Detroit

So being a young adult in Michigan, I often hear people talking about Detroit. Usually it is negative, or negative disguised as caring. Don't get me wrong, Detroit is in dire straights in many ways. But as we all ought to know, and ought to actually believe: Hope is strongest when things are darkest.

This past Friday we had the opportunity to visit the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit. We also sat in on an open AA meeting held before lunch. The participants shared stories of their journeys. AA is for addictions of all sorts, but as we listened to the stories, we found that addiction was last in a line of pain and suffering. It is usually just one of many hardships people have faced. In their stories I heard things that I can not imagine experiencing. Abuse starting in childhood, living in crack houses, firebombs, living on the street, ambushes, rape, ect... One of these things is bad enough to ruin a life, and we heard stories from people who had experienced all of it. Ed talked to us about how addiction feeds the hurt that people have experienced. It increases isolation, desperation, despair, and violence.

These people were very broken. But they had learned to love each other and support each other. Some of them were homeless, some were living in government housing or group homes. They talked very simply, practically and movingly of how God and scripture helped them in their lives. Turning the other cheek takes on a whole new meaning when violence is the norm. One women told the story of when she was beaten with a brick by another woman who wrongfully thought she was out to get her. This woman was carrying, and also had multiple knives, but did not retaliate, allowing herself to be beaten. Instead she went to the woman's mother and negotiated peace.

As the meeting was wrapping up, a woman entered the room late. She began telling a story with very little introduction that had happened a few days before. She had a friend who was released from jail after 20+ years... sentenced for killing his wife in a crack induced rage. This man was torn with remorse for what he had done. He was fearful that his rage would resurface and after a fight with his girlfriend, decided to commit suicide. This woman had supported him and told him not to do it.

She ended up arriving at his door (knowing somehow something was wrong) as he began to convulse from ODing on pills. She did CPR and stayed at his side praying with him as he died. She was with us now, telling us this story and crying. Wondering if she had done something wrong. She then told us she was not crying because he was dead, but because she feared for his soul. She could not bear the fact that he might be in hell. She loved him as a brother. She was comforted and prayed over by her friends, brother Ed, one of the sisters there and a friar. Ed told us later that God was so merciful; He sent her to the deathbed of this man, and then later the group to her. To comfort her with their trust in the providence and mercy of God for their dead brother.

This reminds me of a psalm we hear all the time: Psalm 34. Depending on the translation, we usually hear the refrain as: "The Lord hears the cry of the poor." He literally does hear their cries. There are so many people we have served this summer who have simple, uneducated, deep, astounding faith in God. They are poor, so they know what it means to rely on God.

Clearly from these stories we know that poverty is not glamorous, it is terrible and crushes the spirit. However, I have experienced how deeply God cares for the poor and otherwise downtrodden in this summer, over and over. This is why at the final judgement, scripture says (Mt. 25: 31-46) God will ask us if we fed the hungry, welcomed strangers, clothed the naked, cared for the sick and visited the imprisoned. This is where His heart lies. It is in this that we can love Him.

-Sarah