middle of the night

Last night we awoke at 3am to an odd loud rumbling. At first I couldn't tell if it was an appliance groaning, an animal, or a person. Soon its human source became clear as he got louder and louder. Singing incomprehensible sounds, yelling 'ow,' swearing...

We walked around the house listening out the windows. Every thing sounds very loud from the second floor. We thought the sound was coming from a neighbor's home, we waited for someone would calm down their drunken buddy or husband or that this person to pass out and become quite. 20 minutes later the rant was even louder and more incomprehensible so called the police.

They arrived and found a man in the small yard of my yoga studio. There was a syringe and vomit around him and he was digging in the dirt that has been exposed by the studio remodeling. We listened from the second story window as the police quieted him down, questioned him, cleaned up after him, and finally shooed him off down the street.

As he stumbled away I could feel my heart breaking. I thought "he is someone's son." He has a mother, a father and he is lost. I had fear for my own sons and I prayed for the strength to keep raising them well.

I thought of the song our chorus sang at church on Sunday morning "would you harbor me?" How do we harbor those in such pain that they wander into random yards to shoot up? What do we do with lost people? Shooing him off down the street left me feeling empty. What harbor could I offer? I offered none.

At Burning Man a drunken, mildly hallucinating Dubliner stumbled into Kidsville one night. One of the kids ran up to the group of women I was sitting with and said "There is a man trying to get into our RV." The three of us walked over, found him, and started talking to him calmly. He had flown into Reno the day before, had come out to the playa about 24 hours earlier and had had nothing but alcohol since, no food, no water, in the 105 degree daytime heat. He kept looking at each RV saying: "I know that my camp is right here, somewhere." He too was lost and confused. We harbored him for a while, we fed him, we gave him water, warmer clothing for the cool evening air, and a light stick to guide his way; we talked to him and calmed from his stories and his frights, for he thought he had been drugged and molested. Once he was calm, we walked him to the medic tent and left him where we knew he would be physically cared for and someone would be able to help him find his camp, his home.

But here, in the safety of my own home, my own community, I don't trust to walk out and harbor the drunk or the stoned. Instead I called the police at 3:30 am and asked them to intervene and protect me from the mad and the stranger. In Corvallis I carry fear that stops me from harboring the injured, the fugitive, the slave. I have learned to fear my neighbor, even in this small idyllic town. And for this my heart breaks again. I was relieved that he was not literally my neighbor but an outsider from 'the other side of town.' I don't want to fear those close to me.

And I know that I don't want to fear anyone, we are all equally human, equally divine. My fear exposes more spiritual work for me to do. Maybe it is time for a street retreat so that I can look into the faces of the junkies, the drunks, the fugitives and slaves, and see myself reflected back.

Sung by the UUFC Chorus on Sunday Oct 16,
now playing in my head:

Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew,
a heretic, convict or spy?
Would you harbor a run away woman, or child,
a poet, a prophet, a king?
Would you harbor an exile, or a refugee,
a person living with AIDS?
Would you harbor a Tubman, a Garrett, A Truth
a fugitive or a slave?
Would you harbor a Haitian Korean or Czech,
a lesbian or a gay?

from "Would you harbor me?" by Y.M. Barnwell (c)1994)