Bearing Witness, Bearing Fruit
by Michael Mallory
Standing on a lonely street in San Francisco with few people walking by, a man wearing a beanie hat, no shirt and sweat pants that were a little too big asks a woman walking by,
“Have you seen my crucifix? I’ve lost my crucifix, have you seen it?”
Probably assuming that the man is crazy, she barely acknowledges him, shakes her head and continues walking past him skirting the edge of the sidewalk as if the man was a disease to be avoided. I don’t blame her really, it was certainly obvious that he was without a home, living out of a shopping cart filled with all kinds of things and his rhetoric was certainly unusual. I decided to cross the street hoping that he would confront me with his dilemma. He did.
“Have you seen my crucifix? I lost it somewhere here on this street. My great-grandmother gave it to me.”
“I have not,” I told him, “but I will help you look for it.”
As we swept leaves and looked under parked cars, Barry began to tell me about his life. His great-grandmother was a Christian Scientist and he was an Irish Catholic from South Boston. He told me about the time when he was sixteen and was trying to rob a store. He was crawling through the gas vents and lost his flashlight. He lit a match and placed it between his teeth. It wasn’t long before the gas from the vent ignited into flames and burned him as he was frantically trying to escape. While at the hospital, unable to bear the cost of treatment, some old lady whispers to his mother and says that they should go the Shriner’s. So they went to the Shriner’s and he was successfully cared for.
He told me about his wife that had died on September 11, 2005 from liver disease and how he came to San Francisco. Discouraged and depressed he went to the Golden Gate Bridge to end his life one early morning while it was still dark. While standing on the bridge, through the mist and fog, an old man approached him and said to him,
“You will make an ugly corpse. God is not done with you yet.”
He changed his mind and now he walks the streets of San Francisco with a changed attitude but still a suffering heart.
“Would you like to see a picture of her?” he asked me.
“Of course,” I said.
He started to rummage through his crowded shopping cart and pulled out a framed photo of him embracing his wife. He handed me the photo while still talking about her and when our eyes met I noticed that tears were streaming down his face. He was so struck by my kindness that he insisted on giving me something. I stood looking at the photograph while he was behind me diving into his shopping cart to find the appropriate gift to give me. All of a sudden I heard him praising God. I looked behind me and saw him looking towards the sky with his arms outreached holding onto a little silver cross.
“Thank you Holy God. Thank you, Jesus.”
He turned to look at me. Tears in his eyes he reached and hugged me. He told me that he would not have been able to find it had I not stopped. He ended up giving me a traveling inflatable pillow and a couple of CDs. I accepted these gifts and told him that I hoped to see him again. After we said our good byes I walked away with this burning in my heart. Something happened to me, something changed inside of me.
Barry was a homeless man. Considered by many in our society to be an outcast. Sometimes its easier to see these people as less than human, or at least masters of their own demise, than to recognize them as full members of the mystical body of Christ. By bearing witness to the life of this man, false perceptions, like huge trees in my soul, began to fall. My heart burned with the Holy Spirit as I began to shift ever so slightly towards an understanding of the wholeness of all humanity. I confess. I am not always that kind. Many times, I too, would have just walked by. I am a very busy person. Stopping to help a perceived crazy man find what probably is an imaginary item seems to be a waste of time. Sometimes, I feel that “these people” just need to have more faith—be more Christian and then God will bless them. Then I think, what a hypocrite! Am I not a gay man who has been told over and over and over again that I am not worthy. That I will have no share in the kingdom to come! That God’s blessings are not for me! Am I really so different. Am I not an outcast myself?
I believe that the crowd that was gathering around John the Baptist were outcasts like me—people who have been told that they are not worthy to share in the World to Come. And so John, while baptizing and bearing witness to the lives of the outcasts sees a group of Pharisees and Sadducees approaching the crowd to be baptized and he says to them,
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones [probably indicating to the Gentiles] to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
In the Christian liturgical calendar, John’s acclamation is usually told as the text for the beginning of Advent. Advent is the season of Hope. Can we recognize the hope that this text offers?
I am currently preparing myself to live for a week on the streets of San Francisco along with a group of others from the organization that I am interning at in the Tenderloin. We are using as our guide the book called Bearing Witness by Bernie Glassman. Bernie is a Zen Buddhist that helps people “explore the spiritual practice of peacemaking.” His order is based on three tenets:
“Unknowing, or letting go of fixed ideas;
Bearing witness to joy and suffering;
And healing ourselves and the universe.”
I believe the most important of these tenets is that of bearing witness. When we bear witness to the lives of others and hear their stories and empathize with their sufferings something will change within us. We begin to recognize the tree of fixed ideas standing firm in the garden of our soul. When we struggle with understanding and compassion, this tree is cut down and we begin to see new growth and freshness of spirit.
Bernie tells us that “when we live in a state of knowing, rather than unknowing, we’re living in a fixed state of being where we can’t experience the endless unfolding of life, one thing after another. Things happen anyway—nothing ever remains the same—but our notions of what should happen block us from seeing what actually does happen.”
What are the expectations that we carry and impose on others that keep us from allowing those persons full expression of their humanity? Can I see beyond the crack pipe, beyond the body odor, beyond all those things that stir up disgust and fear within me? Am I not a hypocrite? Do I always meet my own expectations? As I bear witness, feelings of repentance grows within me. I start to see a new reality. I begin to understand how I participate in the marginalization of God’s children. The deeper I reflect the more I realize how inescapable my demise is. I must repent, because by bearing witness to the sufferings, my own suffering is put into perspective. By bearing witness I recognize that I am not alone in my suffering. In fact, I stand along with St. Paul, as he proclaims in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 to 5:
“And not only that, but let us boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
I believe in sin. I believe it is a sin to believe that God is separated from God’s creation. I struggle to recognize myself in others. I struggle to recognize that I am a Pharisee, I am a homeless person, and I am you.
Bernie Glassman says, “We bear witness and the fruit is born, the Supreme Meal is offered. What is this Supreme Meal? The life of each and every one of us.”
The good news is that we do not have to walk alone. John the Baptist reassures us of this when he says,
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12)
As we walk along our way with Christ, may we encounter God’s creation with openness and honesty. May we struggle with those trees of false perceptions that prevent us from seeing fully our sameness in each other and in Christ. To me, it does not matter if a person is a Christian for me to recognize them as belonging to the mystical body of Christ. If I want to be healed. If I want to be made whole. I must allow that Blessed Spirit of Fire to burn away those distractions, that chaff, that imposing wall of separation.
In conclusion consider carefully these words by Bernie Glassman:
“Each and every one of us was raised in a palace surrounded by walls. In those very things that we most deny lies the greatest energy for healing. But first we must bear witness: to AIDS, to poverty, to hunger. To rivers, to mountains, to a laughing child. To war, to Auschwitz, to the morning star. By saying “This is me.”