It was an interesting mix of solitude and community, city apartment living was: Neighbors got to know each other not in frontyards and cul-de-sacs, but on wooden fire escapes out back. When your car was busted, you couldn’t’ find a Midas, so you paid the middle-age woman with a blowtorch and an engine lift a few alleys away to do her best to fix whatever was broken.
One of the most powerful memories I had of my first year in Hyde Park was helping a single-mom family replace a mattress in her daughter’s bedroom. Early one evening, I was taking out half-dozen pizza boxes from our 3-bachelor grad student household, and I saw a young woman struggling to haul out to the dumpster a battered twin-sized mattress. And as unfamiliar as I was with all the ways of the city, I was pretty sure from her provocative outfit and heavy makeup that she was dressed for an evening of prostitution.
I asked if she needed help, and she looked relieved. I moved to grab the mattress from her, but as I did I got a closer look: It was moving. Or rather, the maggots that covered it were moving.
Trying to not show my discomfort at having this bug-filled soggy mattress in my arms, I tried to make small talk. “So, you getting a new mattress?”
“Well, it’s not a new one, but it’s in better shape than this one. It’s for my daughter. My brother got another one and he's handin’ down.”
So she’s got family, I thought. Still pretty new to the city, it hadn’t occurred to me that women of the streets worked there for a reason.
“It’s nice of you to help,” she resumed. “Could I trouble you to help just a bit more, though? I don’t got help to get the new one up the stairs—my brother just left it down on the stoop.”
Ok, so now I’m gonna carry a mattress up the stairs to a prostitute’s apartment. Awkward. Plus, probably dangerous. (Note: this was before cellphones—no one to text for help!) But I felt the spirit moving me to accept: “Sure, I’d be happy to,” I said, after what was perhaps a noticeably long delay.
A few minutes later, I was standing in the door of a filthy, bug-riddled 2-bedroom unit, with two little boys watching MTV and a slightly older daughter wiggling and dancing with delight as I placed her uncle’s old mattress placed on her even older metal bedframe.
“This looks awesome,” I lied to her. “I bet you’ll sleep like a baby on this.”
“I aint’ no baby,” the little girl protested. “But it’ll be good for jumping!” she said with a gleam in her eye.
As I turned to leave, the mother said thank you. She had covered her too-revealing blouse with a jacket, and was looking at me seriously: “You see, I got a family,” trying to explain, I was sure, why the rest of her night would be spent away from them. I smiled weakly and I nodded, not knowing what to say.
I wish the Spirit had led me to offer some words of encouragement, consolation, Gospel, prophecy—or something. But it didn’t. But then again, maybe the Spirit had just led me there to learn.
This Sunday, Nov. 1, All Saints Day, the people of Kaw Prairie are being called by the Holy Spirit to go serve in the big city closest to us—-but quite far from where we spend our lives. Our job isn’t too lecture, preach, or even say much at all. It might be that God just wants us to learn something as we serve. I hope you’ll roll up your sleeves, grab your family, open your heart, and let the spirit lead you to somewhere wholly different, and differently holy.
John 8:7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
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