A rosary. A ritual

In less than 24 hours I'll be in the air and on the way back to the Middle East.  The surreality of this return is unmatched and leaves me tremorous. The semester has already started.  In the last email the kind and straightforward rep in the HR dept of this relatively new college in a dusty city called me Doctor.  Let there be no misunderstandings.  If working 17 years in the field garnered an honorary degree I'd still be outside the lines, but please, I've haven't taught in over a year and I am fearfully excited and I have to be because this one has to work for longer than a three and out ballgame.

This morning my sister and I went to the 9am mass at a Slovakian Catholic Church that was done in half Latin.  At the conclusion there was a benediction and there was transcendence.  Such faith and ritual bringing you so close to God the bells ring and you're being pulled out of the temple by the rope attached to your ankle and when the cool autumnal winds blow red maple leaves in your face you cry out, thank you Jesus and forgive me for doubting.

What am I talking about.  A rosary.  The ritual.  How will I manage myself this time in the desert.  For one there will be a furry fence between me and a few vices.  I'll be grateful for that.  How will I save money, well, if I stay in place for a while there will be the necessary accumulation I won't be ashamed to own.  One, a car.  This country requires a car and that is why I got a new driver's license.  It may take longer to save but I'll have a car.

How do you feel after leaving St. Joes so abruptly, how did you handle the guilt of leaving them all high and dry? Well, the new worker came, and that took that guilt down a level, but I still felt, and feel I left as I did in the only way I knew how.  But God bless them, each and every cotton picking one of them.  Holy Cow, they are doing God's work but let it be a warning, first and foremost, the principalities and powers swirl in that house and every effort ought to be made to keep God present. Don't let your guard down, ya here?  Agents of evil are constantly attacking, keep the faith.  Pray,  keep praying, bond with like minded believers, study the word and distance yourself from the slanders and lies of evil.

This afternoon I went to a cider mill with my sister and her daughter and her three precocious children and it was beautiful to be outside.  In two days I'll be 7700 miles away and it will be hot.  To bottle such a climate for one of those dusty rug burning afternoons would be wondrous, an angelically tasteful respite from the rebelling heat.  I give up so much to be there, though I didn't try hard to stay here.  Rochester.  A great city.  Communal living.  That is hard.  Could I do it again?  Will I call them again?  Will they be in my summer plans next year provided I make it through one year?  A lot of ifs coming up, keep that rosary close to you, brother.  Say the interior prayer, doubt will do you no good.  Here we go, we're taking the dive, Lord Have Mercy.

Oscar the prophet

“I got a brother out here with no shoes.  He needs shoes, size 13.” Twenty men looking for shelter last night, a cold rain drives them in.  We got room for ten.  Let’s take ‘em, we got blankets, put ‘em wherever there’s space, in the shower, next to the washing machine.  Behind the counter, on the counter, no one too big up there, ok?

“I just got out,” The middle aged black man with plump cheeks shows me his wrist bracelet.  Three months in Henrietta. “Can I get a bus pass?” We’re supposed to give passes out to people who have appointments and can prove it.  God bless wherever you need to be, brother. 

“I had eight men in the shelter last night who are sanctioned.”  A homeless man who hasn’t completed his paperwork with the Department of Social Services (DSS), or has failed to keep in touch with his parole officer, or hasn’t fulfilled his community service commitment, and so on, the DSS puts them on a sanction list and shelters are not supposed to take them in. We do here.  “It was 40 last night and that rain, Mother Jesus, how could I say no?”  How can we say no?

“See this restaurant?  Marks Tex-All?  Right behind it I found this fella, turned out to be a doctor who’d been on the streets for a year.  Every Monday afternoon for three years I bought him a hamburger, fries and a coke.  He refused money, he refused to go to a shelter, but he took that burger and fries and a coke. This past March they found him froze to death behind the restaurant,” Don and I headed to Charlotte to price refrigerators and ovens for the 407 Dorothy Day House.  The 60 year old drives a beat up 1984 Chevy yellow pick-up that gets six miles to the gallon, and the cab is filled with a lifetime of tools and history and I’ve characterized him with envy as  the archetype citizen of upstate New York, standing at 6” 3’, with a full beard, no teeth, no hair, weighing 240lbs.  Along the way he points out the properties he’s owned, the businesses that failed when Kodak, at one time employing 65,000, couldn’t keep up with the lightning fast times.  How did the doctor die?  He didn’t tell me this, I guess because he expected me to ask.  “He lost his children in a fire.  He was living, but he wasn’t really living, ya know what I mean?”

