Tuesday night a group from Grace stood shoulder to shoulder serving the homeless. To me, there was a sense of unity, of common purpose, of being on the same side of some sort of cosmic pursuit. It was like the boundaries of the kingdom protracted for a time into a previously inaccessible region. The place was electric. There were pockets of people from radically different places breaking through the masks and engaging with each other. I sensed it. The homeless sensed it. They hung around, which they don't often do down there. It is an unsafe and dangerous place. But not for that hour and a half.
The contrasts were striking. I thought of the Pink Floyd song:
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell
Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail
A smile from a vail...
A man with no shoes left with some shoes on his feet.
Another was able to take off of his sore feet the size 8 shoes he was wearing and put on shoe his size (10)
Another had his first dignified conversation he had in a long time.
Another...
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