A Place to Lay One's Head

There is a woman residing under a bridge near me.  Not a secluded little cozy bridge either, -- a major intersection with travelers passing by from 8 different lanes and traffic thundering overhead.

She has a shopping cart, a sleeping bag, a blanket, and a cigarette.

And she is often looking away, spouting angrily, or trying to rest on the cement sidewalk with only her sleeping bag as insulator from the cold, hard pavement.

I don't know her.  I don't talk to her.  But I am called to love her.  I am told to help those who can't help themselves (as well as everybody else.)

I wonder if she is the same woman who walked past me a couple weeks ago at the First Christian Church after making sandwiches.  The one who was very animated and loud and spouting angrily and smelled of poo.  She was notable and I was too because we were the only ones in the parking lot other than my husband in our car turning round to take me home.

I have a home.

I have a home and a husband and a fridge and small kitchen that I complain about.

I have a bed and clothes and food and friends and family nearby.

I have vocation and opportunity.  I have struggle and faith.  I have adventure and creative outlets.  And I have a place to lie my aching head.

I don't know what to do for this woman.  

I know the Eugene Mission will take people in when they have room, but they need to be clean and sober, or willing to be off drugs and alcohol while they are there.  And if they're willing to abide by the guidelines, they are given opportunities to work and serve and create and learn, and have a community to support them.  They have a place to lay their head.

Why did Jesus say, "the foxes have rest and the birds their nest, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head"?  

And why would he remain in this vulnerable position, depending on the kindness of strangers, or at least the purses of generous women to support his ministry just like every other not for profit.

(Stock photo; not the woman I am referring to.)

"When you give to the least of these, you do it for me."  I guess he did know what it was like.

"Get out of my sight you goats.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.  I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.  I was naked and did not clothe me."

Okay, what do we really do with that?

These thoughts come to me often as I have unhoused living here in my mild-climate town.  I don't know what to do, and the ideas I do have sometimes backfire, or I get scared about doing it wrong, inviting danger, or not having enough support or follow through.

"Sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, then come and follow me." --Not one of the more common fridge magnets, as my friend Ray Wall would say.  Now granted, that response was to the rich young ruler who needed to be cured of his envy, right?  Not to some middle aged woman struggling to make ends meet with three jobs and no guarenteed insurance sitting on a pile of dreams and longing for friends in her old home town.  Surely not me.

Is it I Lord?

Here am I.

Help.