I did not expect a marching band, or a ticker tape parade, but the evening was a significant one for the ministry of the Church on the Street. It was 17 years to the day that I first walked these streets. I looked up at the sky and thanked Mother Nature for looking kindly on the anniversary by providing a warm evening which bade farewell to an extremely harsh winter.

It’s easy to ignore what we do not see. For many, homelessness, poverty and addiction are hidden in someone else’s town or in a part of our own town that we shun. It’s only when we have the courage to “put out into the deep” that we can strip back people’s addictions and their current choices, to find that they too feel pain, hunger and loneliness, and only want to be treated as humans.

I was born and raised in Glasgow and it does not take long for those who hear my Scottish accent to know I am not a native-born Canadian. However, it does cause confusion at times, as I found out when I came upon a man standing outside a downtown shelter. The shelter is in the heart of the drug area, and so I am always prepared for many and varied conversations.  

There is an adage that to get off the streets you need a home, a job and a friend. The reality is that there are not enough affordable homes, few jobs open to those who are homeless and even fewer friends who are willing to walk the harsh streets to sustain hope in the darkness. 

It’s hard to get rid of labels. I don’t mean from jam jars before we throw them in the garbage, but from people. Labels such as, “addict,” “homeless” or “dangerous offender” stick as if permanently attached to the forehead, and often they tempt others to mentally throw the person into the garbage of life. Even worse, the person may become the label, and at that point it requires extraordinary acts of love to call them back to who they really are. 

The weather had suddenly turned cold. What had promised to be a pleasant walk on the street had slowly but consistently chilled throughout the day until several layers of clothing were required to repel the harsh winter wind. It was certainly no evening for a man to be shuffling along George Street agonizingly slowly. 

There are times in our lives when we feel sorry for ourselves and we cry out, “Why me?” Unfortunately for many it is followed by imagining that they hear God saying, “Why you? It’s because I don’t like you, that’s why.” They feel that if they had not sinned or made bad choices, then God would have loved them more and it would have all turned out differently.

I have often prayed for others to join the ministry of “The Church on the Street.” However, even though many have come to look and see, none has chosen to follow. My offer of “franchises available” has failed to convince. Unfortunately, the front-page news this week of two murders in the area dampened any enthusiasm there might have been.

At lunchtime on a beautiful summer’s day many years ago, I walked downtown in the heart of Toronto. A makeshift stage had been set up, and a woman was singing one of my favourite songs from the world of musicals, “On My Own” from Les Miserables, about romantic rejection and hopelessness. But there was something wrong. It took me a little while to figure out what the problem was, but gradually it dawned on me. She had no passion! Technically, she hit every note perfectly, yet it was as though she had never felt the pain of loneliness. There was no conviction that she had ever in her lifetime experienced being on her own, deserted, and heartbroken.

I teach it and I preach it, but every so often I am reminded how difficult it is to live it. I am talking about laying our expectations on others.