Monday 8th Jan 07

Dumpers are used cigarettes that usually have a little bit left on the end, before the filter. If you pick them up and smoke them you run the risk of health issues, but if you are an addicted smoker you may do anything for a drag. One person suggests cutting off half the filter, but then the cigarette will not last long. The best thing to do is get a packet of the little papers to roll your own cigarettes, and then you can gather a few 'dumpers', and tip out the tobacco from their ends, enough to make your own new 'rollie' cigarette. I am glad I am not a smoker; although I don't mind the occasional cigar, and I'm unlikely to find those on the street.

Monday:
Right, first let me withdraw my 'walk everywhere' comment!. My legs were killing me from over 5hrs walking places yesterday. After church, and later chatting at the pub, I had ended up only 15mins walk from my friends flat (that I 'm looking after) and it was late, so I decided to spend the night there.

This morning I got up and found it was not only my legs that were stuffed, so was my motivation. I felt different, disconnected, like the Earth was still turning but I was standing still. I thought about going back into the city, but I couldn't feel bothered. I thought about the people I had met and the relationships I had made, and I felt no loyalty to them. In fact I thought about getting a job again and forgetting about the city, and I didn't feel any reason to go back. Yesterday Angela had said she had noticed how much I had changed from looking grim, from my first week on the streets, to being happy and bright as I walked by then, and I wondered about how quickly things had changed again. I sat down and vegged out for a while.

The key thing was 'I felt...' and that's not the way I like to operate. There are three levels of governence in my mind as to how I like to make decisions. At the bottom is Emotion. It can be fun to do things that make you happy, but it's not always in your best interest, and so at times I need to overrule my emotions with Logic. Logic, or common sense, is how most people operate, and when it makes us happy, then great. But sometimes I need to overrule my emotion and logic by making a Spiritual decision. This is the top box I want ticked in my decision-making process. It is also the hardest to decide on sometimes. When it goes against logic and emotion it usually means a big risk, but it's great when all three are in alignment. In this case I felt like giving up, and logically it didn't seem to matter either way. I had experienced a lot and could change directions, but there were also still things I wanted to check out. Spiritually, though, it didn't feel right to abandon the relationships I had developed, and so I decided to ignore my feelings and continue on. I headed back into the city.

Last week at the food van a couple of older mature gents, Bradly (a happy chatty businessman type) and Tony (a wise cracking blind man with a hat and cane), had invited me to join them for dinner at the Sister's of Mercy (Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity organization) house. It provided dinner and accommodation for the homeless and was re-opening after some time shut for a break. In fact most charities had been closed for a break after Christmas, and food and services had been very scarce, leading to shortages, but just enough had remained open for people to survive. I was surprised to learn the Sisters offered free accommodation for up to two weeks for those in need. I didn't think free accommodation was offered anywhere, and Bradly was wanting to talk to the Sisters about arranging for me to stay there a while, but I declined and talked him out of it. I had alternatives to the street if I wanted them, for now.

I was greeted by a Sister at the door, and was welcomed as she asked me my name. Lining up I was soon passed a plate of chicken, ham, vegetables and salad, then also a bowl of fruit salad and ice cream, before I sat down with Bradly and Tony. There were about 50 people there, and I was impressed with the food. At the other charities the diet was very unbalanced and I always wondered where you could get vegetables; well this was one place that covered every base, the advantage of the food being cooked on the premises. There was a fair bit of Catholic decorations and messages on the walls, but that was fair enough as we might as well have been eating in a Convent. Soon I was in a discussion about Orthodox Christianity of the Ethiopians when a knowledgeable Russian gentleman joined in. I am always amazed at what interesting and varied things people in this community know, and are able to discuss in greater detail than what I have experienced before.

After dinner I spent some time wandering around reading the messages and information on the walls. A Sister came up and asked me, by name, if I needed help with anything. I replied that I was fine and just reading some of their material. As I later left she waved goodbye through the screen door and said, "You're welcome back anytime, John." Just outside another street man, Angus, noted the '24hr Church' motto on the back of my top and told me how there was a group of people in Launceston that were starting a permanent 24hr prayer vigil in a lighthouse tower on the coast. It was good to know other people shared similar visions.

As I walked back to towards the city I thought about how I had felt disconnected from things all day. Then I thought about the kindness of the Sisters and suddenly I was overcome with emotion and started to tear up, and shortly had to sit down. It was the simplicity of the Sisters that hit me. They were the living representation of Kindness, Generosity and Love, and nothing else. In my lead up to this walk, I had tried to empty out the things of my life and of the world that were not of God but I hadn't achieved it completely. I still am interested in certain TV shows, movies, foods, comforts and have negative attitudes to some things that I am trying to overcome. But here were these ladies that seemed to have none of that, just a simple love for me, for us. A love that seemed like a small selfless offering in an outstretched hand, but was also greater than the tallest mountain. A mountain of love that I now felt the weight of pressing against my very soul. I continued to sit, and breathe, for a while.

