A PLACE TO LAY ONE"S HEAD
A Dialogue Sermon on the Community Day Center

16 November 2003
James Ishmael Ford & Elliott Hipp

Part One
During our August trip out to Sandra’s Lodge, a family shelter in Waltham, one of our number handed me a copy of the Waltham paper. It had a story about a new drop in day center for the homeless being put together by the local Presbyterian Church. I thought that’s interesting and called the director.

That’s how I met Elliott. Elliott was once a lawyer. Apparently he is constitutionally incapable of finding honest work, so when he tired of that trade he went to seminary. An ordained Presbyterian pastor, Elliott served congregations in Virginia and New York before accepting his current position as director of the Community Day Center in Waltham. Elliott has an even more direct connection to us; he lives with his family in Newton Centre.

I’ve felt very fortunate in getting to know him, to learn of his passion for the poor, indeed, even for the likes of us. His general positive regard doesn’t seem to have limits. And, my, he does have passion. He manifests the best of that ancient calling to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter those without. I find it a deep honor that the Reverend Elliott Hipp is willing to be with us today. I’ve asked him to say a few words about himself and the work he is doing.

Part Two
The Reverend Elliott Hipp shares.

Part Three
Today twenty-four people have joined our Society. I can’t say strongly enough how wonderful I find that fact to be. And today we’re thinking about homelessness. I believe both these things are connected at a deep and true level. But it is a level so profound that a simple straight forward telling doesn’t feel quite right. The issues are too big. It touches so many aspects of who and what we are and who and what we are becoming. This reflection on what a home is speaks of our mission as a religious people.

There is no doubt in my mind our time together is about wandering, about seeking, and about finding. In that spirit I want to share two stories. Neither is directly about homelessness, or for that matter, about joining a Unitarian Universalist congregation. But both, I think are about facets of the real issue at hand, about our seeking and our finding. You’ll have to be the judge, of course, whether this is true or not.

The first story, well more an anecdote, turns on my regular drives to Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. As many here know my spouse Jan has been the research librarian there for about three years now. It’s a wonderful institution devoted to serving blind people as well as those with multiple handicaps when one of them is blindness. They’ve been doing this for well over a hundred and seventy years. In fact they are the people who figured out how to teach the deafblind. For instance, they trained Annie Sullivan, whom I’m sure we all know gave Helen Keller the miracle of human language. Without Perkins there would never have been a Helen Keller.

Anyway, as Jan and auntie and I are a one car household, I drive Jan to work and pick her up almost every day. With our schedules being what they are, we take this as a chance to be together, and cherish it. The upshot is that for several years now as the late afternoon rolls around I’ve regularly found myself parked on the Perkins campus, listening to snippets of NPR and waiting for Jan to walk out of her building.

This is a very large campus; there are many buildings and extensive grounds. There are also many many people wandering about. A few I’ve come to know by sight. One is a boy, Jan says he’s actually about sixteen, but he looks to be eight or nine. Jan also says he is quite popular, smart and open hearted. He is also fearless. When I see him he is barreling off in one direction or another, dragging along behind him one of those convertible backpacks with wheels, deftly sweeping the walkway in front of him with his cane. When he gets to a curb, he stops, tucks his cane under his arm, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a white five by seven card and holds it up into the air. Then he waits.

Eventually someone comes by, touches his shoulder and waits for the boy to tuck the card back into his pocket then take the escort’s elbow with his hand then both walk across the road. I’ve seen this any number of times. It’s a pretty busy campus and he rarely waits long. But sometime last month I saw him stand at the cross walk just ahead of me for maybe five minutes. He stood there, his hand holding the card in the air. I kept waiting for someone to come by.

As the clock ticked on I realized I was in fact afraid to get out of the car and walk over and be the person who helped him. No coherent thought of why. I’m sure the issues are complex and many. But, I felt anxious and even fearful, and I didn’t help him. Whatever the time that passed actually was, perhaps five minutes, although really it felt like an hour, finally Jan walked out of the building, saw him, walked over, touched his shoulder and then accompanied him across the street. I felt ashamed.