Two days before the autumn equinox, the air is clean and crisp.  A woman from Ministry Foretold calls.  Lunch has been served, only 75 came today for Turkey Casserole, Collard Greens and dessert.  Chandra speaks: “A woman in our parish had a premature birth and we want to give a shower for her this Saturday.  Would you be able to provide us a meal, for about fifty.”  I called her back after thirty minutes to confer with the chefs.  Imagine that, there was enough of today’s lunch leftover, we could spruce it up, turn it into a goulash, use the collard greens and mix it with black eye peas, and throw in loaves of bread from the bakery.  I called her back and told her we could deliver the meal this Saturday and I asked what time could we come over: “Turkey goulash?  You got no meatballs or Lasagna?”

Tomorrow the shelter will be closed and staff will take up their positions at the Blue Cross-War Memorial Arena for the annual ‘Project Connect Homeless’ a day of services for those in the streets who need housing assistance, clothing, health screening, legal services, dental exams, and need to obtain identification. A free meal is provided. I could use a teeth cleaning.  I could use a health screening but I don’t want to hear about any disease in dormancy.  I’ll drive the house van back and forth for the lame and infirm.  Steve gave me his number and wants a ride.  Sixty two years old, he got out of the hospital yesterday after a three week layover.  “They was pumping all kinds of bad shit out of my lungs.”  The frail man entered the hospitality room using a walker, his air tank hung on it.  “Give me a ride, I need to talk to someone about my burial.” 

We open the doors at 8:30 and once everybody enters for their routine with coffee, a newspaper, some use the shower and the washing machine, I go outside with a broom and dust bin and sweep last night’s cigarettes and trash.  On such a glorious morning I am happy to be outside.  Oscar sees me from a distance, sweeping the parking lot, his expanded vision enables him to see a fly sink an eight ball in a corner pocket from fifty yards away, and shouts “Hey John, you missed a few butts.”  I can only reply I am happy to be outside which he replies, “That’s right, you got your ticket, you’re outta here.”  He said outta here, not out here, and I had to laugh.  You speak prophecies you don’t know.  I got my ticket and I am out here, or outta here. 

Should I go?  The brain cancer survivor laughs and anywhere else you get goosebumps and you roll up your car windows.  Should I go?  This is the most  dysfunctional community I've ever been a part of and I wonder if I am giving up too early, and wonder if leaving is the most prudent move right now.  If I don’t go I will be nailing the coffin down on a career I’ve enjoyed for 12 years.  I look at Oscar and his maniacal grin. 

Lord, I pray like a Russian Orthodox every morning. I’d like to turn in a few karma chips now for clarification and an answer in the next few days would be appreciated.    

the homeless howler

It hardly appears to be God's timing when something goes right down to the wire.  Of course that is how it has always been when I've worked in the Arab world.  What to do but wait and waiting is easy if you're busy. But if you're not busy anticipation eats away causing restlessness which causes one to question the plan known only to God.  And what does God say to you now?  I know the rules, all will be what is expected when you consider others first. 

The rain falls steadily, it is cold but it doesn't dampen or subdue the homeless howler.  Carrying his black garbage bag over his shoulder he arrives and fills up his coffee cup.  Yesterday's NFL results are topics for endless debating and provocations, it's too loud to remain in a room designed to be merciful. 

The wasp sting has left a huge scaly and hardened blotch on my thigh.  A few topicals might be working.  At least there is no fever, no delirium, no behavioral flashes of the altered kind.  I have been fortunate.  I am fortunate.  "The Way of a Pilgrim".  He had no desire to look for work because he was disabled.  A withered hand.  And yet in his extreme poverty he had peace.  The interior prayer kept anxieties at bay.  He didn't fear hunger nor the lack of shelter.  God led him to the kindness of strangers.  A pilgrim. 

From the journal 9.14.13:  Channeling.  It's scary, it's unreliable, listen to the spirit of God and no one else.  Discern the spirit of God and pay no heed to the rest.  The rest have much to say and are quick to say it.  I am so eager to hear.

Five and half hours at the bakery was good.  We made two sheet cakes for St. Joes desserts: lemon-blueberry pound cake, and batches of whole wheat and potato bread.  I then typed up the bakerie's dessert recipes for the old ones were stained and adjustments to the ingredients were hard to decipher. 

