Letter to Benoît-Joseph Labre

Why do I do this? Why do I head out to town on Monday nights to visit tent cities, why do I seek out the drifters loitering at the street corners? Why do I press a dinner into their hands so insistently, when they have not pestered me for it? Why do I seek out their company?

I have no answer. At least, I have no good answer. I look into my own heart and find no saintly motivation. Beneath my involvement in the Labre programme is a veritable hodgepodge of basal instincts and emotions, the same as those who govern all of the rest of my decisions. Though I have in the back of my head an awareness that Jesus and/or the Pope have at various points exhorted the rich to help the poor, these other emotions are presented to me with such immediacy that they threaten to drive me fucking insane, if I were not to act on them.

What are they?

FEAR

Some time in Summer 2012, I hopped off a ferry at Tallinn. The first person who greeted my arrival at Estonia was a drifter. And he pestered me: do you not have two euros on you? Do you not have five euros on you?

This was when I was a helpless intern in Helsinki. I travelled often, usually alone. I felt vulnerable all the three months of that stay. I relied entirely on dumb luck and goodwill navigating countries where no one spoke my language well. But this man, he spoke English. He was like me.

He WAS ME

I imagined myself in the event of a botched journey across the Baltics, losing all my stuff and having to beg for euros at the Port of Tallinn in perfect English.

I gave him the euros of course. I wanted people to be giving me euros in the unlikely but not impossible scenario where that happens. 

And even though in Ottawa (much later) I had been able to wait for my paperwork with a roof over my head, I felt very much among the homeless, with whom I spent long afternoons in the public libraries, and blended in with them.

TERROR

I moved to Cleveland in April 2019. This would be a year-long contract which would see extensions to 2 1/2 years. The so-called honeymoon period of one who comes to live in a spanking new country in this case lasted approximately 0d 0h 0min 0s. I am immediately overtaken with a sense of oppressive dread and constant terror about Cleveland (and the United States by extension) which lasted many months. Let me explain why this was the case:

1. It has been a habit for my parents to remind me to do my research on the "good" and "bad" parts of town before I went to any place in the United States, having lived in Inland WA and Downstate NY in the 1980s and experienced many close brushes with death and tragedy, all of which they delighted in sharing with us in the particularly dark and stormy nights.

2. While I dutifully "did my own research" for Cleveland, online commentators who obviously knew what they were talking about assured me that basically all of Cleveland is fucked-zone and I am guaranteed to be murdered 4 times in a year just for showing up.

3. Because of these reassuring findings, I looked on everyone around me with suspicion. I was on guard all of the time. I peered over my shoulder once per three steps. I imagined every small conflict escalating into dead people on the streets. I still had to take 30 minute commutes to school by bus.

Every little snag in bureaucratic processes sent me reeling in PANIC

LUST

This section is meant to be an amusing interlude. I had a passing fancy for a woman on a Facebook group. I confided in her in the TERROR of living in Cleveland, America's poorest large city.

She asked me in reply, doesn't the church have anything in place to help with it?

Roughly one year later, I found the answer, long after the conversation had moved on to other things (it didn't work out between us).

SPITE

The American home is a fortress. Inside this fortress, opulence, abundance; things bought and never used; an artefact here and there that pleads to the visitor: I do this awesome thing, when that thing was never and will never be done. Blasted lies.

Outside the fortress, the poor, the desperate, the dying

They are not for show. They are not fiction. They haunt all my hangouts. If I reach out my trembling hand, I could touch their broken, bloody faces. I could hear their pathetic pleadings, how terribly they pled!

This is the American Dream. People change out of their baptismal names at Ellis Island for this. People bake to death crossing the Sonoran Desert. For this!

I was so consumed with rage that I became unable to sleep, because people who thought themselves upright and good allowed this to happen, and persist in happening. It extended to the entire culture of American suburbia. It extended even to my friends, who came of age as part of that culture.

I watched what they did in life, and out of spite resolved to myself to do the exact opposite.

