The Unclad Soul

I have not been to church in a long while. For someone who spent so many years in the church it sometimes surprises me that it is no longer a vital part of my life. A few years ago I would sometimes slip into the Cathedral Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe in downtown Dallas. It’s a beautiful, sacred space. There are daily masses both in English and Spanish. Inside the sanctuary is a large, life-like crucifix of Jesus and other smaller but elaborate sculptures of biblical scenes. The Cathedral was built in 1902 and has been through various renovations and is today a vibrant and popular place of worship for Catholics. I have many issues with the Roman Catholic Church, and the institutional Church in general. And I have no interest whatsoever in the giant mega evangelical churches that remind me of convention centers or entertainment venues. But there, in the quiet of the Cathedral, I have often felt something deeply spiritual stir within me. For some time now, church...

On my usual way to lunch to pick up a sandwich at Subway across from the Central Library, I made my way down Canton Street, past the Dog Park at Cesar Chavez Boulevard, around the curve to the intersection at Harwood Street when I saw him. He was a large man with full long greasy hair to his shoulders. I often see him in the area. The First Presbyterian Church's soup kitchen is near that intersection and many days he is sitting or standing along the outside wall. He is always dressed in bulky jeans and a heavy coat and he's always carrying in both hands old plastic sacks full of unidentifiable things. Food perhaps. Or items of clothing. Or maybe just stuff he has found along his daily sidewalk journeys down the lonely streets of the urban city. At the corner of Harwood and Canton (which becomes Young Street) is a small flower garden and fountain just outside the side entrance of the old large First Presbyterian Church. That's where I saw him. Several cars were in front ...

I saw him while I was sitting at a traffic light. He was an older man shuffling along a parking lot of a 7 Eleven just across the street from me. He was bundled in clothes too heavy for the warm day but I’m sure it’s what he wears every day in this winter season. There are no closets full of choices for the poor and the indigent. He was pushing a shopping cart full of stuff I couldn’t recognize…sacks and plastic bags of things he had collected along whatever journey of despair he was on that day. His pant legs hung over old ruined boots and dragged the ground as he moved. There was something about those droopy cuffs scraping the pavement that overwhelmed me with sadness. He looked so weary in the slow pace of his efforts. People got in and out of their cars around him coming and going to the convenient store to pick up this or that oblivious to this man’s hunger or illness or just weariness. He was simply a part of the tacky landscape of that part of town. None of us ever...