Broken

The past semester I have been a practicum student at an agency that works in transitional housing for men and women who have come out of  the criminal justice system, addiction, health issues, abuse and mental illness. My fellow student and I really didn't have a "task" or an ongoing project.  We were there to be present with people, talk with them, help them with the "basics" (cooking, computer issues, doing homework, etc.) The best thing we got was hanging out with them especially through conversation. I learned about pain and beauty. When I was suppose to turn in my final report about agency policies, my skills, the daily activities and vocational goals, it was extremely hard to write. I learned so much more than all that, so I wrote  the following first....

I have started realizing that the more broken and the more struggles someone has faced, the more precious they are. Maybe it’s because I can’t comprehend their pain, maybe it is because I want to hold them up and give them everything good so that I can see their smiles, maybe it is Jesus living through me or maybe I am ignorant. All I know was that I was going in to a practicum thinking I was going to see the “worst of humanity” and ended looking at myself. Poetic irony? Perhaps. All I know is that those people are stronger than I am, but society says I am more put together. Put together does not equal strength. It only means that I know how to act on the stage with everyone else and had people who prompt me up there. The lady who was sold for sex for some cigarettes nightly by her mother is more beautiful than I am. How have I come to this conclusion? She was able to escape because she knew that she was worth more than that even though she had no one showing her and I am constantly trying to find my worth in my school, my marriage, my relationships, my status, my service and my performance. I have so much going for me and so many people rooting for me and I am still trying to find my worth and who I am. She was able to find it, saying “This is who I am” and she is “more messed up”. She has found beauty in distress and has “taken the good” out of the bad. Society says I am better than her, but society is wrong.

I have met people who are rapists, murderers, thieves, bank robbers, bomb makers, drug addicts and alcoholics. And I love being around them. It doesn’t make sense, does it? I haven’t even wrapped my head around it. Some people have thought I was crazy being okay sitting next to an ex-leader of one of the largest gangs in the world who has shot and hurt many. But I love him, his hurt is deeper than mine and it’s attractive to my soul, not in some sick sadistic way but in a humble way. I can learn so much from him, he has so much to offer but no one cares or no one listens. At the end of my practicum, I can throw out all of these psychology theories about why these people are where they are, what happened in their childhood that made them captives to their circumstances, and although there may be truth in that, it is not that truth that changed me. These people, their stories, their acceptance of ME and my acceptance of THEM, taught me more than any textbook could. I now understand why Jesus hung out with the worst because somehow, the worst is the best and the kingdom should be made up of the broken. Broken is beautiful, it’s a twisted truth, but it’s a beautiful one.

 “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does you teacher eat with tax collectors and “sinners”?”

            On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means.’ I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:10-12