VIOLENCE

I overheard this at the airport at Charlotte:

Careful! There are some BAD PEOPLE around here!

I began taking self-defense lessons at gym out of this fear, although once I had reached a certain measure of aptitude in rearranging people's facial features, the fear automatically left me; and in its place came a certain unwarranted swagger, and the self-assured conviction that I would more likely be the dealer of grievous injury than a victim of it.

I set out to explore the poorest parts of Cleveland, emboldened by my newfound capacity for violence. I became familiar with its roads, then I began patronizing their businesses, then I went to their churches.

The most beautiful churches of Cleveland and its best-made chicken tenders are mounted like jewels in the poorest parts of town, in among the "bad people".

PEER PRESSURE

As a rebuke to the section before the previous one, there turned out to be people among my friends who were kindred spirits, especially where helping the poor is concerned. I was introduced to the Labre organization and community service through their good example. I will name names.

Shortly before I left Singapore I learned JOSEPH KOK, DAVID YEE and friends have conducted outreach to the homeless, staying with them over Friday nights at 24-hour McDonalds branches. I remembered them on my food drives.

The journalistic team of the PLAIN DEALER did a consultation with the public at Cleveland Heights Public Library (Lee Road Branch). I met a lady there whose name I have forgotten. Her deal was that she collected and gave out children's books for inner city households up and down the East Side. She surprised me by being very much alive.

(One year later, in 2020, the publication would be run aground in a devious union-busting putsch, leading to the sacking of many a fine journalist whom I had met on that day.)

An unknown young woman was spied in February 2020 in Cambridge (England), doting on a vagabond. She wore a vest with a logo which I can no longer recall. (edit of 23 Nov 2021: the organization is called Streetbite Cambridge)

I first heard of the Labre programme from GRÉGOIRE MICZKA, who attended Lectio Divina in 2019-2020, and also participated in Labre.

REGINA and ROBERT SINGERLINE volunteer at the West Side Catholic Center for women seeking shelter from abusive households. They roped me in as an extra pair of hands one random winter evening.

The plucky undergrads who run Labre are too numerous to name individually, but I am especially impressed by JONATHAN OCKUNZZI, Cleveland native, who knows every street corner and has a sharp eye for people who could use a meal.

Brother Larry and the team of ST. HERMAN HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY (Orthobros establishment). This is an establishment for homeless men. The entourage is a spectacle of surly, rough-riding characters who all looked like they could casually snap your spine. Brother Larry, their ringleader, is old, frail and half their height, creating a hilarious contrast when they stood together. They greet me and the others with nothing but warmth and smiles, and said we are welcome anytime to "come cut bread". Brother Larry gave us a tour of the chapel and iconostasis. They sell honey in the winter.

JOHN NIEDZIALEK picks garbage from the streets around St. Casimir for an hour every week. He did so quietly and thanklessly, except for one time, when he made a news feature.

LONELINESS

Friends of Case Labre come and go. Sometimes they find a permanent shelter. Other times they die. But mostly they fall off the face of the earth, leaving us uneasily in the lurch. Fortunately for us, one or two have become our regulars, and might even be able to recognize a returning participant.

In Fall last year I went on a run with Jason Choi. At St. Malachi's we ran into a guy who recognized my face, but I did not recognize his. We bumped a fist. I had not met a new person for many months, and relished this random encounter for a long time.

Now even though I am due to leave in a month, I have grown accustomed to the people and landscapes of Cleveland. I could almost call it home. I have given up (with difficulty) living in fear of the other and what they variously call "the poors" or "bad people". I learned that generosity springs forth naturally when such a thing is taken care of.

Benoît-Joseph Labre of Amettes, patron saint of hobos, prenez pitié, priez pour nous.

Despite my best efforts, I remain only vaguely aware that your intercession and the might of Lord Jesus have had a hand in the tangled mess that is my inner life. I should remain thankful in any case.