Blessings for the obedient.  I haven't been obedient?  Whenever you're ready to change the heart, a supernatural occurrence that is out of my hands, oh, the repetition of the Orthodox prayer will change my heart?  It's a two way street, transforming the heart I see.  Have I been resistant to change?  Why?  What have I got to lose I haven't already lost?  Lord, I only ask for a place to be content.  Forgive my desire to be content?  I'm wallowing in indecisiveness. 

a slow flow

Yesterday at the bakery I stood outside talking with Juan and Eddie and a baby wasp climbed up my leg and bit me on the back of my thigh.  Today it itches and is swollen to softball size proportions.  I should put more Calamine on it.

The homily from St. Boniface this morning was on the prodigal son.  Am I lost?  Does my questioning and restlessness and anxiety demonstrate my lack of faith?  I don't seek riches or fame or glory.  I seek love and I must do without it.  Oh right, I can love the homeless, well there are many for whom compassion flows with ease, but the clubbers, the loud and obnoxious and ungrateful ones, the flow slows.

And... no word from beyond.  The weather chills close to 40F last night.  Sunday.  I continue reading Dorothy Day's "The Delight of Duty."  Leaving in the middle of the night.  Forgive me father, I am broken.  I wish no harm, I seek peace and I do not seek confrontation.  If I do go abroad I will go with no more than eight dollars in my pocket.  You think it's hard being homeless and broke here?  Try the desert.  Only I'll just be broke.

In isolation I can control earthly desires.  See no evil, smell no evil, touch no evil and so forth.  In the big house the only desires are to eat.  And it is feast or famine around here.  Yesterday I came back from the bakery and Harry and his band of merry anarchists left a lot of food.  Hamburgers and cherry pie and a pasta dish were ample and good.  When things run out, and they do in cycles though I haven't figured the cycle yet, it's peanut butter and jelly.  For breakfast if I am fortunate it's a couple of eggs, toast, a yogurt, a glass of orange juice and a coffee.  But sometimes it's just coffee and toast.  Please understand I don't complain, I am grateful.

No one will blame me for seeking employment elsewhere.  This place is tough.  It's just how you leave and you're kind of morally responsible for giving some notice.  I would do that if I were assured I'd be going but I am not assured until I see a ticket and then I will have to move fast, if that is I can afford to do it.  It's nothing personal.

An interview with a school in Kurdistan tomorrow appears to be in jeopardy.  It's all about timing and having a headset with a microphone.  Well, the school told me I'd need at least a thousand clams on me until I received my first salary, ok, how about eight bucks?  It sucks being poor.

A new worker was supposed to have shown up yesterday.  He didn't.  I wondered if there was going to be a coincidence with him coming and me maybe leaving.  No such deal.  It does appear though, when I begin second guessing ahead of events I am usually very wrong with the outcome.  Why do I feel selfish wishing to meet someone to love?  I think of three, two past, one a distant present.  It is all meaningless.  Solomon was such a cheerful dude.  

bed bugs suck no pun intended

Yesterday evening I was talking with the maintenance man about birds, specifically pigeons who are crapping up the sidewalks in front of St. Joes, and we talked further on about the seagulls and sparrows who shouldn't be eating all the bread the homeless men throw into the parking lot and then I said I'd love to see some hawks and eagles and R. said they're around but we don't see them much.  Two minutes later standing on the fire escape looking East I saw a red tailed hawk perched on a light above the entrance ramp to the 490.  I took a photo and ran to find R to show him.  Wasn't he pleasantly pleased?  A coincidence, my friend, but don't ask me what it means.

And the Bible is full of verses attesting to the spirit world and how they are not only buzzing in our ears, they do take hold and enter and sit.  I read on-line from two psychologists who agreed that up to 80% of the mentally ill are not crazy, they're entertaining other spirits who have found a home to roost.

I already believed this when I discovered the spirit of Abbie Hoffman and dozens of other spirits of Jews fleeing Chico's head when a 2700 year old shaman banged a Tibetan gong for three days in my apartment.  What surprised me yesterday were comments made by two in the hospitality room.  Spirits who had settled in after these individuals unknowingly opened their souls and thus entered a plethora, it's hard to know really how many, but they knew (know) my days may appear to be very limited here.

"You don't fit in here"  A homeless man said to me when I did not allow him to unplug someone's mobile phone while it was being charged so he could plug in a large floor fan and sit in front of it.  What a thing to say, you don't fit in here.  The man was not completely there, mentally, and maybe I am reading into this one, but I got goose bumps because it really seemed someone else was in his head.  Someone who knows our future, albeit in brief.

