Monthly Archives: September 2015

Kay and I homeschooled our daughters. I should qualify that statement by saying I was more the sub. Kay had the lion share of the responsibility for the girl’s education. My contributions were more in line with artistic field trips: museums, galleries, dance recitals, concerts, theatre (a lot of theatre). I usually was the one who took them to these performances and got them prepped to have a deeper experience with the art form. Kristin went all the way through her senior year as a homeschool student. Lauren decided she wanted more athletic activities and social interaction, and at the beginning of her freshman year we enrolled her in the local high school.

Not all of the homeschool field trips were of an artistic nature. Some were inspired by life experience. I think the girls started the conversation about potential causes for homelessness as we would drive through Nashville and see homeless people wandering the streets. The curious and impressionable natures of our then ten and eight-year-old daughters could not fathom why people would choose to live in such a fashion. I know whatever feeble explanation for the plight of homelessness I tried to articulate did not satisfy them, so I suggested that we just try and get to know some of those folks. We chose a soft approach in our initial attempt to connect with this unique population, which was to make sack lunches, drive through downtown and find random individuals, then stop to offer them a pbj and then hope to engage them in conversation.

Over time these field trips led us to a man nicknamed “Bear” who lived in a two-room shack under the bridge over the Cumberland River and within a few feet of the busy railroad tracks. This was a time when there were make-shift tent-villages set up by the homeless population in that part of town. These encampments would eventually be cleared out to make way for the construction of a football stadium.

Bear got his nickname for obvious reasons; he was hairy in the extreme. Face, arms, chest, head were a thick covering of dark hair with streaks of gray and grime. He was the unofficial mayor of this homeless enclave, and we soon realized that if we brought supplies to him, he would equitably distribute the items among the people. By association with Bear, we were more acceptable to the homeless citizens that would drop by Bear’s home.

Bear’s small domicile was made of plywood and palates, tar paper, shingles, and tin, all scrapes he had gathered on his scavenger hunts. He had grown up in a satellite city not far from Nashville and had chosen a homeless lifestyle over the traditional familial one. We did not pry for more specific reasons for his current living situation. What we appreciated was his expansive personality that was warm and inclusive, and how he approached his responsibility as “mayor” like that of a mother hen extending her protective wing to gather the needy beneath it.

One Christmas when we arrived at his front door with supplies, Bear invited us into his home. Before I could politely decline, the girls bounced up the milk crate front steps and into the hut. The shack vibrated from their unbridled energy, and I half expected it to collapse in on them before Kay and I could drag them out. The first room was a multipurpose space with a camping cook stove on a small table, a ratty love-seat, and piles of clothes and books filling in empty spaces. Christmas lights hung from the ceiling. The other room was the bedroom with a mattress on the floor and a dresser. The two rooms were separated by a bead curtain.

The girls went into the bedroom while Kay and I visited with Bear in the cramped living/dining/kitchen/den area. The call came from the bedroom to come see the Christmas tree. I stepped through the bead curtain and on the dresser was a two-foot high, plastic Christmas tree that had been decorated with some of the traditional Christmas ornaments but peeking through the silver icicles that hung from the branches were different colored condoms.

“Look Daddy,” the girls exclaimed with excitement pointing to the pink, yellow, green, and orange condoms. “Balloons!”

Bear had removed the condoms from their wrappers and draped them over his Christmas tree, which admittedly, added to the festive nature of the tree. We obviously had not gotten to the homeschool sex education curriculum just yet. I embraced the girl’s enthusiasm for Bear’s colorful, holiday decorative choice while cagily deflecting their suggestions to spice up our tree with the same ornaments.

In preparation for our upcoming “Stand” tour, I did an interview on national radio with Father Charles Strobel, Barry Scott, and Jim Reyland. Charlie started the Room in the Inn ministry back in December of 1986 when he offered sandwiches and shelter to twelve homeless men camped outside his parish church. After the interview, I told Charlie my “Bear” story and he said that Bear was one of the original twelve homeless men Charlie welcomed inside his church during that Christmas season, though sadly Charlie said Bear was now deceased. I thought, what a beautiful weaving of interconnected stories of a person who had enriched our lives.

To look into the face of another human is to see God’s reflection no matter how distorted the fleshly features, how matted the hair, how grimy the skin, how foul the odor, or how tattered the clothing. The story of “Stand” has forced me out of my comfort zone of avoiding eye-contact with those I pass by every day. It doesn’t take much to look the other person in the eye, speak, or even touch them. Recognition of the brokenness of our own soul is the great empathetic equalizer.

