EL’s Dribble

There are these houses right next to the place that we rent for our monthly worship gatherings. They are boarding houses that cater to mentally impaired adults that fall between the systemic cracks. Not dysfunctional enough to be hospitalized. Not functional enough to be integrated in society.

We’ve been next door to the houses for almost 4 years and have gotten to know a lot of the people. It hasn’t been easy… their range of ailments span widely… schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar, brain damage, psd, prolonged drug/alcohol abuse, etc. – everyone is on some more form of medication. And it hasn’t been easy to connect or love them. The truth is that I think we’re getting over the dirtiness… the smell… the ingrained suburban value that the reason you work hard is to avoid people like this… and getting over taking the easy route of just giving money and withholding the human touch.

I think the biggest struggle for our community when it comes to connecting with our neighbors is being open to integrating our lives with theirs. They aren’t charity cases… they aren’t projects for us to complete. They are people and they like everyone else are dying for someone to acknowledge that their existence in this world matters. That they aren’t alone… that someone cares.

There’s two people named Snappy and Mona. They are good friends and likely 15-20 years apart in age. And they’ve been faithfully coming to our worship times for the past few years… with no one to remind them that it’s on the 3rd Sunday. In this realm they are far more committed than some of our more “functional” people.

Snappy asked me last Sunday, “When are we going to go out to lunch? I owe you lunch!” We did lunch once before and had burritos and he was bent on going back to the same place. It’s got good memories apparently. We go and Snappy asks me politely whether Mona can come and we head over to Super Tacqueria for lengua burritos. That particular day was really packed… I was meeting with several disciple groups, doing some training and preparing for pre-marital counseling. Lots of “work” that day.

But as I was sitting in the sun with Snappy and Mona, two people who may never quite fit into the “brilliant” church structure that I’ve created, I was reminded that I was eating with two of my friends. They enjoyed my company and I enjoyed theirs. They didn’t need anything from me other than me. And I couldn’t expect anything from them other than just them. And I realized that that was enough. They remind me that it’s not always about “getting it done”. They remind me that there’s a human level to everything that gets missed when we’re always functioning on the business side of life. I’m reminded that Jesus doesn’t love me any more and Jesus does love them any less. And that the Gospel makes more sense when we have friends who are physically poor and we can recognize our common inability/desperation/incompetence in life.

Every time Snappy is in my car… he leaves a “residue” on my seat. I really don’t care to guess what it is and it kinda smells. But hey, we’re friends and friends can clean up after each other and look forward to the next burrito date.