Making Home Alone

Homemaking and single people is not something that I had not given much thought to before my years at My Brother's House. But we focus so intently on our mandate to find and care for the abandoned and alone, that we are by and large, a few of us excepted, a group of single persons. And we are serious around here about the mission to be like family rather than like housing organization or social service provider, or soup kitchen or rescue mission or SRO facility.   So I've wondered what kind of a group is it that we are, or could be.

We talk about 'family' but so does IBM about its workforce, and so does Burger King about the kind of eating place/restaurant it is. The meaning and use of the word 'family' is worn down to almost nothing. Our own experiences of family are so unique, we can't assume that any of us are talking about the same sort of thing when we hear or use the word.

While in the Marine Corps I lived with a group of men in a barracks in Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And my memory of it was that we were a close group, of high morale and much camaraderie. Some days at My Brother's House feel exactly like that - no one really wanting to be living in a shelter, but recognizing all else are in the same fix, and so working at making the best of it; small grants of kindness, friendship, solicitude even, being made one man for the other, as much respect for privacy as possible in one, not even very large, room.

Friends in religious communities speak about the loneliness and friendships, the irritations and solaces of common living. Fr. Domenic spoke to me about the four 'commons' of the Nobertines: common faith, common prayer, common table and common purse. I notice that two of these 'commons' are of the spirit and two are material.

It is very tempting to consider the Bethesda houses as care giving institutions. Then I would need worry only about the quality of that care given and whether we had enough funds to sustain it. There is no lack of a need for care, so many to whom we offer shelter in desperate need, so many in the houses, disabled. But this model would establish distinctions I'd rather avoid - consumer/provider, employer/employee, fee/service, client/staff. I think there are some real benefits to such social institutions but it always ends up feeling like it's the institution that is  giving care rather than the people in it, and some generic person receiving care rather than 'Harry'.

I'm a member of Crescent Boat Club over on the  Schuylkill. Many people want to join the club in the same way that one would join Holiday Spa: you pay your fee and this gives you the contractual right to use the facilities. Some are disappointed when they find out that belonging to a club means fixing the broken boats, taking care of the bathrooms, going to meetings, being part of the decisions, and also rowing and using the facilities, and hanging out with one another. It is much simpler to just pay money (if you have it) and have the use of something. But some satisfactions and possibilities exist in a club that don't exist in a business/institutional arrangement. There is an enlargement of the sense of rights toward a sense of ownership and responsibility. I like it when I notice this happening at Bethesda.

The women at Spruce St. took me to task last week when they saw plans that I had developed to make an addition onto the back of the garage that would satisfy a need we have for a meeting room but would have encroached into the backyard garden space of Bethesda Spruce. I was reminded in no uncertain terms that the women had put a lot of effort over the past couple years into improving the garden and the plantings, and that they had planted a bush as memorial to Ella. And they want this respected. Were they just tenants, and I  just landlord, the issue would be easily decided (at least who got to make the decision would be clear.). But whatever kind of group we are or are trying to become manifests itself today as: I need to respect the fragile sense of ownership the women have come to have of their home, and for their part they now have to take on my worry about coming up with some place where meetings and classes and small conferences can be held.

At all our houses everyone is expected to do chores. This is not because (or at least not only because) we can't afford otherwise. It is, at base, because we think that if you live here, then this is your home and that means you're responsible for it. Additionally, all pay what they can afford toward the upkeep of the houses. This is our common roof.

At Christian St. and MBH meals are taken together. Though much of the food is contributed the men do much of the meal preparation, serving one another, and cleaning up afterward. At the other houses these common meals occur but not everyday. I think both the common effort and the common satisfaction of meals makes it impossible to remain stranger/outsider for very long. This is our common meal. And it is a common work, one that all need to participate in if anyone is to eat.

In the houses we are far too diverse in our beliefs around here to hold to a common faith . And because we need to be respectful of an individual's own pilgrimage, we make and require no common profession. But we are shaped by our history as an expression and the acts of people of faith, and generally in the houses their is something that I'd call esprit de corps. At Al Savick's funeral their were about twenty five people. Two thirds of those attending  were the men that he lived with at Christian St.  Friendship? Respect? Grief? No matter really, what to call this. It is the bond and the expression of a bond that did not exist before these men found the grace or necessity to offer it to one another. And at Bainbridge I saw it recently in the tenderness the men had for one of the members who grieved a loss. So many of us had experience of homelessness and abandonment that these signs of bond are precious and maybe they speak to a common faith. A faith we have in common that doesn't ask for any particular sects' attempts at formulation.

This task we have of homemaking is an unfinished one, I don't suppose it will ever get done. And round the commitments and  the activities and experiences that we have and remember in common each particular home gets made.
 

Joe Ferry, Bethesda, 1991