — all of them — or toward the advance of power and the progress of their unmaking government?

I don't know for sure, but this framework comes to mind as way to imagine it.

Let's say we can derive satisfaction from four dimensions of work: the work itself, the people we serve, the compensation we receive, and the control we can achieve. All are forms of reward, and the greatest theoretical reward comes from achieving satisfaction in all four dimensions. In reality, there are variations, overlaps and exceptions, but let's keep this simple.

Those who enjoy the work itself can include writers, programmers, scientists, athletes, artists, entrepreneurs and others who don't necessarily require other people to enrich what is already a rich interior experience. The work can be primarily mental or physical; it's the activity itself that gives pleasure.

Others may primarily derive satisfaction from serving others. Let's include teachers, ministers, health professionals, restauranteurs, certain salespeople and various social service professionals.

Then there are the managers and financial types who could be equally at home in banking, consumer electronics, taco franchising, insurance or the cake mix business. They need other people, but primarily as abstractions — "human resources," "consumers" and "shareholders" — necessary to the system that provides their financial gain.

The fourth dimension certainly overlaps with the others, but the control sought by a composer or a farmer is very different from that sought by the political and business classes, which must exert power over others to achieve their goals. And one of the levers of their power comes from characterizing and mischaracterizing others.

Of course, people aren't this simple, but these categories provide a framework for seeing through motivations as well as self-deceptions.

After all, there's more than one way to serve people.