Rescue Thee, Rescue Me

I discovered Lana Del Rey at a time when my heart needed a safe place to hide.  I had run until my blistered toes could take no more.  Now, I needed another release.  At the last mile of my 17-mile Sunday run, her song “Young and Beautiful” randomly found its way onto my Pandora station that was certainly not meant for her.  I took this as a sign that she and I were meant to work through a few things together.  Her songs are as intense and as hauntingly beautiful as she.  It’s poetry put to harmony – lyrics so raw that her suffering becomes your own.  In her ten-minute song called, “Ride,” Lana breathes these words at the end:

“I believe in the person I want to become. I believe in the freedom of the open road. And my motto is the same as ever:  I believe in the kindness of strangers. And when I’m at war with myself I ride, I just ride.”

She rides, I run.  Our connection was clear.  And, I was mesmerized by her.  For days, her

And when I’m at war with myself I ride, I just ride.

music flowed through my speakers and my headphones, and with each artful phrase and melody, I slowly emerged from my emotional hiding place.  But, it took less than a week to realize just why I had found Lana Del Rey exactly when I found her.  My suffering became infinitely less important as I stand at the front of the lunch line at the Denver Rescue Mission waiting for the first shift of homeless to come through the door.

I came to the Denver Rescue Mission with my selfish head spinning with selfish thoughts about my own sad and difficult life.  I convinced myself that the busyness of doing something for someone else would quiet things. But as soon as I stepped in the door, I was disgusted with myself.  “My sad and difficult life?”  Oh, you are pathetic.  No, I’m changing my mind about this.  Today I’m going to be Lana Del Rey.

Without knowing exactly how, I am going to change one thing for one person.  I want just one person who walks through this door to feel loved.  To feel God’s Grace and to be comforted by the kindness of strangers.  To leave with a full belly and fuller heart.  Only God knew just what would happen next, but as I’m holding out my first lunch tray, I remember Lana’s words:

“When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I’d been living, they asked me why – but there’s no use in talking to people who have a home.  They have no idea what it’s like to seek safety in other people – for home to be wherever you lay your head.”

They slowly walk in, heads down in seemingly silent prayer.  With layers of mismatched and dirty clothing, they glance away as they see the line of food trays before them.  Oh God, I think, these people could have been you, or me, or my child, or my mom.  They are someone’s children – children who had lost their way in adulthood.  Maybe they lost their job.  Depression strangled whatever they had left.  Maybe drugs were their only comfort from all the judges in this cynical world.  Maybe they gave up because they were given up on. All I know is that they have no home and nowhere to lay their head.

But on this day, they are not going to be the invisible people we walk past on our way to the ballgame or the theater.  They will be seen. I know that if I can make eye contact – the way I do with my Asperger’s child Jack – we can connect.  “Hello,” I say as I find each person’s eyes.  Some are vacant, but some brighten.  Some say “Hello” back and some say “Thank you.”  After the first dozen people come through, an elderly man with a cane takes the tray from my hands and says, “Thank you little one.  God bless you.”  He smiles.  And it’s genuine.  Oh, what the power of a smile can do for our hearts.

After that, more and more of the men and women look at me.  They look into my eyes and try to connect.  I look back and tell them that I hope things get better for them – even if they see it only in the form of an extra-big piece of pie or a second helping.  When I quietly say goodbye with a light touch on the arm, I see a little more life even in the eyes of some of the very lifeless.  Like Lana Del Rey, I believe in the kindness of strangers.  You see, it was the kindness of these strangers that saved me from myself today and gave me yet another glimpse of God’s Grace.