The Bleeding Heart

Service can feel so limiting, because it challenges you to realize that you can’t be everything for a person, or absorb someone else’s pain.  Essentially, it’s learning that you cannot be God, and what can be offered is companionship.

My heart bleeds with these men I work with.  They suffer so much, and the reality of my job is that there’s not a lot I can do to tangibly fix anything.  The best I can do is to be a constant, steady presence, and experience the hardships of life along their side.

One of the men on my case load, Tom*, recently lost his girlfriend of 12 years.  She had a stroke two weeks ago, and then a second last week which over took her.  When Tom told me she died I felt too young and stupid to know what to say.   I felt way too inexperienced in life and relationships to offer anything to him.  I actually hastily googled “how to accompany people grieving a significant other” and now ask him, “how are you doing today?” because the semantics of that sentience verses “how are you?” is supposed to be less triggering.  It still feels wildly inadequate.  My tools are undeniably limited, and all I feel capable of doing is showing up, making a few phone calls during the week to check in with him, and fussing over him when appropriate. 

I love my dudes, and something I’ve realized and adopted this year is fussing over them, because it’s a simple way to acknowledge their humanity.  Some of my guys don’t have many strong and reliable relationships in their day to day life, and I think that fussing over a person’s haircut or their new shirt can really go a long way.  It sounds kind of stupid, but I think it provides them with a level of validation that we crave as humans.  We crave to be accepted and noticed.

As I wrap up my time at Our Brothers’ Place next week, I keep returning to this image of a bleeding heart that looks like it’s had the shit beat out of it.  And it's not this bullshit commercialized heart:  it's got a ton of arteries and veins leading in and out of it.  It’s not my heart, but more of a metaphor for the hearts of the marginalized and those who walk with them.  The blood of our suffering unites us, and is pumped through our bodies:  we all bleed.   I will continue to carry these men in my heart, which bleeds with them as they continue on in their lives.  I will most certainly miss them.

*Name has been changed

3rd Rock From the Sun

The concept of time this past year or so has been so funky.  It's hard for me to describe how I'm perceiving it:  is it moving quickly, or slowly?  I've been a JV for 21 months, and something about that cracks me up, because I have no idea how this time fits me. 

One question I've been asking myself for awhile is, "What am I still doing here?" 

So much of this year has been gritty and hard, and not in the ways I had necessarily hoped.  I don't think I can pinpoint what's been challenging me on such a deeply spiritual level while in Philadelphia, but something I continue to return to is the earth.

The first time I realized how much I missed nature was at the AY retreat in Texas, and it was there that I proclaimed, "that's it!  I'm moving back to Minneapolis!"  And this has continued to be a struggle this year.  Philadelphia is a lot of lovely things:  historical, community oriented, and filled with social justice advocacy groups.  This winter was also overwhelmingly gray and dark for me. 

At silent retreat two weeks ago I spent some time walking through the woods the day we left, and as I meditatively walked beneath trees I felt like I was saying goodbye to the surface of the earth.  I know, dramatic. 

But it's soil.  I need soil to feel connected to the earth and to reflect, and pray.  Some of my fondest memories last year of community involved the four of us outside in our yard not talking and doing separate things:  weeding, reading, chopping wood.  Soil is surprisingly challenging to find in Philadelphia, but we do have it, and I need to make better use of it.

Soil sustains life, and also sustains me.  The world we live in is broken, and that brokenness can be exasperating and overwhelming.  The life that nature provides me with is this:  the world is still a beautiful place, and although parts of it may seem shattered there are still undeniably beautiful patches of it waiting to be witnessed.      

Aubrey Hightower and the Parameters of Reality

So, just for fun I've developed this silly alter ego within community and work:  Aubrey Hightower.  I have a man on my case load DJ* who I have been working with for 5 months.  He still struggles to remember my name and experiences delusions regarding drug charges from 1990. 

DJ calls me Ms. Hightower.  DJ is usually in a rush to attend a group for a free meal or some tokens, so when I run into him on my way into work he will hastily update me on the progress of his legal case.  One day as I was shuffling along the icy sidewalk to buzz the door, DJ saw me and said, "Ms. Hightower, I have great news, I am appealing to the US Supreme Court!"

One thing I've started to incorporate into my work the past year is the concept of entering other people's realities.  I have met many homeless men (and one particular woman who wears black bourrés) who have been so negligent with their medication that they are living on a completely different plane of reality.  As a result they usually have no one to talk to and bare the brunt of shelter bullying.  So I keep a closer eye on them, because I love the underdog.  And if I have the availability during my day I will spend hours talking to them (I'm looking at you, HL who talks to the coffee pot and jams with his radio off). 

I am not necessarily "job ready" when it comes to identifying mental illness, and thankfully that's not my job.  My job revolves around the power of suggestion and goal setting:  I build a lot of little bridges for men to walk across to enter stability.  Building these bridges is easiest when working within or at least having a desire to understand an individual's reality.  Aubrey Hightower enters people's realities and will go to the "crazy" place with people, because it's a solid foundation for relationship building, which is what I enjoy the most about my job. 

I met with DJ last week to review his housing plan....and legal battles.  DJ continues to put off having his psychiatric evaluation completed for his housing application.  I wouldn't say I'm a patient person, but for some reason I'm able to find a deep well of patience when it comes to the mentally ill especially when they're afraid of the stigma accompanying their diagnosis.  And I am comfortable with the long time this will most likely take.  I'm comfortable knowing I will most likely not see DJ get housed because I'll be onto a new job, and I'm learning to exist within the parameters of my own reality. 

I had this bizarre dream where I was at work and one of the older men who is on dialysis had a cut on his head.  I grabbed our first aid kit and put on some gloves and pulled out a couple of Band-Aids, and I was shocked to see that the Band-Aids were actually the rough, gritty part of Velcro.  I turned to my boss and said, "This is ridiculous, you really want me to put this on the cut," and  was told, "Audrey, you need to learn to work within the parameters of your reality."

So this is where I have been the past few months:  sorting out what the parameters of my reality are while maintaining a sense of how messy the structures I work within are and determining how to sustain an appropriate and livable amount of tension between the two.

*Name has been changed