Shame is my least favorite emotion. It’s different than guilt. Guilt I can deal with. Guilt compels me to action. I can confess my sin, ask forgiveness and strive to do better next time.
Shame is the stranger who leads me down a dark road where more shameful things await, things that will surely cause me pain, leave me wounded, and struggling to figure out how it was I got off on the wrong path.
When I was a child shame was a familiar, if unwelcome, companion.
I felt shame when at age 9, I lost my father. It’s only part of a longer story but the night before he shipped out to Vietnam, Daddy had teased me over some candy I had but refused to share with him. The next year, when he died in a battlefield, I felt shame.
Count me among the millions. It’s been a year since I lost the best job of my journalism career, working as an editorial writer and columnist for a family-owned newspaper.
Call it what you like – riffed, cut, layed off, let go – I joined the ranks of the nation’s unemployed.
Tears welled up in my boss’s eyes when he gave me the pink-slip. He’s a kind and gentle man.
Don’t worry, I told him. This is the right thing to do. I’m married. My husband wouldn’t put me out on the streets. I won’t go without health insurance or food or even new shoes, so long as my husband keeps his job.
Having been raised by a single mom, I didn’t want a single parent to lose their job so I could keep mine. My kids are all grown, making their own way in this world. I didn’t need the job.
It’s Hugh again. When she interviewed me for the new book, Karen and I talked a bit about day labor and the challenges that face folks who see this as their only option for honest work. One of the ministries we have is focused around getting people work boots – this post illustrates why.
Whenever people tell me they “know” there are jobs available for people willing to work hard, I tell them to go sit for a morning at a labor pool. Day labor, labor pools, very short-term temps – call them what you will, they’re at the bottom of the barrel. These are people who truly need the work (as in, I need to eat today).
Hey there. Hugh here. While Karen has been on the road, I have been supposed to blog some here, but as you can tell, I have not.
What passes for a snowstorm in Raleigh, NC (about 5-6 inches) hit last weekend, bringing my fair city to her metaphorical knees and leaving my friends who live outside in a very real lurch. I have been swamped trying to make sure everyone was warm, safe and OK.
Anyway, here is a short narrative I wrote a while back about one of my “typical” days – in which a homeless man shares with me a great theological insight.
Note: The way we talk, the choice of words we use, all of that is part of our story and part of who we are. Life on the streets is not pretty and it is not polite. Many in my position clean up the language when reporting what is said; I have chosen to leave it. I will not dishonor the people I speak to by imposing my grammar on them.
We didn’t scare him off, so Hugh has agreed to come back and share some more of his street smarts with us. Thanks, Hugh. (If you have a question about issues related to ministering to the homeless, email me. I’ll pass it along.)
KAREN: Is there a difference between a homeless person and a panhandler? If so, how do their needs vary and what are some the ways in which we can respond to the needs of the homeless?
HUGH:
The questions are not getting easier…
In answer to your first question – Not all panhandlers are homeless people, and not all homeless people are panhandlers.
Panhandler is sort of an occupation. And you can be un-housed and have an occupation.
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