Chris never stays long - just long enough...

I saw him leaving on the Close Circuit TV monitor as I was putting my bag in the office. I had arrived late - as usual! - to the drop in at Faith House. As I slipped the rucksack off my back I saw him look vaguely in the direction of the security camera and then disappear in the the evening streets of Kings Cross. Chris never stays long - just long enough for us all to see and acknowledge his life.

It was good to see him. Chris had not been seen at FH for most of the summer and we were getting worried. Phone calls had been made to hospitals, fearing the worst, the next stage was to make contact with the morgues. Chris is clearly very ill, it doesn't take much imagination to think that he is HIV+, for weeks we had seen him deteriorate. So his complete disappearance was a concern for us all.

I came up into the kitchen "heh ... was that Chris I just saw leaving...?"

The joy and celebration in the eyes of the other workers and volunteers was tangible. "It certainly was .... Chris is back!"

Comments

Anonymous said…
hey Gordon,
I have always felt like the others that the first visit is great but when people return to FH we have done something correctly!!!
3:10 AM
Blogger Vince said…
but how long is "long enough" do you have any guage?

www.thedisciplers.com
www.lighthouseresource.blogspot.com
2:40 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit of sally bashing....

Came across a good bit of Sally bashing over at salvationsoldiers I have to say we try and make sure that everything we raise goes into projects that build local community in Poplar but hopefully if you read this blog you get that sense anyway.
Read more

Types of Christian Spirituality...

Image
It is easy to think and to limit ourselves to a single approach to Christian spirituality. A 'if it works for me it should work for you approach' tends to narrow our appreciation of other ways which actually impoverishes our experience of spirituality. Urban T. Holmes has developed a means of exploring spirituality and helps develop an appreciation through discovering links between spirituality, temperament and predisposition. The diagram illustrates his ideas together with potential inherent dangers. The vertical continuum speaks and helps us understand our relational orientation to God. This ranges from engaging with God through understanding and theological process to a more emotive response. Horizontally speaks of a persons preferred means of pursuing the spiritual life. Kataphtic speaks of affirmation and the need of something tangible in an individuals spirituality- this may take the form of worship, art, even imagination with the use of metaphors, symbols and images play
Read more

Lost Voices of Mission...Fred Brown

Image
Along the world famous Oxford street in London's Westend; nestled in among the classy frontage of designer shops there is almost an unnoticeable, unimpressive wooden door. It is more or less alongside The Regent Hall's main entrance onto the busyness of Oxford Street. People pass the wooden door oblivious to the equally unimpressive wooden steps that go up three storey's to what was Regent Hall's youth club. When I was 10 I played on these bare wooden steps totally unaware of the significance behind and upon which I played. Many years later I discovered a university youth work course - as an induction to Youth Work - stopped outside this insignificant wooden door to point out that Youth Work as we know it in the UK started behind this door. ...whether that be the surbanite flower people that flooded the Westend to express their free love; or the hard core drug community this unimpressive wooden door became the 'portal' that blurred encounter between church an
Read more