Walking
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Genevieve’s Garden is a space I have created at Blessed Sacrament Hollywood. This space is for people that are food challenged or are homeless. The streets are hot in the summer and the heat is nothing compared to the evil. The evil of violence, drugs, the pandemic, and even the citizens trying to keep their property values at a premium. You see, nobody cares for the poor and homeless and they are just a burden to society. Well, maybe not nobody, at Genevieve’s Garden we provide a safe haven to take a break. Those hated or ignored by society can come to the Garden and take a well-deserved break from the tough streets of Hollywood and even fill their bellies. At the Garden, they can rest, and nobody is going to tell them to get out or keep moving. This is the setting where I have had the pleasure of meeting some of my brothers and sisters that I share this planet with, and I take a walk with them.
It was a hot Memorial Day Monday in Hollywood. I don’t believe in closing our services on the holidays because I don’t know where my homeless brothers and sisters are going to go to celebrate. It was a quiet day with not the usual crowd, but we were busy enough. Sara came by as usual with her smile and heavy Japanese accent and told me she brought a friend. I introduced myself as Bro. Henry and he said his name was Ben. Ben had a strange look on his face. He was cleaner than the average homeless person and he kept looking at me as if I was going to sell him snake oil or something. Genevieve’s Garden is for everyone who needs a break and I was not going to judge his side looks, so I took his temperature, COVID precautions, and invited him in to take a break and enjoy his lunch. He walked by me looking at me as if I was crazy, maybe he is right. When he left the Garden that hot holiday afternoon, he looked refreshed and had a smile on his face.
The next day he was back at the Garden. Ben was smiling and greeted me with a hello and no more funny looks. I welcomed him in and told him to enjoy. About a half hour later he came up to me and asked me if I lived at the parish. He pointed to the bell tower of the Blessed Sacrament church. I didn’t think I looked like Quasimodo as I chuckled to myself, but I understood what he was getting at. I told him that I didn’t live at the parish, but I am a Jesuit brother. Ben’s eyes lit up and he looked at me as a friend and asked me if he could share a story that might sound a little crazy. Hesitating a bit I told him, “Sure!”
Ben told me he just got out of jail 13 days ago. He was in the downtown central jail in Los Angeles for crimes he committed during a drunken rage. Due to the pandemic, they released him early. He was straight up with me and told me that his family in LA didn’t want anything to do with him. Ben said he didn’t blame them, but he did have an aunt in Philly that would let him stay there until he got off his feet. The parole officer told him he had to do his parole in LA and he couldn’t leave the state. He was stuck here. The system released Ben at 3pm 13 days ago with no money and the clothes on his back. Where was he to go? He said he went to skid row and was there for a week. The housing for the homeless are usually unsupervised overnight and he said it was a drug fest with much violence. He showed me his chipped tooth. He felt that the environment that he was living in would lead to his return to jail. Ben felt it best to take his chances on the street and it would be calmer in Hollywood.
So Ben got to Hollywood on Sunday and was trying to figure this new world out. The next day he was sitting on the corner, thinking about food, and a woman who had painted symbols on her face, dragging a large cart full of her precious belongings walked by him. He told me she was about a block away and he saw her turn around and walk back to him. She told him, in her Japanese/English way to come with her, she will give him food. (When Sara, the Japanese/English homeless person, talks to me I think of the housekeeper on the Courtship of Eddie’s Father.) So far this story doesn’t sound too crazy, so I was wondering where he was going with all this. Then he leaned into me and said quietly, she was the Holy Spirit.
I looked at Ben as if he knew my deepest secrets. “What?” I said to him. He said that if it wasn’t for Sara, who turned around and told him to follow her, he wouldn’t have found Genevieve’s Garden. He told me the above story and said that this space was the first time he has been treated like a human being in years. Ben told me that this space gives him hope and that he wants to be a better person and a positive addition to society. “How can you help me?” he asked. I only do food; I told him, but I will do my best to find you a place to stay.
Calling everyone I could think of I haven’t been able to find him a place to stay. Emergency housing for a young male is difficult in Los Angeles. Ben has been calling me weekly to give me updates on what is going on in his life. He has been taking odd jobs around town and his parole officer told him to live in skid row at a shelter, so the officer knows where to find him.
It amazes me that by treating a human like a human they surprisingly become human. The Father General of the Jesuits, Arturo Sosa, asks us to walk with the excluded. Genevieve’s Garden provides a place that I can walk with the excluded. Maybe Ben needs someone to walk with to help him get back on his feet. Maybe this is the connection that will help him reconnect to society.
I still get texts from Ben and I always text him back letting him know that I am praying for him. The Holy Spirit comes in many shapes and sizes and moves through walls and walks down sidewalks. This 2020 Memorial Day the Holy Spirit was in the shape of a homeless Japanese/American woman named Sara, while she was walking.
Bro. Henry Perez, SJ