There is a line in “Stand” uttered by the character of Mark who says, “Every second of your life has value, from the first to the last and everyone in between.” The response from Johnny, the homeless character, is, “So if I sleep in a bed instead of outside on a metal grate does that make the world a better place?”

How would you answer that question?

A little game my three siblings and I played as kids was poking one another with a finger and then running away as fast as possible. We hated it when one of us got poked by the other…a fear of the transference of cooties perhaps. The victim would complain to the parent within earshot that so-in-so “touched me.” If a threat was even perceived by an approaching sibling the immediate response was DON’T TOUCH ME! And back in the day when there were no seatbelts, when we got into the car to go anywhere, we would draw invisible lines across the backseat and threaten the offender with mayhem should they cross said line and touch the other. Today we can’t hug each other enough.

A few years ago I was asked to perform a one-man show I had developed from the Gospel of St. John, similar to what British actor Alec McCowen had done with the Gospel of St. Mark, for a chapel service at the Nashville Rescue Mission, an organization devoted to serve Nashville’s homeless population. I had agreed to do the performance months in advance, but when it came time, I regretted having said yes, and found myself struggling to summon any enthusiasm. I was tired. I was unmotivated. On the drive to the Mission, I toyed with a number of creative excuses I could use to get out of it at the last minute without just pulling a no-show. I even grumbled to God, ending the conversation with, “I’ll go through with it, but I don’t have to like it.” If I was hoping my little complaint might invoke a divine change of heart, it was not in evidence when I got out of the car and entered the building, or went through the sound and light check, or faked half-hearted interest in the chaplain’s sincere attempt at conversation, or watched as the six-hundred seat auditorium filled to capacity.

Some level of joy began to seep in as I performed the play, but it was hampered by the constant wheezing and coughing and sneezing and yes, snoring, that echoed in the room during the presentation. It was like audible sounds of diseases cavorting and cultivating in a giant Petri dish. I appreciated the occasional interjection of laughter at a humorous moment and the enthusiastic applause at the end, but it was not enough to help me overcome my initial resistance.

This was not the traditional theatrical venue to which I was accustomed, and after the performance the chaplain asked if anyone wanted prayer. So many men came forward that he asked for more staff to help with the penitents. The brokenness displayed by those who came forward began to dissolve the crust around my heart…a little. Then came a surprise. The chaplain announced that if any of the men would like to greet me that I was happy to meet them. Whoa there, partner, I thought. I’m an actor not a minister. I like that aesthetic distance between audience and performer. This meet and greet was breaking the “fourth wall” convention of separation between audience and performer. When the service was dismissed all I saw were swarms of infections converging upon me. There was no escaping. “Iacta alea est” (The die has been cast).  I would make a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning.

I shook hand after hand with a frequent chest-bump for extra emphasis. The joy of these homeless men at meeting me was undeniable if not reciprocated. But the sucker-punch came when the last man in line stepped forward: scraggly beard, wooly red knit hat unraveling around his moist face, a big smile revealing the evidence of a lengthy hiatus in the dentist chair.  I extended my hand, but he swung his arms behind his back like he wanted to play a kid’s game where I had to guess which hand held the candy. “You don’t want to touch me, man,” he said.  “My hands are dirty. I’m dirty.” Then he gently laid his chin on my shoulder, apparently the one area of his body he decided was clean enough for human contact, held it there for a second, and then quickly disappeared into the crowd.

I was brought low. I had not wanted to be here. I had not wanted to be touched. Do the gig and go home, was my only thought. Now I was immobilized by such humility and awkward kindness; a nameless man respectful enough to be conscious of his “uncleanness” so as not to touch me any more than was necessary to express his love to me. I was in a room full of homeless men and I was the one who felt unclean, abandoned, all safety nets removed from beneath me, unworthy to be in their presence.

I have not been back to perform since, my cowardice the likely cause. But now I am returning to the scene of my own crime, so to speak. I am privileged to be in a two-man play with Barry Scott entitled “Stand,” written by Jim Reyland. It is the story of the friendship of two men, one homeless, one a Good Samaritan type, both broken in their own right, and their personal struggle to find healing and redemption in the warp and woof of their dynamic, sometimes contentious relationship. There is a preview performance at the Rescue Mission September 19, 2015, followed by daytime performances for local high schools that next week, and ending with three public performances September 25 & 26 at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. After that, we will be doing a multicity tour through the month of October. I encourage everyone reading this post to come and be “touched” by the power of the bond between one unclean man who challenged the confidence of another who came to feel unclean.

For more information on the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s September 25 & 26 performances, click this link and watch the trailer for “Stand.”