I understand the pain of loneliness, loss, and defeat. I know what it’s like when it’s ten against one and you’ve only got enough strength for one more punch, what it’s like to only have one bullet left in the gun and too many targets.
I know doubt and addiction, what just one more drink looks like, where one more minute of looking can take you.
I know what it’s like to be single, to be labeled, and to be a promise breaker.
I know what it’s like to live with scars, and how to hide them.
I know what it’s like to be loved.
I know how it feels to be angry at God.
I struggle with what “unconditionally” means.
And while I don’t understand grace and forgiveness, I know they work and I know it’s a miracle.
On a Monday I see a man in the street. I nearly step on him before noticing him. He is so ragged and dirty, the layer of grime so thick on his skin, the earth and concrete hide him well. He sits cross-legged at the bus stop, a beard overtaking his face, his pants half-way around his waist. In his lap is an aluminum plate I wouldn’t even dare use to serve food to a dog. And when the light turns red at the intersection, this man with a beard and a soul and dirty skin extends his arms out, holding his plate where his hands used to be but only his wrists remain.
He appears unable to speak, but when sound escapes his mouth it’s incomprehensible demands and exasperations — a man already gone mad from the sun and the rain and the sidewalk. He is a man who must face the frustrations of life on his own, and he must face them without the ability to physically hold on.
Has it always been like this?
Is he simply the remnants of a man bruised and beaten, a soldier of war left behind for dead on the streets instead of the battlefield?
I keep wondering how alone he feels. Is there any amount of words or service anyone could do to make that man know he’s not alone? Or is he the exception? Is he the one person on the planet that will forever feel forgotten and believe it?
What am I supposed to do? Buy him food so he can eat it like a dog? I could pretend I didn’t see him, block his face from my mind and get to where I am going. But I can’t take him home either and bathe him, clothe him, and send him back out into the streets a few days later still without hands to protect himself.
No one deserves that. No one deserves to sleep on the sidewalk. No one deserves to have their heart broken. No one deserves to hit bottom. No one deserves to be alone, to be hated, to be labeled, broken, and defeated.
But we are.
Because nobody said this was going to be easy.
But nobody said you had to do it alone either.
I run across the street and purchase a box of donuts, a water, apple juice, and straws. I crack all the lids and when I return to the intersection he is gone. He couldn’t have gotten far, but there is no sign he was ever even there to begin with. My heart sinks for a man I did not know and may never meet again.
And part of me hopes to never meet him again so I can pretend to forget him. So I can get comfortable in my new home and have no trouble at all forgetting the things I’ve seen.
I wake up every day trying to remember to forget. I want ignorance and bliss and curtains and coffee mugs to keep me content.
I don’t want to know how bad it really is out there. I don’t want to leave the safety of my computer ever again.
But I will.
Because I have seen faith in a faithless world. I have seen the Kingdom of Heaven on the streets. And I have felt God in the sunsets, in the waves of the Pacific, and in the mammoth giants of the Redwood Forest. I have felt Him in my heart.
I don’t know you and I have probably never met you and I’m a thousand miles away, but when you wake up in the morning you can rest assured you’re not alone. That maybe, just maybe, someone out there knows how you feel.
God is out there, outside of your world, and he is waiting for you to seek him, notice him, experience him. He is waiting to romance your heart.
You just read the story of my life as a single man in Los Angeles and on the road, homeless and trying to make it as writer who set out across the country to find his faith.
It is a story about what it’s like to live with your eyes open.
Consider it your new pornography.
Special Acknowledgements
The strangers who carefully read these unedited words in their original publication and still invited me into their homes, gave me a place to rest my head, and fed me during my travels, thank you. As well, my gratitude is forever extended to Dave and Teresa Greider, The Morrison Family, Bob and Cheryl Cole, Josh and Amy Lind, Alison and Scott Little, Nick Edwards, Sarah Spur, Bob and Ginny Claggett, Matthew Carpenter, Haley Cloyd, Brett Turner, Mike Sares and Scum of the Earth Church, Sally Dubinsky, Ian Philpot, Rob and Kelly Summers, The Kerouac Family, and the folks of Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa. I’d also like to thank the individual who repeatedly sent anonymous letters with cold, hard cash to my PO Box while I was homeless, and the young woman who baked and mailed me cookies with stegasaurus sprinkles.
All of your kindness helped strengthen my faith when I was at my weakest.
About the Author
I don’t own a gun, but that’s okay because I’m pretty good with this keyboard. I believe in bigfoot, grace, the giant squid, and god. Not necessarily in that order.
I am on twitter: @maxdubinsky. Say hello.
My writing can also be found here:
iamyourneighbor.com
and here: maxandrewdubinsky.tumblr.com
An Anthology of Madness Page 7
