Day 1– Manna House Journal  (1278 Jefferson, Memphis)

My how the time flies when you’re surrounded by laughter, by the near-deafening sound of Sema-J slamming dominoes on the dining room/break-room/living, breathing room table – a table that could probably write its own journal. How many cups of sugar-saturated/artificial creamer-laden coffee have rested on it between sips from tired, oft-times grimy, weary hands.

How time flies when you realize you’ve cleaned and refilled three 100-cup coffee urns while you listened off and on to Guest Sylvia’s insightful, gentle council on your life and the lives of at least two other guests and hosts – as well as some of her hopes, prayers and dreams.

The gleeful chatter of old and new friends, almost as if 8:00AM couldn’t have come soon enough on this damp, cold Monday morning. Even as I write that – Monday morning – I can only imagine, by contrast to my own life, what Sunday night, and Saturday night, and Friday night must have been like for many of our guests.What must it have been like for them, how unkind the world must have seemed to ration out the hours and minutes of cold, hard seats (that aren’t really seats), filthy underclothes soaked again and again with water in 35º weather? How unfriendly, uncaring, untrusting must the faces have been for our guests to be so appreciative of our slightly nervous, somewhat contrived but sincerely friendly, caring and striving-very-hard-to-be-trusting faces.

It was very evident that these folks appreciated our being there – or at least they did a good job of pretending (who knows, maybe they suffered through us knowing how badly we needed them).It seemed to me, though I could be wrong, that almost every single guest had been there before.They all seemed to know the “routine” so much better than me!

First,after a short time of prayer and preliminary instructions amongst this fresh batch of hosts/servants, the guests, who had been patiently waiting out in the cold, began filing in – that is after “Super Host” Leo, a very thorough, patient, level-headed Korean immigrant, carefully marched his first urn of “hot coffee comin’ through!” out onto the porch.

Let me go back to “patiently waiting out in the cold” for a second. It occurs to me that these guests, at least most of them, spent a lot of time patiently waiting in the cold.This was not new for them.The 10 minutes they had to wait while we prayed, that seemed to me a bit cruel given the weather, was probably nothing to our guests. When you live outdoors, I guess it’s not as big a deal huh?

Once the coffee started flowing, my first minor revelation had to do with just how much powder and how much refined sugar (ouch) could be put into a cup of coffee before it is officially disqualified from being a liquid drink!! My thoughts went to the “half-caf/low-fat/blablah that has to be only just a bit “off” in its exact balance before it gets sent back to the chagrined barista at Star – wehaveconsistentdisposableincome – Buck$.

As the coffee flowed, as hearts and bellies warmed, so did the breathtaking smiles of the guests – and ultimately so did ours.This was a ministry. We were apprehensive and cautious – afraid of screwing up.They disarmed us. Ministry #1.Score: Guests-1, hosts-0.

Then the militaristic and painstaking “list” process began.You had to be on the list! This is important. As newbie hosts, we needed to see, actually see the importance of order in this ongoing godly endeavor.The list was for showers and “hygiene.” Fresh socks (wow, this is an especially poignant and vital ministry) and various items of clothing were meticulously issued to guests who needed them as their names were called off the list.

As the coffee urns went out full and came back empty at a shocking clip, the “phone ministry” of access to free local calls went uninterrupted on the porch. “Hey you jess gon’ hav’ta wait till I git thru!” Yes, there were moments of tension, mere seconds really. And of course the question begs itself; “Just how testy would I be with just onenight out in the cold, let alone a week or a month… or a few years of it.Just how patient would I be with lists and lines and, yes, well-meaning ex-suburbanites like myself who would rush back to well-heated carriages the very second this class was over?

I once spent a night outdoors in the cold. I was backpacking through the south of France (…I know – it’s not as yuppie as it sounds, I had a scholarship to study French) when, in some petite villette, the youth hostile filled up before we could even find the place.My friend and I found a cathedral porch (strangely spiritual concept) and bedded down for a very frightening, cooooold, and almost completely sleepless night.I remember being really frightened.Vulnerability That is a very bad feeling – much colder than the coldest night. That distant memory (I was 19) is the only, only reference point I have for what our guests go through each day, each night.

Once we issued “last call,” which of course took me right back to my formative years in the Austin, 6 ^th Street club scene (only it definitely wasn’t coffee on 6^th Street), our guests reluctantly lumbered out the same door they had so enthusiastically rushed in. The door.

The door of “welcome” is a powerful door. Of all the doors that these precious, battle-fatigued fellow humans would see that Monday, with temperatures hovering around a very damp 30º, this had been a door that welcomed them as humans, as children of God, as equals, as persons with dignity and gifts to bring… as guests. But unfortunately this had been a door, for many reasons and like so many other doors, which not a single guest would be able to lock from the inside.

Posted at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Share This