In my mid-40s, I decided I needed to understand myself better. I made an appointment with a psychiatrist and spent the next six months talking with a very skilled and sensitive professional person. Under her care I faced some of my peculiar personality traits; some helpful, some not. Out of the experience I made significant decisions about my life and, hopefully, have became a better person.

Key to my make-up is my abhorrence of seeing anyone being treated unfairly. Seeing an abused child still brings tears of empathy to my eyes for the victim. It also brings rage in my heart toward the offender. Unfair or unjust treatment of anyone becomes a call for action and justice. My psychiatrist probed my feelings and analyzed my dreams. She came to the conclusion that as a small child, I had been punished for something I did not do. Out of that experience I became outwardly stoic with resolve that no one could hurt me. Inwardly, the pain was excruciating. This unresolved incident became an emotional core upon which I had built my life.

Sharing my experience is necessarily brief and probably simplistic. However, it is a good summary. I am filled with compassion, but I am also at times overwhelmed with anger. I want to thwart the perpetrators of injustice and hurt. I suspect that my own experience is a parable of life. My story is an “every person” story that is repeated over and over and over. The result is that we all are a terrifying combination of compassion and anger. We all have impressive capacities for loving and caring. We all have capacities for judging and hurting.

At the present time I am a participant in the local housing coalition. The coalition has a responsibility to assess the housing needs of our community, especially for our residents with special needs. Homeless people are of special interest. We have spent considerable time looking at our homeless population. To our collective horror, we have concluded that the largest identifiable group of homeless residents in our area is teenagers. Many are school dropouts, but even more are struggling to remain students and are in regular attendance at one of our area’s nine high schools. Homeless teenagers attend every one of our high schools. Large concentrations are found in our “alternative” schools.

By definition, being a homeless teenager means the person has no permanent address and does not live with a responsible adult. There are several hundred young people who fit this description and attend our schools. Actual living circumstances vary greatly, but many are “surfers,” who move around from friend to friend.  

My first reaction is compassion. Due to little or no fault of their own, these young people are homeless. I want to take every one of them home with me. They have been hurt enough. They all need a warm bed in a loving household. They need to be fed good, healthy food. They all need the security of a place to call home.

The others involved in the housing coalition are also compassionate. How will we define, assess and quantify the housing needs of homeless teenagers? How will we facilitate meeting the housing needs of young people?

My second reaction is anger. I instinctively want to assign responsibility for what has happened. In many cases criminal neglect is involved. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, drugs and alcohol are often a part of the background. Should not the police and the legal system be called in? Should not society demand accountability? The problem is that finding someone to blame has not produced a housing solution for even one homeless teenager.

I identify myself as a Christian, an ardent follower of Jesus from Nazareth. It is usually a comfortable identification. This Jesus, who is my constant companion, affirms my instincts for compassion over and over again. He is supportive of every good deed I do. Every time I do an act of kindness, he blesses me and asks me to do more. I enjoy his presence and am empowered by his friendship.

There is another side to the relationship. I struggle with some unconverted parts of my life. It is still surprisingly easy to fall back into the judging, condemning, penalizing mode. Each time I do, I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I know it is my Jesus. I know the message. I am to get out of the judging, condemning, penalizing business and get back to the task of doing acts of kindness.

For my lapses (and they are frequent) I have no defense and no excuse. I can only appeal to the grace of God. The abundance of grace that I have found through my friend Jesus is the single greatest factor in keeping me in the fold of the devout. Without the grace of God, my heart and soul would die. In the words of the hymn:

“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.

Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.”

But if grace is so necessary for me, is it not just as important for the irresponsible parent of a homeless teenager?

In the meantime, we need to find a way to put a roof over the heads of a whole bunch of homeless teenagers.

           

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.