Remember Fitz
LETTER FROM FITZ - 1985​​
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XMAS ‘85
Greetings from the Valley of the Sun, which is justifying its nickname today. It's been a busy day. "Our people", the residents of the city's outdoor shelter, were all evicted at 6:00 this morning, so the city could bulldoze their makeshift lean-tos. We brought coffee and donuts to a nearby park and had breakfast with them. But now it is afternoon, and after resisting for several weeks, I have finally succumbed and am listening to Christmas carols. Leontyne Price's recording of "Sweet Lil Jesus" is melting my heart and misting my eyes. It is time to wish you a blessed Christmas from this hopelessly sentimental romantic who is, in Paul Simon's immortal words, "still crazy after all these years."
I can't begin to tell you all that has happened since we last celebrated Christ's birthday. The enclosed article from The Gazette will supply some of that news. The statistics are staggering: 2,190 overnight lodgings for guests at Andre House; 2,438 meals served here; and at the outdoor shelter alongside the railroad yards, 40,858 evening meals served!
None of this could have happened, of course, without the help of so many generous and caring people. So many of you have been partners in our ministry by your financial support, by your volunteer energies, and, perhaps most significantly, by your prayerful encouragement.
There have been moments when I felt jeopardy, threatened by the darkness
about to overwhelm. So much pain and hurt, so much isolation and estrangement! There have been times when I was blind with outrage at the system which allows, at times even forces, such things to happen to people. But then, like the annual miracle of Christmas, there would be a burst of penetrating light to scatter the darkness. One night during the soup line, when more than 500 people had already been fed, we reached that awful moment when the ladle scrapes the bottom to salvage a final bowl. There was a thin, gaunt young
man in front of us, who smiled with relief when he realized he would get something to eat. When we announced there was no more, the next one in line, an aged, palsied man, began whimpering in confusion and distress. The younger man turned, saw the old man's pain and gently placed his bowl in those shaking, grateful hands. And once more, for a brief, shining moment, I saw, through tearful eyes, light scatter the darkness. Once again God's love had taken human flesh and blood, and words like tenderness and mercy had new meaning.
For a splendid, sacramental moment, God was no longer "out there someplace", but right here and now: EMMANUEL! (Wonderful incarnations need not wait for countdowns of shopping days.)
May you be touched by the finger of God this holy season.
May you be bathed in that light which the darkness has never managed to overcome. May you, too, in your laughter and your tears, stay "crazy after all these years."
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