Sunday, May 26, 2019

I said to the Taxi driver. “Take care of him, he is precious”






Biog of a man.


He has holes in his back from being shot.
He has numerous stab wounds.
He has smashed the front doors of the Hostel
and he doesn't know why.
He does not live there anymore.
He lives
- nowhere.
He is from East London -
the London Borough often described
as the most deprived in the UK.

There is a constant flowing praise from him
of me in public because he received a letter from me
during one of his visits to detox.
The letter affirmed him and I meant it.
"You are beautiful"

I have no problem saying this to a man
once we have established a relationship.

He often helped out when younger men became violent
and made a difficult situation safer for all in the community.
He is a constant heavy drinker and uses other chemicals - he says not.
He lives on the west side because he is not safe on the east side.
His roots include a gypsy Mother and a history of serious crime and violence.

We spent time with him weeping and talking loud
and long and hard.
Never threatening to me because he says I am from the
East End
'Street', like him
(I am not - my northern accent gives me away - but I know what he means)
and that he respects that and
constantly repeats that.

Medication is refused by his GP,
he had not eaten for two days,
he was smelly and is wearing a
white stained track suit.
A psychological time bomb.

That is the contrast from being with you
when we meet up.
Contrast from all the nice meetings we attend.
The training courses and conferences.

We are ALL so full of beautiful imperfection
and share that -
but we can be so so different in
social status,
psychological, emotional and spiritual condition.

He is beautiful -
and broken -
and damaged -
and seemingly hope-less.
The divine taxi-man has a big job.

After a period of time I did other things
with other people such as talk
or lead a session
and he became ever present
- of course dominated and disrupted.

That continued all day and,
apart from disappearing for more alcohol,
he was still with us for the late night discussion.
He was non stop gush
- a drunken gush of non-stop incoherence.

Other staff helped by moving him away from the group.
It took ages which meant a potential fantastic discussion
was stop-started for some time.

Not one person slagged him off.
We all know what it is like to be drunk
and out of your head
when living in a homeless hostel.

This sort of living/housing experience
gives humans a massive capacity
to accept the the
- so called -
unlovely.

Later I put him in a taxi.

"I said to the taxi man -
"take care of him - he is precious"



*

#YouAreBeautiful 


BHP