Home is Where the Heart Is -- and the Feed

I've been lately recalling the education I received from the homeless folk who begrudgingly accepted our church's hospitality in the early years of my ministry in Des Moines.  A death from exposure the previous year had nudged a few urban churches to coordinate a band-aid response consisting of army cots, fellowship halls and donated meals for the coldest months of winter.  The operation rotated nightly among those participating churches, with a van shuttling from a designated spot downtown those who were willing to come in out of the cold.

I say "begudgingly" and "willing" because their acquiescence came as a last resort.  There were certainly exceptions -- the marginally employed and accustomed to better whose turn in circumstances had shoved them over the line into homelessness -- but for the most part these were folks who rather preferred to be independent, unencumbered and out of doors.  They routinely cobbled together makeshift shelters out of discarded tents, scavenged boxes or lumber or whatever might block the wind and divert the rain and snow.  They rigged up heaters using parts from discarded grills that worked reasonably well until a breeze bent the flame too close to the wall and burned the whole contraption down -- too often, unfortunately, with the architect sleeping inside.

And so it was that when we compassionately helpful church folks opened our doors for a few months in the depths of winter even the most hardened outdoor survivalists begrudgingly condescended to occupy a warm, albeit stiff, cot and avail themselves of a free meal.  That, however, only until the mercury climbed a couple of degrees and they could escape the confines of our generosity and return to their preferred environs.  What I'm reporting here is not the interpretation of observation; it's the fruit of direct conversation.  This is what I was told night after night by our activity room residents who were appreciative, as far as that went, but who really didn't want to be there.  Contrary to our estimation, they didn't consider themselves homeless.  They had a home and a community down by the river.  It was simply a home that didn't have permanent walls, utilities, a recognized address, and "appliances" by only the most generous definition.

These past occasional friends have been on my mind in recent weeks as I shuffle my way out back to secure the chickens at night.  The customary routine is that the settling darkness inspires the flock to ascend the little ramp from the run up into the sheltering coop where there is straw and a roost upon which the girls snuggle in for the night.  All I have to do is close the hatch, raise the ramp and secure the outer door.  A few weeks ago I successfully migrated the two newest arrivals from the annex across the yard where they had been duly quarantined over to the main coop with the others.  As far as I can tell they chumley get along -- pecking away side by side throughout the day.  But at night, despite the peer pressure of the older girls who, like clockwork, climb the ramp and put themselves to bed, the twins (our affectionate moniker for these two young Light Brahmas who do everything as a pair) remain down below preferring the night air to the coziness up above.  To be sure, the situation changes on random nights -- perhaps when the temperatures plunge beneath an invisible line -- whereupon the twins troop up and in with the others.  But let the next night be a degree or two milder and predictably I will find them camped out, just the two of them, down below -- airy and a little more free.  It has become a sort of parlor game, guessing each night where I will find them...

...and being educated all over again that neither are we "all the same" nor are our definitions of "home."

It's almost to suggest that we are "wonderfully, fearfully made" as the Psalmist once reflected --
and individually, with our own sense of where we want to be.