Bread and Roses

My food status improved dramatically when some homeless guys clued me in to a free meal that some kind Christian folks dish up in Palisades Park every Sunday afternoon, rain or shine. Pastor Paul preaches a 30-45 minute sermon and then they serve us a huge meal and load us up with extras to keep us going for a while. The meal is usually the same: some kind of pasta dish, salad, a slice of pizza, potato chips, a fruit drink, and sometimes yogurt, fruit, or crackers. Then in addition to all this, we get to select up to four muffins and four donuts! Woohoo! They call it the "Church of the Open Air", which is so very similar to my "Church Not Made with Hands" entry.....except I'm pretty sure they would still think that I'm going to Hell. Ahh, us pantheists get it from all sides.

I went to St. Joseph's homeless services center in Venice to speak with a social worker about my upcoming court date for my trespassing citation. He gave me some bus tokens so that I could get to the court. (It's down by LAX airport, about seven miles from where I got the ticket.) He also wrote me a nice letter to the court, requesting that I get community service rather than a fine or jail.

St. Joseph's offers a lot of services for the homeless, including showers, laundry, clothes giveaways, phone calls, therapy groups, and myriad individual case management services. I've done my laundry there a few times, but taken only one shower----after the first few people, the hot water runs out. So not only was I taking a cold shower, but then the power went out and I had to finish up in the dark. I've since been taking my showers at the OPCC in Santa Monica. It's a bit crowded and chaotic, but at least the water stays hot.

One of the best programs that St. Joseph's offers is the amazing Bread and Roses Cafe located a few blocks away. This weekday meal program resembles a restaurant and is based on the philosophy of serving the homeless as respectfully as possible. Us homeless people are seated at tables as staff and volunteers act as waiters and waitresses, serving up coffee, juice, milk, a bowl of fruit, sometimes a pastry, and then the main meal, which varies every day and usually includes a main entree, some nice vegetables, and bread. And it is always delicious, because they have a professional chef who is in charge of the preparations. (The place doubles as a culinary school for the homeless too.) The menus have featured lasagne, fajitas, spaghetti, barbequed chicken, shrimp on noodles, and even jambalaya.

The cafe seats 40 people, so they run three meal shifts through the morning, serving 120 people each day. It is especially heartwarming that the volunteers are often children, respectfully and cheerfully serving us our food and drinks. Some future day I want to bring my niece to Bread and Roses so that we can volunteer together and develop our sense of service and humility.
 
Some years ago, the cafe was going to close for lack of funds, but the actor Martin Sheen stepped in and began supporting it out of his own pocket. Apparently there are now a number of other Hollywood stars who funnel support for the cafe through him.
 
The concept of "Bread and Roses" goes back to an old labor union theme that wages should not only provide workers with livelihood ("bread"), but should provide for quality of life issues ("roses") as well. Quantity and quality. There's a great movie called "Bread and Roses" starring Adrien Brody about the plight of low-paid immigrant workers. That might not sound very exciting, but it is actually quite gripping and entertaining, as well as educational.
 
One of the best aspects of the cafe is that the ambience stimulates healthy group socializing over a relaxed meal. I've had some great conversations, some of which have been quite educational. I've learned about body-building, aircraft carriers, racial tensions in Hawaii, The Venice music scene, and even the real reason President Kennedy was assassinated.
 
One fellow who calls himself "the Messiah" (not to be confused with the God I found at the homeless shelter) let me know that there are five planets in our atmosphere looking after the Earth. He then showed me "birth marks" on his body that supposedly matched all the constellations. (Luckily, he didn't try to show the ones that weren't readily accessible.) But he was a pretty freckly Savior, so he could have connected the dots in the likenesses of the Spice Girls too, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that matter. And I must admit, while he was pointing out all of the celestial symbols on his body, I had to repress a very juvenile part of me that wanted to ask him, "Where's Uranus?"

If he is the Second Coming, I could be in trouble.
 

"The government killed JFK because he let the Russians put missiles in Cuba."
---Charles

"I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers."
---Barry, ex-navy, taking the official line

"We aren't descended from monkeys. Aliens from the planet Xanadu came here 10,000 years ago and seeded the planet with humans."
---the Messiah

"I didn't want to mess with you cuz you look like you know some shit."
---OPCC worker who asked me to move to another area when I was meditating
(My response: "The only shit I know is meditation.....and I don't even know that very well.")

"How about personal liberation then? Cuz I think enlightenment is a bit beyond me."
---me, responding to a social worker's insistence that I need to have goals to receive services (He was not impressed by my goal to be free of goals.)

"If you don't have unconditional love, what are you doing on the planet?"
---Keetoowah, a homeless Native American and self-described "Chief" of the Venice beach people, speaking rhetorically