29 August 2021, Cleveland

Picutre credit: Wellcome Library, London

The Adventures of Siegfried von Eschl and Kazimir of Gorka

A rough re-telling of two tragicomic snippets from Poland (Ch. 3) by James A. Michener, 1983

THE ADVENTURES OF SIEGFRIED VON ESCHL AND KAZIMIR OF GORKA

Siegfried von Eschl of the Teutonic Knights: You know, Kazimir... given the opportunity, we would gladly convert Poland to Christianity.

Kazimir of Gorka: What do you mean? We've been Christian for three centuries.

Siegfried: Oh no, no!  You are not true Christians.

Kazimir: What is a true Christian?

Siegfried: Us Germans, for example, we are the true Christians.

Kazimir: Ok, I'm not sure I am on board—

Siegfried: You know, Germans and Poles are natural allies; we'll achieve great heights by working together. On our side, we have the technology, the good organization; and on the other hand you, the Poles, have the power of arable land, (salivates) so much arable land...

Meanwhile, the Baltic Prussians: (had been completely exterminated)

THE ADVENTURES OF PAWEL OF BUKOWO AND FR. ANTON GRABENER

Fr. Anton Grabener of Lübeck: In this interrogation, I am going to ask you some pertinent questions on the current affairs of Poland, alright?

Pawel of Bukowo: Sure.

Fr. Anton: Is your king, Jagiello, a Pagan?

Pawel: No. He converted when he married Jadwiga, I think.

Fr. Anton: (scribbles notes thoughtfully) Mm-hm, mm-hm

Fr. Anton: But is he a dirty, lice-ridden, raw-meat guzzling heathen, nonetheless?

Pawel: There's no reasoning with you people

Fr. Anton: (flips page furiously) Is it true, as the rumours say, that Jagiello has hair growing all over his body, like a bear??

Pawel: (leaning away) I'm quite sure he has hair growing in all the normal places!

Fr. Anton: (sweating and hyperventilating) Is it true, as the rumours say, that Jagiello has a dong the size of his forearm???

Settlement of the North

In those days of our childhood which feel so distant now, before the wars and the exterminations, it was common to hear the children speculate with gleeful anticipation if the rumours are true that the Haji is near, and would spend the winter over close to their place.

The Haji!

means stories after stories to wile away the dark Arctic nights with, which, for them, is a welcome respite to the boredom of being confined to the room for months. It was an excuse for which to congregate at the house of a neighbour, to hear the stories of old emerge from the old man in rhythmic and rhyming chants. And the children, hanging on to his every word, began to imitate him, and tried to commit all of his words to memory.

Someone who spots the Haji in the wild, who has not seen him before, would have made him out to be a vagrant, for such was the appearance of a wanderer who relied on the charity of others, with tattered rag and weathered mien, a crooked walking stick and rattling bells to scare off wild animals. The Haji is a very old man: as to how old, it was impossible to tell. The Haji has never given a straight answer as to his age; we have thus only the option to assume that he is older than the hills of the Mesogriadinas. Some would say that the Haji lives forever. Many believe that the same storyteller has made visitations to their grandparents, while they had been children, but such wild claims are impossible to verify.

The Haji is easy to please. The Haji would tell tales for scraps, but he is such a precious guest in these parts, so every host treats him like a king, trying their best to outdo the others, so that he might not be discouraged to come again. Each story session at the same time was also a feast which lasts all of the winter months.

The Haji is such an enigmatic character that people, especially those who were newly acquainted to his presence, could not refrain from asking him very personal questions, especially the children who could not for the lives of them hold their tongues in decorum: Who are you? Are you Christian or Muslim? Why are you a Haji? To these, as with his age, the Haji only launched into huge circumlocutions on the history of the world, the old gods and the old cities which left the listeners dazzled and feeling somehow enriched from the encounter, although none the wiser.

