Pittsburgh was never a place that could grow on me. I spent a good nine and a half years there and it still is just a place that I lived in for a while. The first two years were a time set aside for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh where I was studying to obtain a degree in Video Production and Music Business.
I didn’t spend much time studying as I already had a good grip on my “field” and not in a prideful sense either, but more or less I really focused and narrowed in on my ability to consume lots of drugs and alcohol. Most of my days at the school revolved around my several “pit stops” at the bar across the street during breaks where I’d down a pitcher of beer in under five minutes before class would start again and so I could function in my own reality. And that was just a normal day. During the course of any normal day I had at least the equivalence of a twelve pack of of beer rolling around inside of me.
My younger sister had transferred to Pittsburgh as well to finish off one more year of school and we shared an apartment together during the first of the two years I had ahead of me. She was by far the best room mate I ever had. When she was done with school the time came for me to find my own apartment.
So I landed myself in an apartment on the southwest inner city section of Pittsburgh. The best part of the location was that my girlfriend lived just about a half mile down the road from me except she wasn’t a drug user at all. So I kept my drug life oblivious to her. And not only that but she was still in high school so she wasn’t allowed out at night during the school week. A part of me just didn’t want to corrupt her. Honestly.
I had lots of “sort of” friends at the Art Institute but most of my classmates were like eighteen and I was twenty-two at the time. I didn’t have a lot in common with most of them and they pretty much just drank on Friday nights at weekend dormitory parties because they were away from home for the first time. So occasionally I’d hang out with them but most of the time distance and the lack of a vehicle kept me from being able to do so regularly.
I loved the privacy of my own apartment and I did enjoy the seclusion of it. However, since I didn’t have a lot of friends to hook up with I could feel the loneliness setting in. I wouldn’t be depressed or sad about it either. I just wanted the company of others from time to time and realized that being alone wasn’t always good.
I had taken a part time job at a local grocery store where I had become friends with an older guy named Mark. He was a Vietnam Veteran with a flare of hippie stuck on him in his tone and in the way he talked. He was kind and easy to talk to. We started hanging out together after work by having a few beers at the Redstone Tavern and then we’d head off our separate ways. Mark was cool and I am always up for a veteran to share a story or two.
One night at the Redstone, Mark mentioned to me that he needed a place to stay. It wasn’t a problem since Mark was good people and I liked drinking with him. So he mentioned that he needed to grab his belongings and that he just needed to crash until he could get enough money saved for a new apartment. So I insisted on helping him get his stuff. So we started walking and followed some train tracks that ran out back of the bar for about a quarter of a mile. We then veered right and headed into the woods. Mark walked a little in front of me and then kind of disappeared into the branches of a huge pine tree.
So I followed.
It took a few seconds for me to realize that this was Mark’s “home” as I watched him fold up a blanket and pack a suitcase with all his belongings that were under the natural shelter of this pine tree. Mark was homeless.
I could see that he was trying to cover his shame as he gathered his belongings and so I helped and didn’t bother discussing why he was out here sleeping in the woods. So I reassured him of the comfort of my apartment, a freshly stocked fridge of Black Label and a recent purchase of some fine ganja. Mark’s face lit up and we made way for my place.
Mark was actually a decent room mate for the most part. I just had to kick him out every once in a while when my girlfriend came over.
As the months went by it seemed that my place started becoming a sort of haven for a small group of co-workers and neighbors that were more like outcasts. There was Glen, who was in his upper thirties and was a total pervert. He was a belligerent drunk who constantly talked about how he wanted all of the young cashiers and actually thought he had a chance. But we knew between his mannerisms and his horribly fake hair piece there was no way he’d even get a conversation out of one of those urban teen age girls.
Somewhere along the way this other guy named Mike weaved his way in to our little circle of misfits. He was a boarder staying in a house down the street from mine. He was gay and spent a lot of time maneuvering subtle hints of him wanting me when we all partied. I remember one night he brought the movie “My Own Private Idaho” over to my place. He also brought some wine and wanted to make it a “date”. So I watched the movie, drank the wine and then kicked him out. I guess I wasn’t any better for using him to get me drunk as he wanted to use me for his own desires.
There I was a twenty two year old musician hanging out with a forty-four year old homeless veteran, an upper thirties pervert and a fifty year old homosexual. When I look back at it now it makes me sad. Why did we hang out when we had so many differences? What was it that brought us together?
The upfront answer: Companionship.
We were each desperate for relationships in some way or another. We ached inside for that part of life where you get to share your life with others and then eventually you get to call them - “my friends”.
We came together constantly for fellowship but that fellowship only functioned if it was high. Be it alcohol, marijuana, LSD and/or cocaine we gathered around it as it was the center of us. To leave that experience and that part out of it meant that we probably weren’t going to get together. But when we all chipped in and scored some stuff then the partying raged and the gathering would motor on. If I had more than enough dope for myself well then it meant that I needed to share that experience with someone else.
Most drug addicts don’t like to party alone. They end up alone because their friends end up in prison, dead, in rehab or they find religion. In fact this story took pace in the same year that three acquaintances of mine died from drug related deaths. One was a heroine overdose and the other two committed suicide in the the way of the gun in the mouth and then pulled the trigger because crack and ecstasy took them into what they thought was an inescapable solitary confinement.
