Homeless Pilgrimage

My life is truly blessed. Thankfully, I've never been homeless. However, during a low period I accepted free meals...

“I came to earth on the Mother Ship in 1956….I am the Archangel Gabriel.” He was dead serious. Just then, as if the celestial powers were verifying his story, there was a loud clap of thunder and it started raining. For the first time since my pilgrimage began, I was truly scared.

I knew that many homeless people were mentally ill and unable to afford medication or take good care of themselves. What if my new friend was bi-polar or schizophrenic? A girl friend of mine in high school was killed by her schizophrenic aunt when she was 18 years old. I prayed to God that this madman would not hurt me. We spent a couple of hours going through dumpsters to find soda cans, redeemable for a nickel apiece. From time to time, “Gabe” would smoke partially smoked cigarette butts he picked up from the street, making my empty stomach turn…

I was never ordered to live homeless; it was my idea. My novice director, the Jesuit priest in charge of my formation, had encouraged me to perform a pilgrimage of my choice, provided it was not too dangerous and I had a worthy goal in mind. I decided that living homeless would be a good way to test my trust in God. I felt like I needed to place myself in a situation in which I had no other choice but to trust…

The term “pilgrimage” conjures up visions of throngs of Muslims converging upon Mecca, or a busload of Catholics making their way to Lourdes. The journey I was on was different, although it was no less a spiritual one. I was not forging a path toward a holy place, but rather attempting to find the holy in the journey itself. I was searching for God where I did not know for certain God could be found. But these noble thoughts were not wafting through my mind as the bus sped along the highway. I was scared, plain and simple. I prayed for something in me to change, because I knew I could not spend two weeks curled in the fetal position at the Des Moines Greyhound station…

At around 5 p.m., we finally arrived at a shelter near the Des Moines River, adjacent to some train tracks, and joined a single-file line of mostly middle-aged men. The line moved fairly quickly, and soon the staff was interviewing me as they ruffled through my backpack, looking for any weapons or drugs. I gave them as little information as possible, tempted to pull out the letter from my novice director, but resisting the urge so that I would not receive special treatment. My wish was granted; since all the beds were filled I was left to sleep on the cold linoleum dining room floor in my wet clothes.

If there’s one food item at which Methodist Church-run homeless shelters excel, it’s the casserole. And it truly was casserole heaven in this shelter. Ravenous after a long day with no food, I heaped the cream of mushroom concoction on my plate, grabbed half a dozen cookies and sat down sheepishly by myself. When I finally summoned the courage to look up from my plate at the man who sat down across from me, I noticed a familiar face—one of the part-time residents from the Catholic Worker House! He did not speak English very well, but we smiled at each other and I immediately felt better.

As the lights went out that evening I lay on the cold floor, thankful for small blessings, like the fact that the shelter volunteers had swept and mopped up. But a clean hard floor is just as uncomfortable as a dirty one, and I did not sleep at all that night. As I lay there in my clammy jeans, wedged between two dinner tables, stuck somewhere between consciousness and sleep, I contemplated the fate of the homeless in America. I was looking forward to going back to Chicago in a few days, to a warm bed, daily hot showers, and decent food. None of the men and women whom I had encountered during my brief pilgrimage had that option. Never again would I be complacent about my less fortunate brethren. I began not only to understand, but to feel, both physically and emotionally, their plight. It didn’t matter that I would soon be leaving their world. For now—this night, this hour, this moment—I was one of them.

During my two memorable weeks on the street, I began to understand the depths of hopelessness into which a human being can sink. There were times when, yes, I wanted to get drunk, so that I would not feel so wet and cold, or so that at least I wouldn’t care so much that I was. I had always been wary of giving money to panhandlers because I figured they’d spend it on alcohol, but if someone had handed me spare change or a couple of bucks, I might have blown it at the nearest liquor store myself.

One of the luxuries a non-homeless person can afford is hypocrisy. A stressed-out businessman stops off at the bar on his way home from work and downs a couple of martinis to help “take the edge off.” Yet we condemn the homeless when they feel the need to anesthetize themselves just to make it to the next day. No, it is not a healthy way to proceed and no, it will not help them with their problems. But they certainly are not the only ones in our society who abuse alcohol. Their sin is that they just don’t do it with class.

At 5 a.m. the lights went on in the dining room. The Salvation Army truck had arrived with food and coffee. I quickly got up from the floor, asked for my bag, grabbed some coffee and a day-old danish and hightailed it out of the shelter before Gabe had a chance to find me.

The rest of my pilgrimage was fairly uneventful, and even pleasant at times. I “cheated” once by showing an elderly nun the letter from my novice director so that she would let me into her house for the night in exchange for cutting her grass. She gave me dinner; I never knew tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich could taste so divine. As I sat at her small dining room table, dressed in clean, dry clothes, fresh as a daisy from a nap, I felt as though I were eating at The Four Seasons…

On the bus ride back to Chicago, I reflected upon what I had experienced as a homeless person—or at least a quasi-homeless person. The word that kept coming to me was “demeaning.” Here I was, an educated young white man with no criminal background, who had lived little better than an animal for two weeks. Granted, it was my own decision, but it bothered me that there are not better resources out there for the homeless. A society should care most about those who are unable to take care of themselves.

Since my pilgrimage, I have tried to treat the homeless with the same dignity they afforded me. I now offer them, at the very least, a smile and a handshake, an acknowledgment of their personhood. I have gone into restaurants with a homeless man or woman and bought them a meal. Above all, I’m careful to let them know that while they may have lost a job, a home or their savings, they need not completely lose their dignity.

As a society, we have a long way to go before we can wear the badge of true Christians with honor and honesty. It’s not enough to mouth the words of Christ; we must, like him, walk with the poor, in their shoes, or, if they have no shoes, barefoot on the stones and shards of their hard road. Only then can we begin to give them the most precious gift of all, the gift of compassion. Only then can we begin to truly know God.”

~ A former Jesuit, David Nantais is director of the “Magis” program for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Midwest.