We understood that Haji was a title, not a name. The Haji in archaic history meant anyone who has made a visit to the archaic town, Yerushalayim, the place where Yesua and Mehmut Nabi spent their last days on Earth. In other words, this is a term relegated to the mythos, and belonging in the same domain in our consciousness as the afterlife; in this respect the Haji is unique in speaking about Yerushalayim, Yesua, and Mehmut Nabi with such vividness and detail that one might start imagining them as real people, rather than gods, or wraiths, or goblins as some have said linger in the wastes of Taimiria near Norilsk, and strike insanity in any wanderer who strays too close to the forbidden zone.

In any case, the only Haji that the world has known was him, and such was the singularness of this appellation that he has lost use of the name given for his person, and the man who remembers the history of the world before history started does not remember his own name.

His hosts were not always free of suspicion. You say you are the Haji, they asked, one day, then tell us: what was it like in Yerushalayim, when you were there?

To which the Haji responds, in a meandering, roundabout manner, about seeing the Philistines rain fireballs over the towns of Ashkelon and Ashdod, and seeing the Israelites send hawks flying beyond the city walls to catch them before they could land on the city neighbourhoods; of a holy city divided into four quadrants, for four different faiths and four different ways of worship; of the Temple of Solomon which fell to the Romans, but was never rebuilt; and there he was, a witness to all of these things. And since no one else in living memory had seen Yerushalayim, no one could have proven him wrong— and if anyone was convinced, they did so through the compelling power of his poetry.

In other winters, the stories would be of the land which they now sat on, the country of Taimiria, and how it had been settled; this tended to attract much more attentive listening, especially to those who would have been turned off by older histories and places which no one could have known were real or made up. In these accounts, known collectively as the Settlement of the North, the Haji would commence with a huge sweeping overture, rattling off as no one has requested, the settlement far-flung and obscure lands—

As the Papar to Iceland, the Skrælingar to the Kalaallit, so the Partholon, the Fomor, the Tuatha De Danaan, the Fir Bolg, and then the Milesians came to the Island of Eire—

And in the same way Taimiria came to be peopled first by the Samoyed, then the Dolgans, then the Orosz, and when the Wide Earth sank beneath the dunes of the desert, there came to be two migrations to Taimiria, since the highlands of Putorana left only two passages into the peninsula, east and west.

Between the two passageways, the Türkiler and the Ayeran came in from the west, and became the Muslims; the Lennat and Kushi came in from the east, and formed what would later become Christendom within Taimiria.

The Wide Earth

struck a feeling, at once wondrous and terrifying, into the minds of the Haji's attentive listeners. Only the best-travelled merchants of the world have seen places as far and remote as Alta, or Tunu, or the Islands of the Laurentides; and we have to tell them to know when to stop, lest they fall off the edge of the earth— for the lot of us will hardly leave the place or fiefdom of our births, much less venture a step outside of Taimiria—

—and because we are so attached to our land, then those who roam the earth as if they had no land have become strange to us, maybe even suspect, as some invariably view the Haji today—

but then again

it just excites the imagination so, that even beyond this big and terrifying world, filled with unfamiliar peoples, beasts, birds, and other things, there exists, or once existed, an even larger, even more awesome world, so gobsmacking as to be indescribable, in a time further back than any of us would bother to think and speculate about, an Earth more filled with people than we could imagine, who used much stronger and more powerful tools than the likes we have ever wielded, who held more wisdom in their hands than our sageliest sages—

—it may well be that some people would be made to feel small by such tales, and have their pride hurt by them... but if they keep the children occupied, then I am not complaining at all; besides, I quite like listening to them myself.

In time there was speculation on which of these old races that the Haji belonged to. People who could have sworn to tell apart Muslim and Christian by facial features faltered at the Haji's appearance, which proved difficult to characterize. Could it have been that the old man was so wizened that no one could tell his ethnicity? But the same people who say that had no problem pigeonholing other faces of advanced age. This has led some to believe that the Haji, who was old as old can be, must belong to the tribe of the Samoyeds, the oldest of all the races, the likes of whom are hardly seen anymore north of Putorana.