We cleaned up the hospitality room and as Theresa was leaving I said see ya, have a nice weekend, she said, "See you, probably forever."  What does she know about my search for work elsewhere, I've never said a word to her.  Could she have been talking to someone else?  That is possible, though I have been extremely discreet with one other person who I know hadn't spoken to her, but she assumes that by the next time we meet, next Tuesday, we will not meet?  I will be gone?  She will be gone?

The woman is a wonderful person with large suitcases of issues going on in her life and I have no doubt there was a moment when her soul opened and some rather brutish and mischievous spirits entered her.  Not all spirits are demonic, but we are to question and we are to discern who they are and where they come from and do they acknowledge Jesus as God.  I asked this question to my 2700 year old spirit who never responded, and who never lets me know personally if he is still with me, and he has never let me know when my soul opened and my original spirit left.  Nyiman said this happened but gave no specifics.  That is distressing when I think about it but not right now will I think about it.

So, what to do with all of this? I don't know. The spirit world knows something is going to happen but like I've already seen, they are not always, ok, most of them are never right.

Friday night, a quiet one, I wait for answers elsewhere.  Yesterday I also drank far too much coffee and helped wash and fold bags and bags of sheets and pillowcases which were taken by Linda and Yue to a women's shelter.  In the cleaning I was attacked by bedbugs, an unholy trio of bites swell on my back.  The weather has changed dramatically from mid awful nineties to mid pleasant forties.  I must remain intact tonite.

what was that again?

I beseech the powers above over and over if you want me here, among the pounding screaming souls who've given up their spirits to the unstable, close the doors.  But Lord, wait, you're closing the doors before they're even open.  And the raging spirits are transcending to levels where I can't even hear my own mantras.  Am I to be a servant to those who take advantage of my hospitality?  Should I be thankful for turning the other ear until it bleeds so that they, the homeless and the government assisted mentally ill can howl and yell that the Redskins are just a bunch of cub scouts?  It isn't my place to comment, or is it?

A man who goes by the name of Wolf mopped the dining room floor after lunch.  We sat after he finished, his t-shirt drenched from the job in an unwelcome heat spell that slid in after a morning thunderstorm.  "I lived in a tent for two years, had my sleeping bag hidden in a grove of pine that kept me warm on the coldest of nights, had my camping stove which kept the tent warm and heated my water, no one bothered me until this falanging group of environmentalists pitched there ugly orange tent near mine and they threw garbage everywhere and they shit everywhere until the police came by and I had to pack up.  Ya know, I had all kinds of forest animals around me to keep me company, raccoons and skunks and the occasional opossum, damn near have teeth like a Komodo dragon I'm telling ya, and I had to leave."  Wolf looked like a wolf and a sane one at that, with long gray hair and a fu manchu that hung well below his chin.  His eyes were a bright blue and he had a third of his teeth.  "I keep a locker downtown so I don't have to carry all my stuff like most of the folks do here, and when my ex gives me shit about anything, I just go to my locker and put on a sweater."

The sun is setting considerably earlier and once a week I take a few beers and enjoy the dusk along the Genesee and talk to God.  After the afternoon meal we had the service led by Chava and the reading from Exodus got me going.  I know I am hard on God, I know I expect God to keep the promises that are uttered in the Catholic liturgy at least ten times, and I think Peter was at the end of his life and concluded well, a thousand days is like a day to God I'm going to die before I see the second coming, oh well; that brings no comfort.  At all.

I don't like fighting with God.  I don't like this troubled spirit and I am certainly not keen on any eschatalogical frothings going on.  I just wanna be happy.  Is this too much to ask for, Lord?

A lawyer for Monroe Country Legal Assistance came in to offer the guests her help regarding their social services.  "Every shelter is full," says Kristin, we got hundreds who need beds, families, single men and women, I've never seen it this bad."

Why can't we all pray Maranatha?  Why can't we, like Moses, remind God of his promises and keep God to them?  Return Jesus, and take us to heaven.  Heaven isn't in us, it isn't on this impermanent planet, it's somewhere else, where suffering and death end.  Come on, for crying out Loud.

a cold cut conundrum

There is a murky line between the practice and purpose of the Catholic Worker house and respecting the rights and liberties of the individual.  I don't want to blow the whistle on a fella who is a volunteer and hasn't been showing up to help out in the morning so when he came in this evening (he has a key to let himself in) and filled a bag of food from the walk-in fridges, I watched him as I washed dishes and didn't say anything.

