Today I darted across the road behind our house, crossed the perpendicular street, and made it to the bus stop in time to catch number 22, which is always on time. It took my housemate (one of nine) and me to Downing Station, where I left him to get to his GED classes, and I walked another fifteen minutes through the Denver cold to Earthlinks, my morning work site.

We started the day, like any other good day, by brewing coffee. From there it was on to setting up our workshop in preparation for the fifteen to twenty-five homeless, or previously homeless, participants who would soon be arriving. I gathered supplies to press flowers from our garden, to decorate glass vases, and to make lotion bars and lip balm with beeswax from our own hives. Then I got started making breakfast–my creative outlet for the morning.

We get a random assortment of food donations weekly from a retired couple who trucks around expired or wilted food gleaned from area grocery stores. Sometimes we have little to work with, and sometimes we have a lot–but we have breakfast either way. Today I grabbed some potatoes from the truck, a little garlic and some butter and started sauteing. The other full-time volunteer at Earthlinks cut up some of the tomatoes from our garden (freshly rescued from the freeze!) and we hunted around, mixed and matched, and artfully arranged on platters until we had a warm and nutritious breakfast for our participants.

After breakfast I listened as a young participant read our week’s short reflection–sometimes it’s a poem from Bonhoeffer or Rumi, a prayer, or an educational piece about the environment. Often it’s my job to find and read the reflection, but today I sat and listened to the commentary from our community. I admit that the depth of response, the connections, and the vulnerability shown by our participants during our reflection time surprises me still. After two months working in this community and with this population, I know that it is partially these deep moments of reflection and community that have sustained me.

From there it was a blur–I helped measure ingredients for the lotion bars, I made sure there were enough pieces of cardboard to press the flowers, I helped funnel some of our participants into the activities that they could best succeed in, and listened to the stories of whoever wanted to tell one–until it was time to clean up and have a quick lunch.

After lunch it is back to the buses! I took the 44 alongside a couple of our participants downtown where I switched to the 15 (which is notorious for a lot of different reasons). I got off the bus at the capitol and walked a block to St. Paul Lutheran Church where I work each afternoon. One of the main functions of my position there is to manage our rental, shelter, and prescription assistance program. Each time we are open we can financially help four, maybe five, people–and I often have to tell the other twenty or more who come that no, there’s no money for them today.

 

Today I was a host and sat with a man as he waited for his number to be called–he was number five and was waiting it out in case our money stretched a bit further. We chatted about the weather, about my father who had recently had heart surgery, about life in general. Later in the conversation this easy going man casually told me that he had AIDS. His previous statements on the gift that is life, took on more weight.

Today I did what I could. We offered five people finances to help them avoid eviction or to cover just one more week of their shelter fees. I offered the rest of our guests referrals to other agencies, a listening ear, and a bologna sandwich. Often the stories weigh on me–the man, the same age as my parents, who lost his job and has taken to sleeping in the porta potty at Cheesman Park to avoid the rain, or the man who was passing out because he could not afford the $3 copay on his medications. But some days, like today, I leave feeling like I had little to give, but was invited into someone’s life just the same.

Today it was both easy and difficult to see God at work. It’s easy to see only heaviness, brokenness, and darkness. Yet, when I looked deeply, I saw God working all the more. I saw God’s provision–in the breakfast miracle of feeding twenty-five people with food we received for free. I saw God’s peace–in the man with AIDS who despite his situation comforted me. And, today I saw God’s kingdom–I saw that inverse reality that yells out in a whisper that relationships and divine goodness will overcome even the worst of things. Today I was reminded–in the darkness, the light shines all the more.

Lauren Brewer is an Urban Servant Corps member in Denver, Colorado.