Wisdom From "Senior" - A Man Living Under a Bridge for 2 Years

I met "Senior" when I was passing out cheeseburgers during Lent in San Antonio. My friend, Sam and I, fasted during lent then took the money we would have spent and bought as many McDonald's cheeseburgers we could each Friday in Lent. After a few weeks of doing this we got to know a couple of the people who lived downtown San Antonio. One of those men went by the nickname, "Senior" because he had lived there the longest. Apparently, it is a less a name and more a rotating title so that when the one "Senior" died or moved on there was a new "Senior". 

I cannot recall the birth name of this current incarnation of Senior but I do recall his out of control mustache. It was roughly a collection of fifteen thin hairs all caked together and more or less pushed to one side of his top lip. He joked and called it his "comb over". It was the oddest facial hair I have ever seen. 

Senior shared a lot of stories that I don't recall and frankly only understood about 1/4 of what he said. Truthfully, it was not so much how he spoke that was the main problem but of my anxiety to "move on" to the get the burgers to the next person. I regret that I was not present to where I needed to be. A lesson that I still am trying to learn.

One thing that Senior told Sam and I that impressed upon us both was that there is a difference in being homeless and being houseless. Senior said that he had been houseless for about fifteen years, but never homeless. He knew some people who were homeless, but most of his friends were only houseless. 

It is one perspective of one man that may not be affirmed by anyone else, but it seems to me there is a bit of wisdom in Senior's words. 

While I have not passed out cheeseburgers recently, it remains clear to me that people need houses. On the flip side, there are a good number of people who have a house but are homeless. May we have the courage to address both these conditions and the humility to not see them as one in the same.

Stop Expecting Elected Officials to Lead

We talk about the office of the President as a position that leads the American people. And then, every four years we are disenchanted with the leadership provided. We talk about blowing up the whole thing and throw the bums out. We say we want leaders in the offices we elect people into, but it is worth remembering that in a democracy, elected officials are not leaders in the way we might think, and they never have been. 

The reality is that elected officials are not leaders because they cannot be. That is not what an elected official is elected to do. Leadership and elected office are related but only loosely. Perhaps the words of the late great Mitch Hedburg are helpful here:

When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?" 

Cooking and farming are related only in that they both work with food, but these jobs require a different skill set.

So if elected officials are not leaders, what are they? Fine tuned followers.

They follow the wills of their constituents. They can only get into office if they do just that. There is a reason that a prophet (a leader) is not elected to be Ruler of the Land. So do not forget that any elected official is not leading but reflecting back a large group of people. You can hate the elected official if you want to, but do not forget that they are only a proxy for a much larger group. Are we willing to hate large groups of people represented by an elected official?

If we are looking to the elected officials to be leaders, I might suggest we look elsewhere.

The Greatest Wisdom From the Desert Christians - In One Line

I was sitting in my office the other day reading and trying to discover what the heck God would have for me to say on a Sunday morning, when a church member walked in and offered me a homemade blueberry scone. I accepted the gift, but stated I consumed a large breakfast about fifteen minutes just before. The young woman's face turned a bit downward as she realized that I was not planning on enjoying her gift. 

As she left I turned back to my reading material (The Wisdom of the Desert by James O. Hannay) and read: "So far as the advice of the greatest Fathers can be said to form a rule, it may be expressed in the words -- "Do not eat to satiety."

Simple meals allow us to receive hospitality from others.

This is one of the few times that I sort of understood what the heck the desert mothers/fathers were talking about: Eating to your fill is unhealthy, but not because of the calories but because it denies hospitality. 

In not eating the scone, because I was full, I denied the hospitality of the young woman. I was not able to, because my stomach was full, to accept any more from another.

Clergy have been told that self care is important because you can only give what you yourself have. If you are empty, then you have nothing to give. 

This truth also holds not just if we are empty but also if we are too full. When we eat (or live) to satiety, then we are too full to accept anything else. This is an old truth but one that I often forget. 

Do not eat/live to satiety - you never know when Christ calls you to accept a new thing.