Sitting in an urban back alley, the door of my late grandpa's 20-year-old sedan (the license plate of which may become my permanent address) propped open so I can smoke and absorb some unseasonable February sunshine, I am the unwitting eavesdropper to an intense conversation a few yards away.  A trio of men sitting with their backs to the alley fence, waiting for their daily bread at the Mission Kitchen (butter-slathered garlic bread today--I eat here too, and previewed tonight's fare when I stopped in the kitchen to kiss my husband), have peeled off their parkas, piling them atop the backpacks in which they lug their lives around town.  They still sport several layers each--grubby jeans, Tshirt under Mexican sweater under denim jacket, worn shoes & Harley headband--and might strike the uninitiated as being empty of meaningful conversation.  Not so--I am treated, while I smoke, to a spiritual discussion of the nature of God, His Will in their lives, and comparative readings on the subject.  They don't talk like professors; they're using street vocabulary, and they talk of reality and experience rather than theory or "schools" of thought.


I used to dislike New Testament pronouncements of precarious spiritual prognoses for the rich (I wanted to keep my comforts--and get that ticket to heaven too!) but I revisit them now.  In my more comfortable previous life, "God" was a topic for Sunday sermon (if I bothered to attend) and not an acknowledged aspect of everyday living; I didn't feel an urgent sense of needing God's care, and I didn't invite him into my life.  Out here, God is intensely personal, truly a matter of life--both of continuing life, and of finding Meaning in a living stripped to its basics.  People out here know God, talk with him, talk about him.  (In contrast, imagine the repercussions if I had ever launched the topic of "God's Plans" during a business luncheon!  God is a suspect topic in some of the more comfortable segments of our society...)


We aren't religious fanatics out here--in fact, few of us claim religion as it's usually defined by creed or church membership.  But God lives with us out here.  Yes, He lives with everyone--but we are in the amazing position of being aware of it.