It is hard to re-visit this place and this is but one year out of the twelve or so that I spent as an addict. Not only because of the loss of friends but remembering the godless place that we had each dwelled in is much more painful. The longing for something more screamed out so loud in each of our lives and we found what appeared to be but a sliver of hope in our togetherness. We realized that we each had something to give toward one another and so we tried to make that “save us”.
The problem was that our center of togetherness was nothing more than selfishness. We used each other for our own gain. To get higher and then have each other as justification of it. Our energy and effort was focused more on what we could get out of our coming together rather than what we could put in to it. It thrived off of what someone else had and not what we could give. Our gatherings relied on our own strengths and agendas.
Eventually, our little crew disbanded. Partially because my close friend Mark disappeared one day. I came home from work and all of his belongings were gone and so was all of my money. I wasn’t even mad at Mark for taking my money because he had no home. My heart, however, was so very crushed that he did it without saying goodbye. A year later we’d make amends. That is another story and a miracle in itself.
The word togetherness does not contain the same meaning of community. They are two different words that work side by side to obtain what is good in the eyes of our Triune God who exists infinitely in perfect community. Togetherness is but a portion of what community is. I refuse to explain what community should look like or even be because it can only define itself as it is experienced and lived out. Dietrech Bonhoeffer said it best: “Those who love their own idea or dream about community will destroy it. Those who love the people around them will create it.”
Togetherness on the other hand can be looked at and talked about and dissected. It is like the rungs on a ladder. You need those rungs to be together all in their place so that they can function for their intended purposes. If you narrow the Church down to just being something at a time and a place then you have stripped it down to it’s unintended purpose. Our own ideas of togetherness outside of His way pulls God’s creative masterpieces off of the walls of His galleria of beauty and depreciates them to be “paint-by-number” no named works of normalcy that carry no importance whatsoever. I look at my four children and weep over them with great love and passion because they are mine. I don’t look at each one of them and determine if they have have different kinds of worth value. I’d die for each one of them no matter what.
I sought out companionship with a group of nobodies before I came to know the Truth and the Life. Our togetherness, although temporary, kept us afloat for a little while. But because we used each other to get things for ourselves it could not bring about life and therefore it could not be sustained. We relied on our own efforts and it came crashing down.
I do believe that somehow in that drug-circle we were each in our own way crying out to God. We were just too busy thinking about our own needs. It reminds me though of the time when Jesus went over to have dinner at Matthew the tax collector’s house. Matthew had Jesus and what was the beginnings of the disciples over for dinner and did I mention that that was right after Jesus asked Matthew to quit his job on the spot and follow along.
What is more astounding: The fact that Matthew left his job to follow Jesus or the companionship that took place immediately afterwards? I can never get over the beauty of this gathering at Matthew’s home. There stands the religious leaders on the outside looking in criticizing the whole thing(critics risk very little which is why they tend to stay on the outside of what they are criticizing). The disciples didn’t know what to do but they knew love was weaving it’s way in because they couldn’t escape the presence of the God that their hearts were drawing near to minute by minute as Jesus sat RECLINED eating dinner with notorious sinners, and republicans... oops I mean tax-collectors. Just kidding - I couldn’t resist!( I’m a registered republican by the way!)
Jesus dines in the companionship of nobodies. Why? Because there sits a group of nobodies aching to be loved by the Ultimate Somebody. No competitiveness amongst them, no agendas or debates, no titles and degrees to wave around, no “my idea is better” than yours, no critics. Just a group of folks gathered in the presence of Almighty God where life blossoms and love enters the hearts of His lost children. Just a group of folks that see the goodness in being a nobody. Whether that be with 5,000 people or with 3 people makes no difference as you find Jesus in both places.
I hope to always be in the companionship of nobodies. Where no one cares to have something bigger, better or cooler than anyone else. Where people don’t worry about whether or not we fit in as opposed to just loving people in the way of Jesus. Where we live a life that constantly gathers people to become nobodies like us. Always pointing away from ourselves to Jesus and allowing only His ways and His life to make us into the somebody that only He desires.
Being a nobody in the world means you are worthless. Being a nobody in the Kingdom has the opposite effect. Mother Teresa put it like this: “Like Jesus, we belong to the world, living for others and not ourselves.” We associate the word “nobody” with worth value and importance. But giving up yourself into the hands of our Creator and setting aside the weariness of this world and being seen by Him as a precious gift eliminates the need to be somebody because you are forever His. Because you belong to Him forever. Because you are owned by Him forever. No need to be somebody when Love calls you His home.
People fight for themselves out of desperation in order to gain attention and acceptance and to be loved. When we truly realize that God has already fought for us we will begin to value what it means to be a nobody.
That quirky dislocated group of drug addicts and sex addicts that I dwelled with was gathering for companionship and to take care of each other. Although it was for selfish reasons it did contain some elements that the Church gathers for: companionship and to take care of each other. The difference is that the Church is the body of the Giver of Life and so life eternal has begun and the companionship through Him brings about healing and restoration forever.
Being a nobody is freedom in Him because you are His everything.
