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Kristyn chose not to go to rehab yesterday.
This is possibly the most important part of my message. Yet it is so sketchy in my mind that I barely can understand the message myself, much less try to explain it to other people.
It’s moments like these where we draw conclusions. “We failed.” “She failed.”
For some of us the book will close. The story has been written. “Life sucks. The end. I’m done helping.”
I remember asking you to send positive thoughts to Kristyn last Friday. It was so beautiful. It felt so glorious and powerful. Yet it didn’t work. She didn’t go on Friday and she didn’t go on Monday.
And so many of you sent such lovely gifts. Clothes, boots, toiletries, pens, notebooks. All for nothing.
Or so it seems to some.
I feel that way in moments like these. I like to joke that I’m Akron’s biggest loser. I lost every court case to keep our tent village (I heard that the sheriff, who is charging the Minister for sheltering homeless people in his church referenced our court case for why it is illegal.)
I lost our day center. I lost our house. Friends have died. It’s endless failure.
I wonder if some people think I look insane just showing back up over and over again. “Does that man enjoy hitting his head against a brick wall?” I distinctly remember a very high up fire person, asking me why I keep helping these people.
I certainly don’t enjoy these moments. They send me into very dark places.
So why do I keep doing it? Why will I just show back up today with a smile on my face, legitimately happy to see my homeless friends, and start working on a new project that, by all historical evidence, will likely fail?
If you care to know, the cooky part of me thinks there are outside forces at play. There are light and dark powers cheering us along the paths of their chosen side. I think I believe there are forces that would like to see humanity fail and there are forces that would like to see humanity succeed. I think humanity is cool. It’s crazy. But it’s cool. If we don’t take care of everyone on this boat we call Earth then we will all die and the anti-human forces will win.
But that’s just a myth I’ve concocted to help me keep getting up and doing this work. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.
I believe all people deserve dignity, respect, compassion and love. That’s the pure radical message of Jesus. It’s so extreme and flies in the face of capitalism, our true religion. I love it so much. I will gladly fight to the death for that message.
When you bring hope to the story you are shining a flashlight into a Colosseum of darkness. You are a drop in the bucket. And the thing you set out to do will most likely fail. That’s just the fact of the matter.
But that doesn’t mean you failed entirely.
You have no idea what your small light of hope did. And it’s really none of your business. Your only job is to keep shining the light.
Because people who bring the flashlight of hope are rare. The dark forces want you to quit. They want you to turn off your flashlight and go home. They will show you every rational reason why you should quit.
But they’re wrong. Hope is the answer. Love is the answer.
We all are stupid and mistaken and small minded. And we all are brilliant and beautiful and wonderful. We all are all of that.
That’s why we keep shining our flashlight of hope. We both don’t deserve it and absolutely do deserve it. 
We have no idea what our positive energy brought to the situation. It didn’t do the exact thing we intended it to do. But who knows what it did for other people to see, homeless and non-homeless alike. And who knows what it did for Kristyn. Her story isn’t over. It’s just Tuesday.
Don’t give up. Don’t stop believing. The world and the universe need good people like you.