The Catholic worker credo is everything in the house belongs to everybody though it is understood it is better ten men each get a new pair of socks than one man taking ten pair of socks.  Therefore I understand the distribution of goods for the majority must precede over one who takes all the donated cold cuts and walks out with a Panama hat pulled down over his eyes.  Should the men who live in the house be denied the food so that one man eats well?

 One never knows what is going to be donated and that may be the reason I feel unsettled about the cold cuts that walked out the door.  I didn't pay for them.  They don't belong to anyone, yet I think now there are people in the house who won't have ham sandwiches if, that is what they wanted if it was there for them to have. I should have called the man with the Panama hat and said why don't you make a few sandwiches and take a few extra slices of the turkey and salami, but he took it all and I said nothing.  Wimp.

I feel bad about staying mute but I would have felt bad stopping him.  I should have intervened, but imagining later how it might have played out left me angry.  What if I had come across in a way that triggered an angry response?  Would I have been in the right if I stopped him from taking it all?  If I had never been there, it wouldn't have happened and no one would have said a thing.  But I was there and I saw it and I did nothing.  Wimp again.
                                                                      
                                                                            ***

I've been attending a trio of Catholic Churches here for nine weeks, all within walking distance, and despite uncomfortable pews, screaming toddlers, and a strange mural of an ancient white dude towering behind an altar, the brief times of transcendence have helped me deal with my days of volunteering at St. Joes.  I've also benefited from reading the kinds of books that help me see how to be a better steward of my time and relationships.

 I finished the first half of 'The Way of the Pilgrim' and unceasing prayer is essential, in whatever form you gotta have a mantra of sorts in your head, especially when crazy spirits roar around you.  I've also been gleaning much wisdom from "The Delight of Duty".  Dorothy Day is candid in her journals and she was no saint as far as she was concerned, but she had a bigger heart for the poor than I do, and in my humble opinion, the poor were far worse off in the 1930's- 40's than today, and she was always working with really difficult people though she managed to keep it together.  I attribute that to her complete dedication to the cause, regular church going, reading, a daughter and grandchildren, and time away from it all.

I am coming to know a few of these difficult people, and like someone said, I am being schooled and am seeing where I need improvement.  A man whom I will call Oscar, seemed to me at first a suspicious character, walking around everywhere he wasn't supposed to be, helping himself to coffee and donuts, reserved for the volunteers who help out in the kitchen and dining room, or getting into the house before we opened the doors in the morning so he could put his clothes in the wash. Normally he just hung around, his egg shaped head covered with a morning frizz of hair, thick glasses that make his eyes look 3-D, along with a dumbfounded laugh that led me originally to guess he had fallen from a 20 story building and landed on a hot dog kiosk.

But Oscar's story is much sadder than that and as I learn about the suspicious ones I am humbled and look, like I do at Oscar now, as a victim through no fault of his own.  Brain surgery.  Five years ago.  He says half of his IQ was taken away, he couldn't and still can't manage numbers, and for a while his colors were mixed up.  He lives in the back seat of a truck now.  What hope is there for Oscar?  Well, he's volunteering more in the kitchen.  Small steady sets of instruction help, he can't wander off if someone is right there to keep him on task. You don't want him at the bottom of a ladder while you're at the top because he'll wander off, but will he ever recover?  How long do patients who have cancer removed from their heads return to normalcy?

 I think he knows he is not the man he once was, and knowing that may be an impetus to improving himself.  But has surgery completely robbed him of becoming a self sufficient, independent individual?  Can you trust someone whose brain has been scrambled through no fault of his own with a little?  You have to.  You have to try.  You have to see what he is capable of doing and until then, he needs the encouragement and the support to stay on track.  Don't let the pancake eyes spook you, and don't let the R-rated laugh you'd hear if he was going to stab a bread knife in your throat while you're taking a shower dissuade, listen instead closely to his heart, and hear what he needs.

the summer of 2006

The notes were taken during the summer of 2006 and were originally on my mac blog.  I almost traveled around the world, beginning from the Arabian Peninsula and going east as far as Pittsburgh and then turning around and going west as far as Amsterdam and then returning to the UAE for work.    

Asia

 

(Malaysia) I climbed Cameron Highland’s Gurung Jasar in 40 minutes following the trail from the Camelia Gardens trailer park and returned to Father’s Guesthouse with time for lunch.  An hour later Sean, a 21 year old graduate from Colorado State and I played 14 holes at the local golf course until heavy rains stopped us.  All in a good days timing it was playing with my last ball because the previously purchased four went into the drink on the 12^th and 13^th greens where alligators slummed and local kids wanted money to fetch them. 

