“Please Don’t Call Me Homeless” (part 2)

[For an introduction to the play Please Don’t Call Me  Homeless…I Don’t Call You Homed, read yesterday’s post, found here.]

“I saw the spirit world.”

That’s what he said, this man who’d spent time living on the streets.

“I saw the spirit world.”

In at least three of the stories told by cast members of Please Don’t Call Me  Homeless–either during the play or after it as they joined us for a Q&A–their courageous journeys off of the streets and into a home included significant spiritual journeys, too.

These voices spoke honestly and openly about brokenness and wholeness, about meeting God on a bus on the way to rehab, about recognizing that they couldn’t make it on their own, about courage and determination combined with humility and confession.

For those with ears to hear, there was much wisdom in these words.

But one voice in particular from that night keeps echoing in my mind, one line that I can’t release my grip on just yet. This voice wanted us to know that we’re all broken in some way or another, that sometimes it is only when we are honest about how broken we are that we can see others for who they are.

“I see broke spirits because I was one.”

That’s what he said, this man who’d spent time living on the streets.

“I see broke spirits because I was one.”

There’s something to this. When we ‘fess up to our brokenness, we see it around us, we see others, and it calls us to love. It calls  us to have ears to hear.

It calls us to community.