Shout Comfort

I first noticed evidence of Lenny on our church property around a week ago. Some fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. A few peanuts lying around the front entrance. More impressively, a meticulously stacked and folded collection of blankets, clothes and a sleeping bag against the side of the church. He had also managed to find a big piece of plywood to prop up in our church entrance to shelter him from the elements at night when he slept there. And the elements haven’t been particularly friendly lately, with temperatures near the freezing mark along with wind and wet snow and rain over the past weekend. I cringed to think of who might be sleeping outside in those conditions.

For most of the week, I saw signs of Lenny but never Lenny himself. He would be gone by the time I arrived at the church in the morning and he wouldn’t return, I suspect, until dark. On Sunday morning, however, there he was, fast asleep blocking the church entrance (of course it would be Sunday morning, I selfishly grumbled!). To say this arrived as an unwelcome headache would be the height of understatement. It had been a trying week in all kinds of ways and I had a bunch of printing and prep to take care of before our Thanksgiving worship service. And I was already feeling underprepared. And people would be arriving shortly.  And… Lenny.

To top it off, Lenny was quite spectacularly drunk and not happy to be roused from his slumbers. He was agitated and confrontative, at least initially. He seemed to think I was a police officer. His tone changed remarkably when I told him I was the pastor of the church. Then we were best friends. Then there were fist bumps and high fives. Then he wanted to talk about visions and angelic visitations. I, meanwhile, wanted to get his sleeping bag and backpack away from the front door. I asked Lenny if he was hungry, if he wanted a hot coffee to warm up. He was and he did. So I moved his stuff into a room off our church foyer and off to Tim Hortons we went. 

For the next forty minutes or so, I heard the story of Lenny. He hardly touched his breakfast or his coffee (other than to knock his extra-large triple-triple over while gesticulating wildly while speaking). He told me of growing up near the Arctic circle in Tuktoyaktuk, of his Inuit traditions of hunting, of how he and his friends longed to go south to Yellowknife because there were McDonalds there. He spoke of an abusive childhood and leaving “Tuk” when he was still a teenager, of a predictable descent into addiction and violence in all its ugly manifestations, of bouncing around from the north to big cities across western Canada, of endless trips in and out of rehab. He said he loved fighting. His face (laced with scabs) and his knuckles (shattered, mostly, with broken fingers splayed out in all directions) bore grim witness to this.

I encouraged Lenny to take a bite of his breakfast, but he had an audience and he wasn’t stopping now. He talked more about his childhood. He was lighter coloured than his six siblings and so his dad was always convinced that his mom had an affair. Hence the abuse. My dad beat the hell out of me. He talked about how his siblings would always get Christmas presents but he never did, about being told to go to his room when everyone else was playing games, about always being so desperately lonely. The tears started to fall. He talked, inconveniently, about how the happiest times of his childhood were at a residential school near Inuvik. It was a place where he had friends, where he could play games. Where his father wasn’t. 

It was now about fifteen minutes until our worship service was due to begin so I told Lenny that I had to go. I told him to eat his breakfast and then he would be welcome to come join our service. I was a bit leery about inviting a man with a self-professed love of violence who was rather obviously still drunk to worship, but something someone once said about sheep and goats was crashing irritatingly around my skull. I gave a few of our ushers a heads-up that he might show up, if not for the service then at least to pick up his stuff. He never did.

I saw Lenny again two days later. Again, splayed out across our church entrance. Again, a quite stunning amount of alcohol consumed, judging by the empties that surrounded him. I phoned an organization that helps people sleeping rough to access services in our city to come pick him up. They knew him well. He was reluctant to go with them. He didn’t want to go downtown, he said. Too much darkness down there, too much drugs and violence. At least out here on the edge of town the demons he had to contend with were familiar, manageable. Or something like that. 

For a while, Lenny stood with all his stuff beside the Outreach van whose door was open. The outreach workers could not compel Lenny to come with them, only invite him. I used all my best words to try to convince Lenny to take the help he was being offered. “You’ll have somewhere warm, something to eat, people who want to help you. Sleeping on the concrete outside a church on the edge of town in the cold is not a plan. Why don’t we try something different?” 

Lenny looked like he might step into the van a few times. We were all willing him to do so. But he always paused, looked at one of us, and started off on some new topic of conversation. Jesus, visions, fireflies, Tuk, a rehab worker that he missed. He just wanted to talk and talk and talk, despite the fact that it was freezing cold and he didn’t have any shoes on. He pulled out a bottle of cheap vodka from his backpack, said he was going to buy us all a round. “Who’s with me? Cheers!”

In the end, Lenny refused to step into the van. We gave him some warm socks, some bags for his stuff, and he wandered off down the road. Before he left, I gave him a hug. Told him I wished he would reconsider. That there were people that wanted to help him. That the road he was on wasn’t leading him anywhere good. Told him that he was a precious child of God, that he was loved. I don’t know if that registered. I don’t know if it could. 

As he walked away, I felt this heavy weight of sadness. So many layers of pain, so many demons, so much that was warring against any kind of hope or flourishing. I thought of all the people who would see a guy stumbling down the side of the road with a backpack and a garbage bag and think, “Pathetic, another addict who can’t get their s*** together.” All I could see was a desperately lonely little boy up in Tuk, sitting alone in his room, feeling like a problem without knowing why, wishing someone would buy him a present, wishing he would be invited in on the fun.  

On my way in to church last Sunday morning, I happened upon a beautiful version of a song called Ukuthula by the Cape Town Youth Choir. As I said, it has been a trying week. Maybe my algorithm knew what I needed to hear. Maybe it was preparing me for Lenny. I had no idea what the Zulu words meant, but it didn’t take long for the tears to be streaming down my own face. Later, I googled the song and tried to find a decent English translation. It was, indeed, just what I needed to hear, for myself, for Lenny, for all of it.

Ukunqoba kulomhlaba wezono (Victory on this sinful world)
Igazi lika Jesu limemeza ukunqoba (The blood of Jesus shouts victory)
Induduzo kulomhlaba wezono (Comfort on this sinful world)
Igazi lika Jesu limemeza induduzo (The blood of Jesus shouts comfort)

Some translations say “proclaims” in place of “shouts” above. Shouting sounds more aggressive than proclaiming, I guess. Maybe it’s the equivalent of “inviting” instead of “compelling.” I wonder, though, if sometimes comfort needs to be shouted for us to hear it, to extend it, to believe it.