Hope from tumult is in another's eyes

Hope from tumult is in another's eyes
Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Rev. Rachel Martin had her eye on commodities last week.
Coffee.
Sugar.
You can't run her business without them. And demand, in the last few weeks, put a dent in supply.

"Do you have any idea how much coffee and sugar it takes if you're trying to feed 300 people?" she asked.

Three hundred people?

That's the number coming regularly for breakfast to the Church of the Reconciler in downtown Birmingham, where Martin serves as associate pastor.

Three hundred hungry people.

Once upon a time that would have been high even at the end of a month, when the money is spent. This month, it was just a start.

It's as if volunteers at the Reconciler, who prepare and serve breakfast each Tuesday through Friday, are sloshing in a leaky lifeboat. They bail as fast as they can, but still the water rushes in.
This perfect storm of hopelessness should serve as warning to us all. The economic meltdown - illustrated nationally with a daily shot of a chagrined stockbroker - has real implications on the alleyways that split off Main Street.

There's the price of gas and tightening credit. Here we have poor mass transit and fear in the banking and health care industries. Carraway hospital is in trouble, along with the county itself. And Alabama Power picks this time to jack up rates.

The victims, sometimes, look just like us.

Last week Martin scrambled to find shelter for a pregnant woman with two young children who lost her job at Waffle House and was evicted from her apartment.

"She was not the type of person we're used to dealing with," Martin said. "DHR would take her children if we didn't get her off the street."

Just one lady. Just one situation. Just one story out of, oh, 300 a day.

And counting.

Through August of this year, the Jefferson County sheriff's department physically evicted 3,023 people - about 378 a month - from their homes or apartments.

That's a brutal event, kicking folks out of their homes and setting their possession on the curb. It is, as sheriff's Lt. Randy Christian says, "the saddest detail we work."

And it happens about 60 times a month more this year than last.

To 60 more families.

Samford University nursing professor Elaine Marshall brings nursing students to Reconciler, among other places, to offer services for the homeless. They check blood pressures, and offer advice. Recently they gave HIV tests.

It is a good service, and a dose of real-life education for students. But talk to Marshall and you find it is something more.

"It keeps me focused on what life is about," she said.

What's that?

"When you look into someone's eyes and develop a trust between you, then you see how precious life is."

It is about people. People helping other people.

Yes, times are hard. But it's not all about Wall Street or your 401(k). When just one human looks into the eyes of another - that's where we will find hope.

John Archibald's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Write him at jarchibald@bhamnews.com.