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CIRCLE OF HOPE
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We began our first week back in Corvallis doing an early morning walk
through downtown and along the riverfront. We passed a storefront drop
in center that serves people on the margins with mental health, drug
and other issues. Signs offer a needle-exchange program and HIV testing
with immediate reports. The door was closed at 6:45 in the morning, but
I've been inside to see a pool table, TV, lounge chairs and magazines.
Darlene, who runs the place, says that people with no place else to go
come in, hang out, get some friendship and occasional help. It is one
of those places serving people who haven't been served by other
better-established agencies. |
| Anyway, it was closed when we walked by. |
| We
dropped into McDonald’s where seniors can buy a cup of Seattle’s Best
coffee for 50 cents. We were waiting for our order along side another
customer. As I sometimes do in such waiting situations, I made a
comment about one of the servers. I've had many a friendly conversation
while waiting in lines. |
| In this case, the man responded by shouting, "Stop harassing me! Don't talk to me!” Do I need to tell you that I immediately backed off, saying, “Sorry?” He fired right back, "I said, don't talk to me!” |
| I
withdrew from that scene, having received the message that the man
didn't want anyone to talk to him. I stopped looking at him. Jean and I
sat down to enjoy our coffee, leaving the management to deal with this
man. |
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had previous experience with him and asked him to leave the premises.
There was a lengthy loud dialogue between the manager and the man. She
stood right up to him. He seemed willing to let her talk back to him.
Eventually, the man went mumbling out the door, mounted his bicycle,
and rode away. |
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manager came to our table and apologized and offered to pay our bill
for the disturbance. Since I was the one who apparently touched him
off, I refused her kind offer. We talked a bit about the man's problem.
It's hard to tell whether it was a paranoid episode of some sort,
whether he was on some kind of drugs or off his prescribed drugs. She
didn't think there was much hope for him. |
| Soon
the police arrived. We didn't hear what they talked about. The officer
soon left. I learned later that they had arrested the man who was
calling the police station to enter a complaint about being harassed at
McDonald’s. |
| I
wondered what they charged him with. No matter what It was, he was
clearly in need of some kind of medical treatment. Our society finds it
easier to treat the mentally troubled as criminals. There has been an
increasing trend in that direction. Our prisons are about half full of
people who in another time would be in mental hospitals. There is
community based mental health care available. Getting people connected
is the problem. |
| We
continued our walk, since we had a two-mile route in mind before going
off to our weight-training program at the gym. We Went by the Circle of
Hope place again. Still closed. There's a note from Darlene on the
door. “Sorry We're Closed Today. I'm Out Looking For Grant Money.” |
I thought about hope. I'm sure that most people look at people like the man at McDonald’s as "hopeless." He may have been given up on by schools, employers and even family. We see them on our streets every day. We are told not to make eye contact. What hope is there in that?
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| But here on Monroe Street is a shabby little storefront, offering hope. Most people don't really know about hope. Paul in the New Testament has a line that goes, "Hope that is seen is not hope.” Hope is what you have when no hope is in sight. I lift tribute to people who are not turned back by hopelessness. |
Paul urges patience in hope. "If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Maybe Paul waits with patience, but people like Darlene are getting
darned tired of being patient. Hopelessness needs to be met with hope..
.a Circle of Hope.
— Art Morgan, Sept. 2004
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