(Borneo) At Mt. Kinabalu’s HQ this beautiful morning a hallowed band of cloud separates the green effervescence of the holy mountain.  Earlier in the day I shared the bus from the Kota Kinabalu Hotel with Lou, a lawyer from London who quit her job and was in the middle of a ten-month holiday, and who confided she had quit smoking yesterday.  I asked if she had any concerns about climbing a mountain almost ten kilometers high.  “My guide book says it is the highest and most accessible mountain in the world.”  A day later I met her as she came down and I headed up.  “knees gave out, had to stop.”  During the ascent to the summit, a tremendous thunderstorm pounded us into submission. We sat in the lodge and sipped tea.  My guide was a good fellow who wore a Yankees baseball hat.  “I first climbed Kinabalu when I was nine.  The oldest climber was a 94 year old Japanese man.” He climbs the mountain two or three times a week.  We waited seven hours in the base camp guesthouse at 3300m and decided when waterfalls crossing the path weren’t easing up to return to the headquarters.  Three hours later I climbed onto a bus to Sepilok. 

 

A room at the The Malaysian Hotel for two nights is 110R.  I sat on the hard bed and watched the Argentina-Mexico football match until the front desk switched the channel to an awful Bruce Willis movie with Kim Basinger.  Yes, it was still awful.  But not awful enough to get up and tell them to put the game back on.

The young man who served me scones with coddled cream and strawberry jam dressed in a tux asked of my origins.  He said excitedly, I love America.  America is great. Why is America great?  Without hesitation he said because it is strong.  Culturally, no one imprints a powerfully sensual ideology on the minds of so many more effectively, in spite of who runs the joints, than the corporations on Fifth and Madison and Pennsylvania Ave.  I sipped Earl Grey and watched the staff set up a croquet set on the manicured lawn behind me.  The English Tea House sits high above Sandakan Bay, a beautiful afternoon with cool breezes where Nelson Eddy croons and even here America is still envied. 
 

Q 
 

(Macau) In a park above St. Paul’s ruins birds in cages hang from trees while their owners sit on benches and whisper the day away.  Large black birds jump up and down rocking their cages.  Are they entertaining themselves or are they trying to topple the little prisons off the branches, hoping a 10 foot fall to the concrete will release them to join the other free birds who sit on branches squacking for their imprisoned relatives.

Q

 

(Bangkok) Soi seven slash one is quiet.  The overcast keeps the alley amazingly cool in the early afternoon.  Nothing really makes sense sometimes so it’s best to simply sit and let everyone walk by.  The summer has been few with the lessons, but one in particular jumps out.  Speak less.  Promises made in a moment become indifferent when I discover sincerity wanes.  Why speak when truth isn’t forthcoming? 

The sun bursts out and illuminates everything.  Profane heat pushes me out of my comfort and I retreat in the darkness of another web where reason takes a back seat.

North America

The manager of the Jet Motel walks by and there he is, Elvis has come back as an old Japanese man. 

Seattle’s air is rich and sweet, a crisp clean smell that doesn’t sweat like the thick tropical airs of Asia.  The Emirati air is blank.  Hot and dry and in the winter months cool and refreshing, where the desert is void of smell unless you’re barbecuing. 

 

The man sitting in front of me works on a Canadian crossword puzzle.  He is a throwback to a generation of gentlemen with brylcreamed hair and tweed jackets.  His aura was one with confident resignation for those who believe hygiene and a fedora distinguish.  Well, right he is as we cruise to the border on the bus. 

Q

The Tropical Suite Hotel in Vancouver is the find of the holiday.  My suite in the 1950’s pink décor has a feel where deals are made by Russians and their local sharks.  Not that I am making any deals in the next two days….

On a bus heading south, soon, there is nothing outside the lines that more or less touches us more so than the illumination of the profane and sacred. 

Q 

The Panama Hotel in Pioneer Square was built in 1911 and nothing has changed, except for the communal johns and glorious 21^st century showers.
 

Q
 

My cousin put me in the guest room on the third floor of her 102 year old and almost restored home.  It is hot but we got multiple fans swirling the humid summer air and it is enough.  Five days in Pittsburgh for a family reunion and it was the first time to come to the home of my father without him. 

