Yesterday I get out of weekday mass at Leeds cathedral.
It's about 6pm and my head is spinning full of grand theories about our lives should be living sacrifices, permanent outpourings of love in endless unspeakable gratitude. That like the seraphims, we would cover our eyes and find ourselves unable to do anything else than shout "Holy" all the time, except it wouldn't be a vocal "shout", it would be our lives doing the shouting.
I should really give up those funny-smelling cigarettes at some point...
But it being Leeds we're talking about, you can't walk around with your head full of that stuff without being woken up by the poverty and destitution right under your nose, most of which you can't fix durably on your own. If you're lucky it won't be right opposite the cathedral by the entrance of the holy cards shop whith a guy shivering in the winter rain, a rosary round his neck.
I end up giving a couple of quids to a guy who's begging on the pavement (next to a busy cash machine) and asking whether he would like to come up for a pint with me. I hate it that it's me having to take the initative, talk of dodgy subject positions... But it's that or walking past, so I choose that.
He says: "I can't come to the pub, not in those clothes, they're grubby and all, I can't come out to the pub with those clothes and I love pints, but I'm trying you know, not to, I can't I really can't". I'm worried about his sleeping arrangements so I ask: Where do you sleep? He says in the passages under the train station. I ask if there's anything I can do for him. He replies: "You're alright love, unless you could like put me up, you're alright". I said I don't really live here, but 200 miles further North on the train and I slip him a couple more coins.
Lame, as ususal.
With cognitive dissonance of this magnitude I think I'm going to end up banging my head on the walls of an asylum sometime soon. But I can't give up my theologising without feeling like jumping in a river. So I keep the theologising, and the cognitive dissonance stays too. It's the mental health that's going...
Funny that "clothes" thing thought. I'd walk into a pub with smelly Glastonbury clothes without thinking twice about it, I know they don't care. I think about puting Tony (not his real name) up in a hotel, but I'm not sure that's helpful given I can't really afford more than one or two nights.
I walk to M&S to see of I can get clothes, but the shop is closed. So I walk into a supermarket to get some cool food (not all of it is what I would get for myself, but I rely on my past observations to get warm pasties, Mars bars and the like). I know full well that Mark might very well have walked away but I don't care.
And yes, it's nighttime and he's walked off...
Fine with me, I walk towards the station to catch my train and at some point I stop right in track to daydream for a minute or so. I do that quite a lot, I just stand there and think, trying to catch the next idea before it escapes. I look up and half a yard from my face on that really busy street is Mark waiting at the same crossing I'm at. It takes me a couple of seconds to realise and then I say: "Hey, I've sort of bought that stuff for you. I've written my phone number on the receipt, but you'd walked off and I'd given up and now the receipt is all crumpled but you can still read it if you want". He has a quick look and seems to like the stuff.
I ask what's the plan now? What are you up to tonight? He says well I've got this place, it's a hotel, they keep my stuff all the time but they only let me stay there when I can pay twenty pounds. I say, If you only need twenty pounds that's really easy, I can give you that.
Mark is delirious with joy and can't stop saying "you are good, you are beautiful, you are so good, after the day I've had, you are so good, you are good" and he hugs me for ages. I protest that I'm not good, and that he would do the same. "It's true I would do the same, I would, I would".
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