The Portland Press Herald had an article on February 18th
that said there is more ice in the harbor than there’s been in 35 years. We’re also about a foot ahead of the
snow total average for the entire season and we have over a month to go before
winter begins to loosen her grip.
This kind of winter makes one even more thankful for the
blessings of a warm house to hunker down in, and also makes one more acutely
aware of the dangers facing those who are homeless. We have had many, many requests for boots, for coats, for
hats and gloves – all the things that it make it possible to be out on a Maine
winter day without risking hypothermia, frostbite or worse. So imagine my surprise last week when I
went to Walmart to fill a cart with winter clothes and discovered instead rack
upon rack of t-shirts and bathing suits.
I’d forgotten that the acute needs of those who so often go without don’t
really affect the seasonal rotation of a large national retailer. Just another example of how different
reality is for those who are living on the margins.
But on the bright side – and there is always a bright side –
the generosity of churches, of individuals, of businesses like the Portland
Gear Hub have allowed us to continue to help with the small things that bring
comfort during the most challenging season of the year.
And even though our street corner cathedral is buried in
snow and ice, we’ve found other places to pray – sometimes in the courtyard
outside the day shelter, and sometimes in the warmth and chaos of the soup
kitchen. There is an extra potency
to these small moments of the sacred when the world outside turns stark and
cold and uninviting. It is these
moments – more than the boots and the gloves and the hats – that make our work
of some value. Holding hands in a
circle with people struggling to survive, while an angry patron whacks the
coffee urn in frustration, and we raise our eyes and our voices up to the
divine in the midst of the sturm und drang of another day on the street – this
is a snapshot moment that, for all its brevity, is nothing
short of miraculous.
So here’s to another season of snow, of ice, of cold and of
the remarkable capacity of the human spirit to rise above the challenges of the
day-to-day and bathe in the pure light of love, in the pure light of God.