A Psalm for Unhoused Neighbors

“Dorothy Day with Homeless Christ,” Kelly Latimore (2015)

My hope lies with you, O God of the Lowly, proclaimer of Good News to the poor.

I read the news today. It’s always the same. I want to know, and I wish I didn’t know. How calloused are the hands of this nation. How much tenderness they hold in palms that are no longer tender. How does someone “take over” a space when there is nowhere to go? How does someone “take over” a space when so many eyes are averted from seeing their existence? Do your people not know that one who is invisible cannot also occupy space? Yet, for whom are the spikes installed underneath the only shelter found from the rain, and the heat?

O God, in your mercy, I am sorry to the man who asked me for money in Austin when I was in my early 20’s, to whom I said “no” because I thought he would spend it on booze. There was so much I didn’t know, and my ignorance prevailed at the expense of his dignity. I wish I could tell him now that I don’t care what he buys with the money someone puts in his hand. Were I only to know that I had no place to judge the little comfort he might have found with such a small sum. I lament that I wouldn’t even look him in the eyes when I denied him the human decency he deserved.

To the man who used to sleep in a tent by the apartment where I lived in my mid-twenties, who was always kind to my dog when we walked by on the short walk from my temperature-controlled home, God I pray he finally heard back from the VA. I hope that the time he spent serving this very country led to the minimum effort being done to ensure he had a roof over his head.

Lord, amid the militarized response to desperate circumstances, in the capital city of a nation built on hoarded wealth and exploitative labor, I think of the woman who lived on the streets of Washington, DC. Before a room of youth, she admitted the moment that she realized she hadn’t been touched in a year. My skin, rich and soft from the touch of my own privileged life, wept for her that day. You wept with her, too. I pray someone is holding her now, soothing her hair, and cradling the weight of the world she was never meant to carry. 

God, you know, as someone who left a piece of my heart in Denton, where I spent so many of my early adult years, I have hurt these past few days. It pains me that the downtown square, a place which holds some of my dearest memories, is stained with blood that cries out to you from the ground. So little has been released about this man, your child, but I know that his name was Jon. I know that the day was young, and despite aching bones, in his reaching for a sippy cup he received five bullets. I do not know the circumstances, nor do I need to know them in order to lament that Jon should still be alive.

For the life of Jon Ruff, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

When, O God, will the abundance of your mercy spill forth from those whose hands are too heavy from the chains of locked doors, the spoilage of abundant food, and the epidemic of hatred? You are the balm which soothes the wounds of loneliness and the ache of indifference. Guide us in your strength, that we may not abandon our responsibility to care for your people and soften the hearts of those who build walls instead of tables, so that all may be filled with your mercy.

Amen.