A Broken Hallelujah

"It’s not a cry you can hear at night

It’s not somebody who has seen the light

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah"

~Leonard Cohen

I arrived at church at 5:30 Sunday evening, potluck dish in hand, to meet some friends. We were planning to car pool to our choir holiday party at the beautiful home of one of our members. It had been raining steadily all day and we hurried to climb into the car, carefully trying to keep our food and our party clothes dry. There was a bit of good-humored grousing about the weather as we sat waiting for a couple of others to arrive.

There were other people at church that evening too. Lined up around one of our community halls were maybe forty homeless men and women waiting for a hot meal and a place to sleep. Our church, along with a handful of other churches in town, takes turns hosting the Freedom Warming Center on nights when it is raining or dangerously cold. The warming center staff provides bedding and and runs a well-organized and compassionate operation, Doctors Without Walls offer medical care, and church volunteers make and serve a hot meal. 

Last winter I prepared and served a few casseroles at the warming center with some friends and my kids. And we will do it again this winter. It is hard to put into words the impact this experience had on me. I have both nothing and everything in common with these hungry, cold people seeking a meal and a bed. My life seems embarrassingly rich, my problems so trivial compared to what fate has dealt these brothers and sisters of mine. I can give them a meal, but I am not equipped to solved the myriad problems that accompany them to that shelter on a rainy night: Homelessness, unemployment, addiction, mental illness, a safety net of family and friends that is damaged or missing entirely. 

But there is something I can give them that is at least as important as a meal. I can ask their names and listen to their stories if they want to tell them. In this way I can give them a small measure of dignity. Last winter I met a man who had ridden his bike from Oregon pulling his dog in a baby trailer. He was not a young man and he clearly grappled with some mental health issues. He was making his way the best he could. He showed me some of the repairs he had managed on his bike, outdoing  MacGyver with his resourcefulness. And he told me he thanked God everyday for what he had. He thanked me for the simple meal I had prepared as if it were at feast. His gratitude for life was genuine and immense. And though his was surely a a broken hallelujah, it was beautiful. 

But then, don't we all sing a broken hallelujah? Life is tragic and beautiful, sometimes in the same moment. Troubles are not distributed evenly among us by a long shot, but we all feel pain. And even the most desperate among us see at least glimpses of grace. It is that beautiful, broken humanity that I share with the guests of the warming center. In our brief connection on those evenings, it does not matter what I do for work, where I live, what clothes I wear, what books I've read. All that matters is that we are fellow travelers on this big blue ship. I only hope I showed that man from Oregon half as much dignity as he showed me.

Grace. It is woven throughout our connections with other people, nearly any time we are truly present with another. The other day I was walking with a young woman I work with. She has autism. She is not very verbal, though she does burst into song frequently. She likes it when I sing too. She was agitated on this day as she sometimes is. I cannot imagine how overwhelming the world must seem to her at times. As we were walking, she sang the word hallelujah a couple of times. I did not recognize her melody so I started singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" to her, just the chorus, just the hallelujah. She looked at me and her whole body quieted down. Mine did too! I touched her arm and sang it again. And we walked that way back to the car. 

At the choir holiday party we held hands and sang "Silent Night." I felt grateful for this evening with these people I love. I thought of the people at the warming center, grateful they were being fed and given a warm place to sleep, wishing we could somehow take away all of their pain and suffering. When I got back to the church to pick up my car it was quiet. People were sleeping, some outside. The warming center staff watched over them. They would welcome people in and offer them food and a dry place to sleep all night. I am beginning to think that, paradoxically, it is our brokenness that can make us whole, make us fully human, allow us to reach out to another and find dignity and grace in our connections. And for this, we should sing hallelujah.

Jeff Buckley singing "Hallelujah," by Leonard Cohen. Be prepared to weep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF4_Sm-rgQ