Holiday in the Street

The years they pass by like a train speeding from station to station an unending blur of color, shape, noise and distortion. The change of the seasons is less noticeable, save a slight cooling of the air in Fall and the dawning of those first warm days of Spring.

And, then there is the holiday season, which feels out of place in Mississippi concerning the void of the aforementioned changes of the season.  From the street, this season looks different. Sure there are people hurrying  along caught up in all the frantic nature of the season, but they always seem to be in a hurry from the viewpoint of the homeless hanging out in the street. There are sparkling lights decorating the downtown areas, but they seem to be for someone else, not them.

Oh, there will be several special dinners served by cheery volunteers for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  However these special dinners are but a respite.  The cheery volunteers leave and go some place else to live their lives having spent a few hours helping out those who they call disenfranchised.  While volunteers leave, the homeless go to their sanctuaries, a sanctum behind a dumpster, a den in the bushes, a metal grate in the alley behind a store where warm air blows from machinery venting exhaust, or an abandoned house empty and void.

If you could go back in time you would see the house as it was; where children once leapt with excitement over beautifully wrapped gifts; where the pungent aroma of hot cider fills the home to every corner.

What fills the home now?

The smoke from a crack pipe is hanging in the room like a strange fog with layers forming what looks like an executioner smiling over his victim, but the man who lives there can’t see anything.   The stench of a dead animal from under the abandoned house rises with the clear smell of death, but he smells nothing.  All the donated clothing he has picked up here and there lays in a heap too filthy to touch. He tried to take a load down to the Opportunity Center to wash, but they were out of detergent.

What’s the use?  Who cares?

A couple of nights before Christmas he heard Christmas songs sung from a church. His mind immediately rushed back in time and suddenly he is there again.  He clearly sees a vision of his home before his life was broken. He remembers the season.  The tree, presents, oh, how life held such promise. He can see his family celebrating the season.  Somehow transposed he sees again through the eyes of that little boy he used to be how Mom made delicious meals, how Dad dressed up like Santa placing a gift in the hands of his son. He remembers the sheer joy of getting that  G.I. Joe action assault vehicle, just like on TV, with all the accessories. He played with that toy until he fell asleep in the floor spent from the activities of the day.

His mind sweeps back to reality and he hears the songs.  The songs sound the same.  Away in a Manger, O’little Town of Bethlehem, Hark!! The Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the New Born King!,  JOY to the World, are so familiar he recalls every word.

His Dad is gone now, he knows not where, and Mom barely exists living in a rest home out in Clinton. She doesn’t know anyone, because disease has stolen her mind. His brothers and sisters will have nothing to do with him. He keeps thinking it is all just as well. He believes he deserves every last bit of the life he has.

Then a powerful thought strikes at his very heart:  What if he ran into that church?  No, they’d reject him, just call the police or even physically throw him outside.  But, oh, how he longs to make that run and soak in that music and feel that love. How would they respond?  He eases up to the wall of the church reverberating with the voices and instruments performing anthems of the season.  They are happy people.  They are well fed.  They are different. He closes his eyes and begins to sing along. He imagines himself there in the pew. In this dream he has a beautiful wife and two lovely little girls.

Reality returns, an unwelcome disruption as the songs are over and the muffled murmurings of the congregation rise in place of song. A wonderful sound of fellowship to most, but a reminder to him to, move along.  He does move along not wanting to disrupt their happy time with the blight of an encounter with him. 

The Christmas people spill out of the church and make their way to their cars or down the block a short walk home. It is 2009. After the wife in the dream died twenty  years ago in a car accident, he lost his job and fell into the mesmerizing influence of drugs.  Social workers came and took those two precious little girls. It is just as well, he thinks,  what sort of father could he have ever been to them?

The others are gone. The church is deserted and a cold light rain begins to fall in the middle of the Mississippi night chasing him back to his abandoned home.

He returns to the house damp and chilled and searches for warmth.  He weeps bitterly. The crack pipe ignites and that old feeling of warmth comes back slowly at first and then in an explosion of splendor. He has escaped the street.  He hasn’t escaped a thing as his executioner smiles drifting in the smoke.

Next Christmas, he thinks clearly for a scant moment amid the executioner’s fog, he’ll go into that church and sing those songs.  He wonders what it would be like if church came to him. 

Would they?  Could they?  Will they?

This story is a fictional story, but I pray it evokes you to consider someone else less fortunate than you this Christmas season.  So many times, what we see from our distant viewpoint is a shadow of the truth concerning someone else’s life condition.  I pray this story communicates that to you.