Europe

(Amsterdam) I asked the elderly man sitting at the coffee kiosk if it was ever too early to have a beer in Germany.  The Pilsner was his second.  At seven in the morning it wasn’t bad but I followed it with a cappuccino.  He traveled with an entourage of Mexican women and their children.  They were in an American Airlines line that stretched the length of the terminal.  An elderly woman, presumably his wife, stepped out of line to share a beer.  “We’re going to Los Angeles I felt like a criminal after going through the check-ins.”  I mentioned traveling in and out of the Middle East there still existed--when there weren’t stampedes and people actually queued--a certain air of hospitality and respect for the traveler.  The old man from San Diego stood up when I mentioned the Middle East and leaned close to me “America will never win a war in the Middle East because when you kill the father you have to contend with the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of relatives, who by the powers they hold and believe, must exact blood payment.  Be careful, son.”  I suppressed a laugh and thanked him for this advice.  I didn’t tell him I was an English teacher and the only trouble I get into that I know of is not turning paperwork on time.   

Q

A young fella from Australia stopped me on my walk along this curvaceous road:  do you speak English?  An affirmative yes.  Could you read this for me?  I followed his lead and two seconds off my path looked at a leaflet taped to an empty storefront window.  “Well, it’s Dutch we’re looking at, but I know the words in the first sentence here:  dress code.”  He laughed and I laughed and I continued onward.  He wasn’t dressed for anything other than right where he was on the street. 

(Dubai airport) The plane that was going to fly me to Kathmandu never arrived in Dubai.  Sorry, sir, one of the engines fell off the plane while it taxied in Delhi. 

 

(Frankfurt) In the Holiday Inn’s biergarten a cool refreshing evening and it’s still light at 9 o’clock.  A draught of Henninger, “von Frankfurt aus in Alle Welt”.  An elderly woman sat to my left on the flight from Doha and spoke to me in German throughout the flight.  Though it didn’t matter that I know about five sentences in the language I never used them and didn’t need to.  The invisible infants two rows ahead of us and to our right hit crescendo when simultaneous blood curdling screams prompt calls for banishment throughout the cabin. 

 

I sipped a Konig Ludwig in the smoke choking dining car.  An elderly Egyptian man and his wife came and ordered coffees.  The man tried to pour sugar in his cup but there wasn’t enough in the jar to come out of the silver spout.  They drank their unsweetened beverages standing next to me and smiled, smoking cigarettes that penetrated my clothes and skin.  When they finished and left an Asian woman came in with her four year old boy and ordered coffee.  Wishing for sugar she unscrewed the jar’s lid and poured the remaining contents into her cup. 

(Amsterdam) The Spanish lady working in the Green House Café agreed with me, the weather has been brilliant: blue skies, strong sun, perfect days in August.  Yes, it’s nice to sit outside with a cappuccino and strudel and ask eternal questions where nothing is known until it’s brought up again by those who are skeptical about everything until they have a pain in their stomach and then go to a doctor who does in fact know something more than the skeptic. 

 
All of a sudden a camper rolls by me, a minute later a woman in a motorized wheelchair zigs zags back and forth on her way to evening vespers.  God, what a country.  Then three officers stroll past me, the blonde has sparkling blue eyes and I can only wonder if she has another job. 
 

The sun is on my back, the grass smells fresh and green.  The summer fragrance intoxicates.  This city is so concentric.  The canals are to blame, no?  ok, not to blame, but does it take four hours to walk from central station to the Richstag? 

 The air is soft, especially when clouds slide by through the blue sky.  This is nice and it doesn’t cost a thing. 

spirits be quiet

A man walks up to the coffee urn, he's holding a thermos half-full containing a dark, thick oily liquid.  "Can I fill this up?" Whaddya got in that now?  "Ah, it's coffee, about a week old, I just wanna heat it up."  I told him to dump it and re-fill his thermos with fresh coffee.  He went to the toilet emptied it and refilled his container with fresh coffee. "Brother thank you so much, thank you for being here, God bless you," and he got teary eyed and off he went.   Is this why I am here?  A simple act of mercy, a word of advice, was this my reward in full?  And is it enough amidst the outbursts of anger and shouting that fills the air to be there for someone who only needs a fresh thermos of coffee?

"You have any creamer?"  no, we've been out for a few weeks now. His voice rises. "  Ya'll got creamer, ya'll got money, why are you depriving us of creamer, ya'll got money."  Why even attempt to reason with someone who becomes angry over something that is out of my hands?

We put two boxes containing 70 cartons of 4oz orange juices, stale bagels, a box of clementine oranges that I weeded of moldy ones, and an assortment of donuts and muffins.  I turned on the television at 10am, adding another level of discord, and within an hour all the food is gone.

