Armodoxy for Today: Advent, the Solstice and Homelessness

We’ve arrived at the Winter Solstice: The shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Winter Solstice is a day I personally celebrate every year, for a variety of reasons, chief among them is the festive nature of the day. It signals the beginning of Winter and lengthening of days and the beginning of the Christmas Celebrations. I am also intrigued by the movements of our planet around the Sun, the precision under which these astronomical bodies dance in the sky.

This year, the celebration was overshadowed by an invitation I received to offer the opening prayer at the Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service. If this is the shortest day of the year, it follows that this is also the longest night of the year, and so appropriately, this evening is an opportunity to focus on the severe problem of homelessness. This past year over 2,000 unhoused individuals died on the streets. Throughout the country memorials are being held to commemorate the lives of those who otherwise would not be remembered anywhere else.

We assembled in a sanctuary space of the local cemetery in Glendale, California. I was with friends from Ascencia where we have had the privilege of feeding their homeless clients for the last two decades. Ascencia’s motto is simple: Lifting people out of homelessness. They had organized this gathering, as local component of the larger National commemoration.  We were honored to be invited.

We provide meals at Ascencia in the Armenian tradition of matakh – as an offering of thanksgiving for blessings. We do so because we feel the homeless do not need sympathy, they need empathy, that is we need to be empathetic in our response to their call. These people who we fed were our neighbors. They were our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and children. As an Armenian, my grandparents were homeless – exiled from Armenia during the Genocide. So standing in their shoes is not merely a metaphor but an understanding that these are our family and in turn, we offer them a glimpse at their children, to know there is hope beyond the trappings of the day.

As so, at the service we remembered those who passed by name, Carla Baird, Michael Blazen, Patricia Doe, Adam Holling, Daniel Lima, Vartan Marootian, Arturo Villegas Palomo, Hilario Rodriguez, Nicole Rodriguez, Jose Vera Sarmiento, Walter Smith and Phillip Steele, all whose lives ended on the streets of Glendale. I mention their names, because it’s too easy to clump them together as a group. They had names, personalities, parents and family.

At the memorial we were joined by a few government officials. Not everyone wants to attend an event where votes may not be gathered, but those who attended joined the chorus in a pledge against homelessness, including Senator Sasha Perez, who reflected in an emotional expression remembering family members who had succumbed to homelessness.

On this night we pray, Heavenly Father, at this holy season as we remember the birth of Your Son, who was betrayed to homelessness on the night of the Nativity, open our ears to listen carefully to the call of the angels who proclaimed the reason and purpose of our faith: Peace on Earth and Good will toward one another. May we never walk away from that calling. Let us become those instruments of peace and goodwill by extending ourselves to one another, in service, sacrifice and sharing of our resources and talents. Amen.