Fortunately, this last week I got a second chance. It was the morning drive this time. I’d just dropped Jan off, circled around and was driving off the grounds, when there he was standing at the last curb at what must be the busiest intersection on the campus, holding that card up in the air. I felt a knot in my stomach. Again, I was actually afraid. Nonetheless I pulled to the side of the road, got out of the car, walked over and touched his shoulder. He quickly put away his card, pushed his wheeled backpack back so that he had the appropriate angle to pull and reached out for my elbow.

We crossed the street. And for the first time in these several years I’ve been watching him I heard him speak. He is profoundly deaf, but Jan says this was the result of a childhood illness and he had learned to speak before going deafblind. It was now obvious he’d been well schooled to keep his pronunciation clear, although it had a studied and even mechanical echo. “Thank you, very much.” I immediately replied, “You’re welcome.” Of course, he’s deaf. So, that was the end of our conversation. He continued on while I got back in my car and drove here to the Society.

Now, the second story: This I’ve gotten second hand. It involves Paul Haller, the current abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center. If you’ve never been there, the Zen Center occupies a large building in a rather rough part of the city. So the door is locked and if you want to enter you have to ring a bell and be let in.

In the most recent issue of Buddhadharma, Paul writes, “for many years there was a blind man who came to City Center to sell us tins of candy. They were very sweet caramels, coated in chocolate and they looked like little turtles, so we called him the Turtle Man. Somehow the Turtle Man was able to roam around the city, selling boxes of candy. Actually he was a bit of a hustler. But the Turtle Man defied conventional notions of limitations, so it was always a little exciting and joyous when he turned up at the door.”

Paul continues his story, “One day while I was out on the street, I heard a voice cry out, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ It was the Turtle Man. He was standing at the corner of Page Street and Laguna. He needed to cross the street and his way of accomplishing this was to stand on the curb and cry ‘Help!’ until someone came along and escorted him across the street. I assume that at each street, this is how the Turtle Man negotiated the crossing. He just stood there and said, ‘Help! Help! Help!’”

Three things. Twenty-four folk decide to join this Society. A young man, a boy really, deafblind rushes along until he comes to a curb. He fishes in his pocket and holds up a white card until someone comes along to help. A blind man, almost certainly not lucky enough to have been given the chances a Perkins school provides, nonetheless makes his own way, hustling a living selling chocolate turtles. Well, four things. In just a moment we’ll be taking up our second collection for the Community Day Center.

When Paul Haller told that story of the Turtle Man, he commented on his anecdote by saying of the Turtle Man, “What an amazing, courageous life. Walking along until confronted with an insurmountable barrier, then to stop and just cry out ‘Help!’ Crying for help, without knowing who, if anyone will respond, is a frightening possibility for most of us.”

And here we are. Perhaps a little unsettled, perhaps not so sure of what will happen next. But, friends, have courage. Rush headlong into the night. Give it your all. And, then, when you come to that obstacle, the one that seems insurmountable, hold up your card, call out help, help, help. And, oh my, this too: Remember the courage to help. When it comes together like that storied box and its lid, this action of giver, receiver and gift becomes the dance of joy. It is the fulfillment of our longing hearts; it is the dream of human possibility.

Even as there is a Perkins School, even as there is a Community Day Center, and even as there is a First Unitarian Society, there is a mysterious answer to our call, a profound reaching out of heart to heart, of hand to hand. And in that mystery, I suggest, we find all that is good and sacred and holy. Never quite enough, of course. The need continues. The hurt calling for healing, the lost calling for home, continues. But then, there is that reach that touch, that companionship. And in that moment the miracle happens. And it turns out in some strange and inexplicable way; each small action is in fact enough.

All we need do is open our hearts as wide as our eyes, and we will see this is true.

Amen.