your tight warm clothing makes you claustrophobic..,.I long to be naked.....

I googled it and it's true, tight clothing, especially around the neck ( like what I was wearing today) can make one claustrophobic. Today, I was dressed tight and warm, I'm riding the # 8 to a clients and the bus is hot and dry while outside is cold and wet. Suddenly my turtle neck super gore-tex under amour long sleeve shirt starts to feel like a straight jacket. The collar feels like a noose. I break in a cold sweat and the shirt is completely soaked with perspiration.  I pass my clients house and head up the hill towards Group Health. I'm start to panic as if I want to rip off all my clothes on the bus to be free. I can't breathe I'm soaking wet I start to panic.

My clothing is constricting because living in the shelter I never take off all my clothes. My body doesn't remember the feeling of naked liberation. Of free falling scrotum. When I arrive at the hospital bus stop and get off the bus the cold outside air rejuvenates me. I can breathe again. Gradually my heart rate slows down. Clear thinking returns so I decide I can go to work after all. I head to my clients house 1 hour behind schedule.

After working with my client I head to Broadway to attend the community lunch 5:30 - 6:30, it's pizza, green beans and spinach salad. Now in a previous post I urged all who attend the community lunch to join APCC because, well, it's more than just a feeding station. We have spiritual food as well. In the post I said we (the community that is), because these good folks believe in economic justice, social equality and white privilege (and I believe they really do) should all join and do like " a Sister Act 4 at APCC".

The reward would be legitimacy and community relevance. The risk is something I observed today during the dinner when I was in the bathroom. Homeless people were shooting drugs in the bathroom.

I asked them to stop. I hope I'm not the homeless rep. I can't explain their behavior. I don't think I'm any better because you've seen me nodding at the bus stop across the street. But the church is a holy and sacred place......but this is why people are excluded and made to not feel welcome....they have dirty problems, problems that put the health and safety of others at risk....... it is this fear that isolates us from the community and the only way to invite the community to join church enthusiastically, we would first need to learn how to confront this.