Mario comes once a week for a shower.  He's young, wears a Yankees hat over a mop of ratty hair, has thick glasses and lives in the forest.  When he shows up he asks for new clothes.  After he showers we throw his soiled jeans and t-shirt away.  He says his father is Cuba, a regular guest who will tell you he has worked for the CIA, NSA, and participated in the Bay of Pigs.   I asked him once about Castro and he mumbled in Spanish and another dialect produced after years of using heroin.  He rides a bike everywhere, his dreadlocks are mostly stuffed in a tall pie hat and I've never seen Mario and Cuba in the same room.

Is the anger and the shouting an indication of fear?  Do they understand, at least to me, the louder they are the less I listen? Tom has encouraged me to go to some 12-step meetings so I can learn what addicts are challenged with when they're returning to sobriety. "Tom I'll go on one condition, I want to be a heroin user for one month, I'll never know and I'll never be able to understand where they've been and how hard it is go straight unless I take that path."

He says a worker shouldn't be addicted to anything.

I'm sitting at the window on the third floor reading "The Way of a Pilgrim"  and a man pulls up to the door below with a bag of vegetables.  I run down to meet him because the lunch finished and the house is quiet.  Mike is 65 years old, wears a Tigers t-shirt and a white hat with a green clover insignia.  He is donating tomatoes and herbs from his garden, I ask if he is a Tigers fan and for the next 15 minutes gives me a history of Detroit's 1968 World Series victory, thanking God with the sign of the cross every time he mentions Earl Wilson and Mickey Lolich.

Violence.  I hate seeing it here, I hate hearing it here.  Even hours after a man slams the door and screams at everyone around to shut up, my nerves feel shot.  Are the poor and the homeless and the mentally ill afraid of silence?  Do their demons leave them in fear?  How can you keep control when spirits of darkness rage inside?

Spirit you don't like what you see, then get me out of here.  The virtues of silence.  Being taken to school.  Dealing with irrational behavior is forcing me to see who I am.  Acting in the spirit of grace and mercy I have to be the one who doesn't waver.  Dorothy Day lived with men and women who screamed at her and at one time took a six month break from the Catholic Worker house.  It becomes too much.   How did she do it?  She went to church alot.  She had to get out and breathe clean air.

Events in the world have my spirit thinking the end of the world may actually happen and it takes all my energy to suppress such absurd foolishness.  If this spirit is this 2700 year old shaman, why doesn't he just go somewhere else and leave me at peace?  I'd rather not think about the 'blessed hope' if it isn't going to happen in my lifetime. He brings anxiety and hope that isn't there. Lord have mercy.

170 labor day lunches

One hundred and seventy people stood in line, in brief and heavy rain, for a free lunch of hot dogs, hamburgers, pork and beans, macaroni salad, three bean salad, sweet potato pie, and iced tea.  All were content and thankful.  We were fortunate a few hours earlier when a couple donated hot dog and hamburger buns.  In the end the meat was gone, and there was enough of the salads for anyone who wanted seconds.  There were also plenty of sweet potato pies left.  I'll have a slice tonight if I feel better.

Uncertainties about employment in the Middle East persist.  I had assumed the semester would have already started but checking university calendars they got two weeks to go.  So it is still possible.  You have no problem leaving St. Joes in a lurch?

Sometime this week a young man who used to live here will return.  He is well liked and is by all means, quite capable, I'm told.  I never realized when I signed up for this that the greatest challenge would be learning to live and work with people who have little regard for their fellow workers, and are just cantakerous.  I know I ought to just leave it to Jesus.  Dude it's between you and God, the indifference and uneven tempered barrages about how people ought to work when they aren't capable of working at all, is neurotic.  The only way I can deal with a neurosis that sputters slander and is indifferently aloof is to stay away and off their radar.  I can be nice, and patient, and God forgive me, I will try to work with such individuals, I just didn't expect I'd have to do it in this place, a sanctuary.  Such negativity is cancerous and I'd rather have nothing to do with it.

Tomorrow the hospitality room will be closed.  I have so much time on my hands, I ought to be more productive with my images and writing.  But what to do?  I realize if I return to the desert access to computers will disappear unless I buy one.  There will probably be internet cafes and those are ok sometimes. It will be all about saving money anyways.  The rich and beautiful landscapes outside the hick town is waiting.  A chair, a good book, and a favorite beverage are all I'll need.  Of course this is all pending.