How to Define Success

Every single child in this program is also in school. We offer tutoring, learning how to work together and live life together. I’m interested in the picture as a whole.

So where these kids are at when they graduate? I don’t know exactly.

I know there was a point when I was giving a tour of the sanctuary, and there was a woman who came in with her kid. And she was listening to what I was saying about the place and what was happening, and I didn’t even know this woman. She was about twenty-three, twenty-four years old, had a kid. And she raises her hand and says, “ I don’t even know who this guy is, and he’s a part of Central City, and I’ve messed up with my life and had a kid when I didn’t want to, but this is the best place a child can come.”

Now if you want to define success by getting a college degree and all that, we have kids who will have that, we have kids who’ve gone to college. But these kids are living lives. It’s a place that works because they will become who they need to be. And that's very different from where they started.

CV

Under Construction

This past week I worked with some guys who live on the streets. One was a construction worker and the other two were painters. We had an awesome time together. They did work that most professionals would be proud of. And these are guys who have been in the military and prison.

So why are they living on the street? Well, mostly because they have "things" at this time. Filling out forms and papers for this and that is all well, but then you have to wait for them to be processed, so there you are, still on the street.

Too many people sleeping on the street have talents that go unnoticed. There are so many testimonies that are never heard. WHY?

AJG

Untouchables

So I visited Central City Community Church last week. It's a building right in the heart of Skid Row. Most of its members are former drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless and other "untouchables" of society. Some still are.

In the middle of a hymn, a man with no shirt on who was obviously high on something walks in. One of the church members proceeds to try and stop him, telling him to go back out. Not too unusual - if that happened at any other church, the ushers would do the same thing. It happened with a homeless guy at my church. Heaven forbid we should disrupt the service or distract any of the members.

However, the pastor, who was playing percussion with the worship band, leaves the stage, walks to the man, takes his hand and leads him to a seat in the congregation.

That single act said more about that church than a thousand sermons or doctrinal statements could. It was a message that the love of God knows no boundaries, and that no one is beyond His grace.

It was a church made up of and made for the broken, the poor, the outcasts, the sinners. A light in one of the darkest and poorest communities in the nation, it was one of the richest churches I've ever seen.

SM

Crazy Larry

My favorite homeless person’s name is Crazy Larry. I am not sure that is his real name but it is how my coworkers and I affectionately come to refer to him by. Crazy Larry is African-American, shorter than me and seldom wears a shirt. He pushes around a shopping cart that he sometimes perches himself upon it in a way reminiscent of a yoga pose. Sometimes he mumbles to himself and or makes kissy noises to no one in particular. I have only heard Crazy Larry speak coherently once in the years I have known him.

For a long time, Crazy Larry lived right outside the sliding glass doors on Sixth Street. For awhile he disappeared in a way that reminded me of my cat running away when I was a little girl. Crazy Larry, like my cat, returned and I wanted so much to know where he had been but knew, like with my cat I would never knew where he had been. A day doesn’t pass that I don’t look for Crazy Larry. Usually I see him somewhere between CCCO’s front door and the lot I park my car in. On the occasions I do see him, I make a point to look him in the eyes and say hello. He nods back in way that reassures me he knows me. On the days I don’t see him, I wonder if I will ever see him again.

There is something tender and endearing about Crazy Larry and most times I see him it is all I can do to not give him a bear hug. I know he is a deeply troubled soul, the product of his own demons but our lives have intersected in a way and in a place that is as absurd as it is healing and it is for this reason he is etched in my soul. Intellectually, I recognize Crazy Larry probably needs more mental health care than our broken system affords him, but he endures despite it. But emotionally, I hope for Crazy Larry that somehow the world becomes a better place for him despite the frail capacities of well-meaning do gooders, like me perhaps, in our fragile community.

JH