Back down Flinders St, near Elizabeth St, feeling re-motivated, I came across Goaty. I had not seen him since Christmas Day. He waved as I approached and I saw his face was scarred and swollen and there were big chunks missing from his lips. He told me he had been bashed up by three drunk guys in North Balwyn yesterday. They had mistaken him for someone else. I sat and listened and he kept saying, "You've got to go through Hell to get to Heaven, and this is Hell." We talked a bit about God and then he started crying. He said that there had been no-one to talk to today and that being able to talk to me about the situation had made him feel better. We had a hug and again I started to tear up a bit myself. He said he hoped we would see each other in Heaven and he would keep trying to be a good person, even though it was so hard. We sat and talked as he gathered a few dumpers to make a rollie. I thought about how I had just been moved by the gift of Christian love and care shown by another, and now someone else had just received and been moved by that same gift from me. After the way I started the day, I was convinced God was acting and revealing something of himself.

Later, Goaty said he wanted to show me his Bible, and took out a book called 'The Sword of the Lord', a 1909 publication by Joseph Hocking, and he asked me to read from it. Opening it up I saw that it was written in old English, like a King James version of the Bible. I began to read and discovered the story discussed many big theological issues such as the nature of conversion and grace. I translated the text into modern English as I read it out loud. As I read a paragraph, Goaty amazingly was able to gather the nature of the point in discussion and then would say something like, "Oh yes that's the bit where..." and directly correlate the discussion to the relevant bit of the 'real' Bible where the same topic was discussed. And he had a good understanding of the issues. I didn't have the heart to tell him the book was not a Bible, and so I kept reading and we kept discussing Christian theology as we went along. We ended up sitting and talking all evening. Goaty repeated himself a fair bit, but I didn't mind as my only goal was to sit patiently and be his friend, and it was good to talk about Christianity, even if it was a bit repetitive.

Tuesday 12:05am
Just after midnight Goaty wanted me to join him hunting through bins. I had seen others looking in bins over the last few weeks, and thought, "That's one thing I won't be doing..." and yet off we went. Now my eye sight isn't the best in the dark, on account of my not bringing my glasses on the FW, and so I was content for Goaty to peer into them and pick up a few dumpers from the edge. I wondered just what people hoped to find in the bins? There was no need to anyone to be desperate enough to eat thrown out food scraps, as they might be in other countries without the support services we had here, so I was interested to see what Goaty was excited about when he pulled out a garbage bag from one bin. He open the bag up and inside pulled out three bottles of pineapple juice. He gave me two and kept one for himself. I checked the seal and it was unbroken, and I checked the use-by date and saw that it had expired a week ago. Ok. So it seems there are some shops that throw out expired packaged food and drink. I can see the value of that for a street person, but although with a wash there would be no health issue drinking the juice, I was unable to overcome the psychological rejection of the juice because of where it had come from, and so I threw them into another bin later in the night when Goaty was not looking.

Down another alley we hit the big dumpster bins. Most of these were padlocked, probably to stop people like us pilfering through them, and tossing stuff on the ground. In one open bin we found a packet of unused bon-bons. There was another dumpster I found where the padlock had not been closed, jackpot. First up I got a good tennis ball, and then we found the rest of the bin was filled with new luggage that had tags on them saying 'faulty'. And just to make sure no-one could use them, all the bags had been slashed with gaping holes in them. I guess that was so no-one could take a bag from the tip and claim/scam it was faulty and exchange it for a brand new one at the shop later. Anyway we found one good bag that was not slashed and had wheels and and extension handle. Goaty was pleased he had been carrying round two heavy bags on his shoulder and now transferred his stuff to the wheel bag, and was able to pull it along, which he said made a big difference to him. Then we went and sat down in the street and pulled the bon-bons, and to his perplexion I won all six tugs and got a nice little assortment of things, a pen and a rubber ball, while I read out the included jokes, like, 'Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one...'

On our way back to the Steps, we met another man who asked us for some change. I didn't have any and Goaty said he wouldn't have given him any even if he had some, as he knew the guy was a heroin addict, but he was very friendly to him anyway. When we got to FSS I saw the time was 2am and Kathy was standing there. She had missed the last train out of the city (a lot of people seem to do that) so we stopped to talk. She was too afraid to go into the city and so we all went into the station and headed down the back where it was bright and empty, except for two other guys sleeping against the wall nearby. We all sat down and chatted as I got out the tennis ball and we proceeded to bounce it around between each other in a big triangle. At one time it bounced into Goaty's broken face, which he was quite unhappy about, and so I made sure I bounced it away on an angle after that.

Around 4am Kathy fell asleep, so I lay down to sleep as well, but kept one eye open. Thinking we were both asleep Goaty got up and moved over to the other two sleeping men and peered down at them, then he crouched down and shook them saying, "Are you guys alright?" to which they didn't respond so he walked away out of the station. It was a little strange and I felt I didn't quite trust him, so I stayed awake a while longer. Kathy stopped snoring and got up and said, "Is he gone? I wasn't asleep, he is a bit two faced you know..." and then she left the area as well. I think there might be a little bit different side to some of these people when they are not under the watchful eye of others. It's probably a true statement for all of us. Ten minutes later I got up and headed off to my arcade spot. I saw Kathy walking back the other way towards the station again, but she didn't acknowledge me when I smiled at her and so I kept walking. I wondered if she might have just gone to the toilet and was heading back to the light safer area, and whether I should have gone back with her for the 'safety in numbers thing' for her. But she hadn't said anything and I guess that sort of situation is what she and others must have to deal with all the time, so I let her be, and went and had a nap, in my safe spot.