Many Street Roots vendors described their personal faith as the most important consideration in their lives, more important even than food or shelter. They paused thoughtfully before they shared their beliefs, then spoke with passion.
Gary Barker started working as a Street Roots vendor two weeks ago.
“I’ve been through a lot of experiences,” Gary said. “Once I was stabbed 13 times, and that’s when my faith really kicked in. I was DOA and had an out-of-body experience. I was looking at myself lying on the table in the trauma room. I thought I was dreaming. And then I came back to life, and I heard these machines beeping, and I started thinking about what had put me there. I thought about my side of the street.
“I knew from that point on there was something greater than myself that was watching over me and wanted me to learn from that experience. It gave me the strength to understand I have a purpose.
“I used to study Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and all these different books gave me the same feeling of believing in something unknown and unseen. I have never seen God, but I see God’s actions and work in everyday practice. I see miracles take place every day, small miracles.”
I asked Gary to describe what he meant by small miracles.
“Street Roots, right here, it’s a small miracle. It’s given the homeless like myself an opportunity, a purpose in life. It’s people helping people. We have to have that. That’s faith working.
“In the 2 1/2 weeks since I’ve been selling the paper, it’s been remarkable because people are smiling at me. They smile so bright. I didn’t know it was going to affect me this way. This month has been a hard month. I didn’t receive my disability check, but a simple smile, it illuminates me, gives me energy, that’s faith working. There’s an inner voice, an inner light, you have to turn inward to find it.
“I call on that inner light, that grace, every day,” he said.
One longtime vendor who lives on the streets and wished to remain anonymous was in tears as he struggled to find words to describe his faith.
“I know there is a purpose to my life; I just don’t know what it is, but I’m getting closer. I know it’s about giving,” he said. He went on to tell the story of seeing a teenager sitting on a sidewalk with his head down. “When I asked him if he needed anything, he said he would like a dry sweatshirt. He asked me if I knew where he could get one.
“I told him I would come back tomorrow with one,” he said. “Then I went around the corner, and thought about it for a minute. I went back to him, took off the sweatshirt I was wearing, and gave it to him. The look on his face. He just lit up. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Really?’ I think that’s what I’m here for.”
Vendor Kevin K. often has conversations about faith with his customers.
“I have one or two customers I’ve connected with on this level,” he said. “We get into a conversation, then you realize you are two like-minded people in this whole universe, this whole scheme of things.
“I consider my spiritual life to be pretty awesome,” Kevin said. “It’s everything to me. It’s something that keeps opening up in front of us, an ever-changing process. God created us and made this situation so we could become aware about what’s going on, that is my heartfelt belief.
“Recently I attended a Santana concert, and as much as I love his guitar playing, the very last thing he said was ‘Everybody, please be kind to one another. It will help us change hearts and change the world.’ And I was speechless. That was the whole show for me. I left taking those last few seconds with me. He wasn’t teaching me something I don’t already know, it just dawned on me how we are on the same wavelength.
“It’s something I don’t know I would have discovered in a 9-to-5 job, but I have discovered it in street life. Sometimes you have to lose everything to become realized in what you do, see what’s really going on.
“Street Roots is kind of a sanctuary, but you have to be walking on eggshells when you discuss spirituality, your definition might be different than someone else’s. Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, it’s all alive and real. God wants us to be kind,” Kevin said.
Heather Duffield said she uses her faith in making decisions.
“It helps me not to worry,” she said. “If you have faith in your life, you know things will work out. I try to keep it with me a lot.
“I didn’t realize how important spirituality was until my late 20s when I started going to Al-Anon for friends and families of alcoholics and addicts. I was dating a clean and sober meth addict, and I was going crazy. I’d die if he didn’t call me every day. I was pushing him away. His mom suggested I go to an Al-Anon meeting, and I did, and I finally realized spirituality was so important. I could see it in other people, how it had been working through their lives, how it gave people an upper edge; there was a peacefulness about them, a way of dealing with life that was easier for them as opposed to people who didn’t have it. You find it here, you get it right in here.” She pointed to her heart.
For Richard Rowe, faith is inextricably tied to action.
“Faith is work; it’s the work you put in behind what you believe in. Your faith condemns you if you don’t live it and express it. When you have faith but don’t work and don’t want to put in what you are supposed to, it will split the church or family or a person right down the middle.
“There’s no way for another person to tell just by looking at them where another person is at in their faith,” he added.
Alex Leon has been with Street Roots for 13 years.
“I really feel like a lot of mental illness is people struggling with their faith,” she said. “They are so overwhelmed by what’s going on with their physical needs that they don’t have time to address their spiritual needs.
“The importance of spiritual life is it gives your core foundation a rest, time to relax, to realize that this too will pass. For me, no matter what’s happening in the storm of life, I know it will be OK; you’re going to come out the other side. But so many people feel lost in the storm. They feel threatened when the police come to tell them to move.
“It’s not just about believing in one person, one God. There’s a spirit reaching out to everything, to everyone.”
Life on the Streets is a periodic column about the parts of homelessness most people don’t talk about.