When I left the market research position in the summer of 1984 I devoted all my time and energy to street ministry and writing my novel. Survival was precious and very difficult. Even though I quit my job under doctor's orders (stress and a strained larynx) the good people at welfare and at Unemployment Insurance were being royal douche bags and I ran several months unable to pay my rent on time. I bought and ate very carefully on one of the strictest budgets I had ever devised. Money arrived for me in the mail, four times in the course of two or three months. One hundred dollars three times and sixty dollars once. I did not know from whom the money came. On each envelope was written my name, but nothing else, always in a different hand. There was no stamp or postmark and certainly no return address. Everyone I knew firmly denied having anything to do with it. God provided. This was particularly amazing for my neighbour upstairs who as well as being my friend was also my acting landlady. She conceded that there was little doubt that God was seeing to my needs.
The novel was itself a huge undertaking such as I had never embarked on before. It has since been extensively revised and rewritten and it can now be read and, hopefully, enjoyed in serialized form on this blog, under the title "Thirteen Crucifixions."
I continued with daily mass. The free breakfast with clergy every day helped soften my food budget. I sold a few batiks to various interested friends, all with bird themes, of course. I really tried to channel God's love as faithfully as I could. I was becoming something of a legend in the local gay clubs, as one who neither partook in the lifestyle nor preached against it nor judged those who were in it but sought to be a presence of supportive love to any who would receive me. I developed some deep friendships there. Others feared and ridiculed me. And there were still those who looked at me from a safe distance, almost reaching out, but fearing that the holy flame they would touch would also burn them. I had been told many times that I carried a sacred presence that both attracted and scared the bejesus out of people.
It was all too intense and I often feared for my mental health. Somehow I stayed grounded but this was taking a toll on my health. My fault because I didn't know when to stay still. I did go to a monastery in the Fraser Valley twice a year for a budget retreat. Even though I wasn't Catholic I was welcome there and these times away I found helpful.
In November I got very sick for a few days. This wasn't flu, but exhaustion. In March I resumed my career in home support, this time under the auspices of the social services agency from Snooty Church. The work was intense and demanding as I cleaned crumbling single room occupancies, befriended lonely old men and offered support to clients bedevilled by any variety of addictions and mental health disturbances. It was an endless battle with filth and cockroaches. I still recall fondly when I was orienting a student worker. She was a nicely turned out working class matron wearing inadequate shoes, in her case, open toed high heels. We visited the hotel room of one of our clients. I was giving her a discursive talk about the various unpleasant surprises that we run across in this kind of work, among other things, (here I opened the oven door showing a teaming cockroach colony). Oh, the look on her face!
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