PEOPLE I MEET ON THE STREET - May 1, 2023

His Name is Jim

April 30, 2023 about 830 AM Pacific Standard Time

I had just arrived at the bus stop and taken a seat when I noticed a young man across the street. He is wearing what looked like disposable paper hospital slippers, a pair of shorts, and a literal rug around him because he has no shirt. I knew he would becoming to sit with me.

As he took a seat, I saw an incredibly handsome and tatted man sitting next to me adorned in beautiful art work. He wore shame like many convicts I once worked with as a prison chaplain for behaviors they had not yet learned to control.

I was immediately concerned for him. I introduced myself. He told me his name was Jim. This is not Jim in the graphic but who Jim could look like clean and cleaned up.

I noticed he began to rattle coins inside his right hand. I hurt for him and asked if he needed to eat. I wanted to offer him food.

He looked at me and told me that food was not his priority. He wanted drugs. 

I asked, “Meth or Fentanil.” He was in search of Fentanil.

I looked at him and began to tell his this story of the time when using drugs was more important to me than anything else. When I was high, I could get anything and anybody I wanted. For two years of my life, this was true. My life was not fantasy. It was real until it became a nightmare.

When the nightmare experiene cameI could not eat. I could not sleep. When I closed my eyes, I cold only see myself crashing into a dense forest. Now, I did not want to sleep for fear of what I would see.

He asked what I did to become the man sitting beside him. I told him that I had no human help even when I asked for it. I was on my own with a sense that I was not. I believed there was one that looked after me when I did not look after myself.

For the next two years, I worked on me until I could throw into the river the bottle of Valium I was carrying in case things got to be more than I could manage. I carried them for two years. I did what I had to do to be free of my addiction demons and their aftermath.

I saw all that he could be as he sat with me as I saw all that he is. I offered him money knowing he would not use it to eat. He looked at me, thanked me, and declined my offer. 

I something had happened. Jim had turned down what he needed most to get his next fix.

When we parted, I thought of how focused he was on his mission. He was doing what he is doing to survive the experience of hell inside him.

The point of this I hopes speaks to you whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. This man was honest with himself, about himself, and with me as he sat with me covered in a rug.

I thought about the most honest people I have ever met are not the pretentious holy people that gather surround me frequently that want to tell me about how their idea of God is paving streets of gold for them as they couldn’t give a dam about having a real conversation with real suffering people with needs they cannot meet.

All my hopes are that you are better than that. You may not able to fix everybody’s condition but you have the power to change their conditions an experience of love for a moment.

Do you want to change the world? Do that. And by the way, there is nothing magical about me. I just try to be available with a moment’s love and touch wherever I am.

#homelessnessawareness #endthestigma #recoveryispossible #compassioninaction #bethechangeyouwishtosee #smallactsofkindness #seethepersonnottheproblem #empathyforall #loveandhopeforeveryone

The graphic used for this blogpost and social media post is not Jim but the way Jim woold look clean and cleaned up. This a public domain image from an arrest record in the State of California. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeremy_Meeks_Mug_Shot.jpg