Breakfast

Breakfast as usual this last week. Friday Joel and Sarah came to Morning Prayer and then over with us to eat. I suspect that they come because i make them - they are part of the Catechesis class at St Joes and have voluntarily committed to coming to the Office and serving the poor once a week - but they never seem too put out about it.

After a few minutes C and E came in for a bite. We talked about dogs for a while. Sammie my dog is always at prayer and so if conversation runs dry we can always talk about her. She loves most of the guys but especially E, since he is wont to give her a little of what is on his plate. C told us about the program he is in in Chapel Hill to try to get hooked up with transitional housing. So he is bussing up and down the eight miles three or five days a week to go to meetings with various folk. He complains that the staff is all volunteer and so they often don't show up. He also relates story after story about why "he hates cops". "I don't want to hate anybody", he says, "but I just can't help it." He told us one story about standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus and being told that he couldn't loiter. "I'm waiting for the bus", he protested, "along with all these other folk." But the cop knew him as a homeless man and made him move off the sidewalk to a bit of dirt beside one of the buildings. They police the homeless so tirelessly in Chapel Hill, C says, that most of the guys he knows come up to Durham. But even in Durham, he says, if the police don't like you, or don't like the homeless in general, they can make life hell. One guy consistently calls them "cockroaches", apparently.

T was quiet and well mannered as usual. Earlier this week he went over to Whole Foods and got us some cereal when we were running low. This man's generosity and faithfulness amazes me. He mentioned that he just managed to rent a room somewhere across town and he was worried that the couple he rented it from were - for some reason - going to be arrested. Barely enough money to get himself a sub-par room he still shows up for prayer, Eucharist and Bible Study, and insists upon contributing to the needs of the saints week after week, day by day.