Reflections of Self: Solidarity with the Homeless

"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away."

Isaiah 64:6

The bus, brimming with body odor and plastic bags containing the various possessions of the homeless, lurched to a stop in front of a shelter. An old, ugly homeless woman sat sprawled out on a curb. Her dirty, straggly hair was matted in every direction. Her weathered face, leathery and wrinkled produced visible creases through the caked layers of makeup. Toothless, she gummed down a sloppy pile of backed beans from a styrofoam plate.

An old, ratty homeless man who sat behind me noticed the woman too. He croaked deeply dehumanizing sexual remarks. My mind processed his crude comments several times before their meaning stung my senses. His sinister language candidly disclosed his evil mind. He spoke with a sincerity that broke my heart.

And yet, are we to believe this man different from the rest of humanity? Am I to think of myself as one with a superior heart? I live within a world that packages evil with glamour and allure so that it is polished and palatable.

The bus, cloistered with leather briefcases and Blackberries, hisses to a stop in front of Star Bucks. A young, beautiful woman sits elegantly on a park bench. Her skirt hugs her upper thighs, as her silky legs shimmer in the sun’s light. She sips her venti-no-water-soy chai. Make-up accentuates her natural beauty and a plunging neck-line gently reveals her vitality.

A well-groomed twenty-something man dressed in business casual glances up from his Forbes magazine. He smiles and submits a tasteful innuendo to inform his colleague that he is fond of her beauty. The colleague agrees and the two discuss the hope that there will be several women at the bar tonight that look as sexually desirable as the Star Bucks chick.

Evil looks good. Dehumanization is sunny.

Behind the well-manicured edifice, a simple evil turns the cogs of society’s depravity. We play by its rules to satisfy our devouring desires. We masquerade in fine regalia and speak with lofty speech in order to consume pleasure and satisfaction from those we can exploit; we work to accumulate superiority and power over those we can rule. These are the rules by which the homeless man lives. These are the rules by which the middle class man lives.

Without society's acknowledgment, the homeless are free from any social agents that might dictate behavior. The homeless man is neither seen by society nor can he see any hope in society. So, he lives with unbridled desire; speaking and acting in raw carnality. In light of neglect, he no longer abides in any form of a social contract. Those who live without a social identity, or at the very least a promise of social identity, know the true nature of a self: ugly and evil.

I see in myself the same destructive carnality that reigns over the homeless. He and I are no different, but I live within an environment that affords option and potential. I have options for a better sex partner. My own future potential deters me from indulging in any or every woman that would permit me to do so. I care what others think of me. It is my hope for something better that holds back self-destructive desires. I understand delayed-gratification. In other words, I know how to patiently manipulate under the operation of social constraints to gratify desire.

My carnality is wild, but my behavior is curbed by fear and pride. Everyone functions under these two powers. We cannot be found out; we must be accepted and so we are subject to the fear of rejection from those whom we desperately long for praise. We also decide what groups of those in society we will not be like. We are culturally imperialistic by default. We find those who we can measure to be inferior to us and then live to maintain our superiority. Most times we measure our superiority by things we can do well and by our own individuality. Such as: our music tastes, the part of the country in which we live, our religious views, our social concerns, the car we would never drive, the store from where we would never shop. Alas, we find ourselves battling an addiction no different from the drugs that are killing the homeless.

Innate depravity and spiritual poverty are realities that cannot be ignored by the disenfranchised. In the places of the city soaked in bloodshed, gripped with addiction, scarred by rape, saturated in exploitation and violence, the belief that man is good will invariably die. It takes the ignorance of privilege to believe otherwise.

I am the homeless man.

Reflections of Self: Despair in the Homeless

"The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, ect. is bound to be noticed."

-Soren Kierkegaard

Each person has a self; that is, each person must build an identity in something. Kierkegaard states that "self-awareness" is the difference between man and animal. A man must find purpose, significance and meaning to his life; essentially, he must justify his own existence. This justification must come through an identity bestowed from an outside voice. A homeless person, no matter how hard he tries, cannot believe himself to be of value and purpose in a world that is constantly beating him down through neglect.

A gang member, who I met in an impoverished city park, told me that the homeless were already dead but still breathing. The person who builds his self in society is no different: dead but still breathing. In the midst of society's current, a person is consumed by the need to build and maintain an existence that will reap acceptance, wealth, love, accomplishment, ect. The self built in the temporal cannot last an eternity. Society turns its head from those who sit and beg, refusing to allow an identity to be gratified by its glance .

After losing his wife, his family, his job, his money, and his place in society, the homeless man quickly discovers he has lost himself. His self did not erode away as his family and society banished him to an existence of nothingness in the streets; his self quietly and subtly passed off in the world unnoticed long ago. Any time one feels a sense of one's own spiritual poverty, he covers it with pleasure or praise. However, he who now has nothing is painfully aware that he has always been nothing. Despair floods the individual who grapples with this reality: an existence of a self or an identity constructed apart from God is death.

The inexplicable joy and exorbitant hope possessed by many homeless overthrow the suburban ethos. Those who have are the ones who are to be satisfied, full, and even- blessed, not those who have not.

"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh."

Herein the complexities of Jesus' words lie chilling truth: those who have not are able to despair in a way that those who have cannot. The poor are forced to seek an identity in God because society will not allow citizenship in man's kingdom. A homeless person intimately knows his own spiritual poverty; he believes himself to be nothing and weak- and unworthy of favor. Thus, the poor are enabled to drink more deeply from the riches of Christ's saving blood. But, those who have will innately be inclined to cover any weakness, need, or poverty to retain a social identity.

Blessed are those who society keeps weak and vulnerable, for the kingdom of God is real to those who believe they need it.