Now, right before the times of the exterminations, the princes of the South and East, the Christendom within Taimiria, came to produce their own stories on the origin of Man, in direct refutation of the Haji's accounts, and it worked rather well on the majority, who had not been completely convinced of the veracity of the Haji's tall tales in the first place, and only listened in for need of a distraction— these people welcomed the new stories, which seemed to them more accommodating and reassuring. The bards of Prince-Satrap Toyogarov and his court have come, and they can tell a story as good as any Haji, if not better. These stories told of the Taimirians as a noble race, who sprouted in caves on the sides of the mighty snow-capped Griadinas, and in the Dawn of Time crawled out into daylight to populate the Earth.

No more need of the Wide Earth; no more need of a Yerushalayim, or all of the fantastical characters of so called archaic history! In this new cosmos where sets the stage of the Battle between darkness and light, between Christendom and the Sultan from Ustanashehir, the only land is Taimiria, and the only sea is the Arctic. The elevation of the civil war to the level of a cosmic conflagration ignited a certain mood of nationalistic fervour among the people.

And so it became inevitable that, in addition to discrediting our storyteller's stories, the Prince-Satrap of Toyogarov sent his general, the honourable Tansukchin, to find the Haji and to kill him on the spot for his contrarian stories, which he judged were bound to undermine the stories of his own bards, and cause huge hindrance to his war efforts. Now what everyone knoes for sure is that the General never managed to fulfil this task of his, for when the war had intensified, his priorities shifted to the more demanding tasks of open combat, rather than to deal with a vagrant whom hardly anyone took seriously anyway. 

However, a story has spread among us that Tansukchin did find the Haji— although the Haji, upon confronting the prospect of his demise, fell to his knees before the soldiers and wept and begged and groveled— not to have him spare his life, but to take it, for he has lived for way too long, and life had become tiresome with the weight of the atrocities he had seen laden on him, especially in the past months— and on seeing such a pathetic sight, the poor General left him, thinking it beneath his dignity to carry out such an execution... When I first heard this story, I only laughed, because that sounded exactly like what the old man would have said. And this is why now, even as we are deep in the back woods in hiding from our enemies, I still retain some hope that the Haji is still roaming the earth, and that he would, at some point of his long leisurely stroll, find us at our humble hiding spot, and stay for a while to keep the children happy with more descriptions of the Old, Wide Earth, and the Histories from the time before time itself began.

References

1. The 2021 Gaza-Israel conflict is referenced here, with the description of the Iron Dome, the missile interception system of the Israeli Defence Forces. "Philistine" is used here to refer to the State of Palestine, not as a pejorative, but to reflect the (current) rendering of the name in Arabic (فلسطين Filasṭīn).

2. The "Papar" were Irish hermits who inhabited Iceland before the first Viking settlers from Norway, described in the Icelandic Book of Settlements (Landnámabók). The "Skrælingar" were the name given to Thule-culture Inuit in Greenland by the Norse and have been used in works such as Íslendingabók, Grœnlendinga saga, and Eiríks saga rauða. The settlement of Ireland is a summary of the opening chapters of the Annals of the Four Masters (Annála Ríoghachta Éireann), compiled in co. Donegal, Ireland between 1632 and 1636.

A possible depiction of the settlement of Iceland by the Papar: an image from the tale of Saint Brendan, published by the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration (La Crosse, Wis.), c. early 1900s, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons

3. Noril'sk is, even in present times, known as the most polluted locality in the Russian Arctic. The place is understood to have been abandoned for a long time during the events of this story. There is a deep stigma attached to the place, and also against anyone who has been near to there.

4. The name Griadinas/Mesogriadinas refers to the mountainous region near Lake Taymyr today known as the Byrranga Mountains (the term comes from the word "gryada", which appears on some old US or Soviet military maps of the region)

US military map of the Lake Taymyr Region