Last week I went on a four day street retreat in Vancouver. I just wrote a sermon about my experiences. This is not the sermon, but some random pieces that didn't make the final cut, the sermon was just too long.
A little story: once, years ago, when I was working with the Faithful Fools of San Francisco, in the poorest part of the city, I was walking down the street. I saw a stranger come barreling towards me, carrying a bunch of placards under his arm. He was muttering and arguing with himself as he bounded, with huge strides towards me. When he reached me he turned towards me and shouted in my face, “Introvert!” Wow, I know I am an introvert, but I had never realized how apparent it was. The streets are always full of surprises and of the unknown.
On our first night, after dinner in the gathering dusk, we decided to head down Hastings Street. I can't remember why. We didn't get very far when we were stopped by people milling on the sidewalk. They seemed to be in line. So some of us joined the line, even though we didn't know what it was for. The crowd was friendly, lively, in good spirits. We soon found out the line was for candy. Some guy gets candy donations from a bunch of places and comes down to Main and Hastings to distribute them. I didn't really want candy at 10 o'clock at night, with no toothbrush to speak of... so I stepped out of line and stood near the wall. People were sharing lifesavers and Hershey bars. Then I heard someone mention mangoes. Ah, mangoes, how nice would that be? My favourite fruit. I decided to go up to the van and see if there were any mangoes left. When I got there I stuck my head in between a few people looking for mangoes. No mangoes, just candy and chocolate and granola bars. A free for all of sugary sweets. Then I heard, “Hey Fool!” and looked up. I knew the guy helping hand out candy and he came out on the sidewalk and talked to me for a minute. He brought me a chocolate bar and a much coveted Gatorade—Blue Rush and we chatted for a minute. Before he left I asked him if there was any truth to the mango rumour. His face lit up and he ran back to the van and I saw him reach into his secret stash again and he came back with a big, ripe mango. Just for me. I was so grateful. It was so unexpected and after only a few hours on the streets it felt like a little bit of paradise. But I had no knife. So I slipped the mango in my bag for later.
The next morning I saved my plastic knife from breakfast and when we gathered later for meditation and a chance to reflect on our experiences, I pulled out the mango and put it on the altar in the centre of our circle. The practice was that we made an altar each time we sat in a circle, and when one spoke they chose something from the altar as a talking piece. Someone chose the mango. And as we watched he broke out into laughter totally overwhelmed my mango perfume. He spoke and the next person picked it up to share, and to smell the mango. Our mouths were watering by this time. At the end of the council, I cut up our precious mango to share it. And what a treat it was. So sweet and ripe and perfect, rare fresh fruit on the street. And so much sweeter because it was shared with these gentle and vibrant faces, these new friends, my companions on the cold, hard night ground. A simple and beautiful pleasure, but no less grand for its simplicity.
After breakfast, on our first morning, after lying cold all night long, on hard ground; after being woken up by a prostitute and her john looking for a quiet place, and stumbling over some of our group, we were feeling tired and a little weary. We stopped to rest in a park. The sky looked grey a few of us pulled out plastic to cover ourselves with. And promptly all thirteen of us fell asleep in the cool, (but not cold) of the morning. We slept in Robson Park, on Kingsway, near Fraser, close to the Salvation Army, Children and Family Services where we had eaten a big, hot breakfast. And so peacefully, with cars around, and puffy grey clouds above we slept... until a cop car came. Two young police officers got out and came over to us a little hesitantly. It seems someone had called in that there were a bunch of people asleep or maybe dead in the park. And had we committed mass suicide? A few more woke up proving we were in fact alive, laughing at the funny situation. We told the curious cop of how it was that 13 of us were sleeping in a park in the mid-morning. We were on street retreat, living homeless, sleeping out for four days. And none of us had slept well last night in the cold. The cops were nice, one said there was nothing wrong with sleeping in the park, as long as we weren't dead. They wished us luck and went on their way. People were curious, friendly, interested.
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