The Awakening

The night seemed endless. As I lay in my sleeping bag atop the hard macadam courtyard outside Covenant House I struggled to find a "sweet-spot" of comfort. My arthritic hip groaned and an occasional cough of wind somehow found its way inside my nighttime fortress and set me to shiver. My goodness, I had enough clothes on to dress a large family and still it seemed not enough. Once in a while I would peek out at my friends Dion and Mike to see if they had escaped without me, but there they were, quietly making it through the elements. Mike was a good foot and a half bigger than his sleeping bag, and once he disappeared within it for the evening he was not seen again, but lay there looking like a twisted pretzel. Each time I looked over at Dion his face was pointed straight up like the buildings around us, his eyes closed, with a perpetual smile on his face. After a while I thought maybe he had frozen in that position, but I thought better of checking, just in case he had died and I would have to get out of my bag to notify the authorities. Besides, at least he had died happy...

And that happiness was the mystery to me. I had been surrounded earlier in the evening by scores of homeless youth inside their now home at Covenant House in New York City.  We were there to be in solidarity with the kids, and some of us had volunteered to sleep outside as a fundraiser. That evening, from the staff and the kids, we experienced an amazing mixture of love, laughter and hope— not what I had expected from the many who had so recently been sleeping on the streets of Manhattan.  I have no doubt that in a certain corner of the property there were tears of pain and remorse from a young resident still living out the heartache of abandonment, while another room likely carried the grief of a care-giver mourning the loss of another young soul back into the streets.  Yet the overwhelming mantra that emanated from this refuge on 41st street seemed to say—no, rather shout, "Lets move on, there is so much more life to live!"

As another wisp of wind tugged at the head of my sleeping bag, my thoughts drifted back to a time in my younger days when I had been homeless, by my own design yes; wrestling along with the anger of my generation against a senseless war and more senseless reality, but no less homeless and penniless and never sure of tomorrow. I remember the hunger, the begging, the humiliation, the rejection. I can still feel the gnawing uneasiness as the afternoon shadows lengthened and the prospects for the evening were uncertain. I don’t believe I will ever forget those feelings of loneliness, hovering like a sheet that covers a dead body, cold, still, and hopeless…

As I lay there in the cold that November night, numb with the pounding noise of a caravan of trucks and honking taxi's, my thoughts wandered back and forth from the beautiful faces of those kids I had just met to the caverns of my soul, trying to make sense of why this happens: wonderful young lives adrift in the streets, searching, aching, bleeding… for what?

Isn’t it love, oneness, significance and fulfillment they are looking for? And is it any different for me? I want to be loved for who I am, not for what I do or don't do; to know that I am unconditionally loved by someone; that there is a person who believes that I am important. As I lay there in the early hours of morning, marrying some of the pain of my own journey to the passion of those new young friends at Covenant House, something sparked within. I heard my own voice inside speak this: "God, as I am learning of your unconditional love for me, I want to be a channel of that love to the young, to the homeless, to the hurting, to the despised, in fact, God, to all of those around me looking for someone to believe in them. Help me to see the world through your heart."

Another truck loudly rattling over a construction plate on the corner at 10th Avenue drew my attention. I glanced outside my bag at Dion and noticed he had slightly shifted but still wore that angelic smile.  "At least he's still with us,” I chuckled to myself.  The night air still cut but not so deeply, as a peace settled into my sleeping bag. I could not see the stars but I knew they were there, and somehow knew they shined brightly. That's how faith is, I thought to myself; although I can't see you right now God, I will trust you to shine through me.  And with that hope I slowly drifted into a quiet rest…