From my diary:
Thursday 2014-06-19. 13:30. In a recent column, Dan Rodricks mentioned Manna House, which I’d never heard of before. At McD this morning, Roy was talking to somebody and mentioned having been at Manna House last night — “with the critters and the crazies.” I was quite surprised to hear him talk like that, since in my book, he’s “a critter and a crazy.” The people who frequent that place must be really bad off. I would recall [a former therapist, whose principal practice was in addictions]‘s saying, when I asked many years ago about the mentally ill among the homeless, that “they’re so sick they can’t be treated.” Part of my heart reaches out to them; can it be that I might sink so low as to become able to see the world as they see it? What does the Gospel look like to a hopeless schizophrenic?
The reality of my situation and the challenges before me is this: I’ve sunk quite low enough, thank you. I need to attend to how the Gospel looks to me. I have enough work to do myself, and will be enough of a heroic story once I re-enter society’s mainstream, to speak to, having lived through, what most folk regard as life’s toughest situations. I need to accept that there may be people below me who are forever beyond my reach.
Related: Just how bad do you think you’ve got it? Here – Now – Can The crazies and the stupids My first thought
(Originally posted 08/16/14.)
Update, 03/10/23: At this writing, Roy is in my world again. He visits Dunkin’ Donuts every day. He has his own place, and his own job. He hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Thanksgiving night, he came into DD to wash his hands: he’d spent the day dishing out sweet potatoes at some Thanksgiving dinner give-away, and the vapors from the sweet potatoes had made his hands all sticky.
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