The Afternoon of Life

  Tonight I met Jesus when Dan and I fed and housed maybe the first truly homeless man I’ve ever met.   I’ve always tried to feed the hungry when I could.   We’ve opened our home to those who had no place to stay for short periods of time.   But we always knew there was hope for housing for anyone who stayed with us. Tonight I met a new Daniel.   There’s so much I learned about him during our brief encounter with him.   In any other time, he would be housed in a home for the mentally ill.   His whole life has been troubled…on psychiatric drugs as a child…on Social Security disability only if he stayed on his prescribed drugs…drugs he said did nothing but make him confused and disabled.   He truly doesn’t understand that he suffers from mental illness. He has an "invisible" friend (or is hallucinating).    He wants to be “accepted”.   He wants to work and take care of a house and be left alone by a world of people he feels are out to just destroy him and make life and living