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for your wounded neighbor
for the oppressed and poor
for your sister and brother
yea, even for Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The Sacraments of Hospitality ˜ 247
Fragile, Do Not Drop, by John Cole Vodicka
N o v e m b e r 1 9 9 4
Shortly after midnight, the wind began whipping through Woodruff Park
in downtown Atlanta. The night suddenly turned colder, and my bones told me
I needed more cover. I crawled into a fairly large cardboard box to shield myself
from the weather and even perhaps to get some sleep.
As I lay in my box, looking through the opening at the city lights all about
me, Asher pulled his box in front of mine. He, too, settled in for the rest of the
night. The backside of Asher’s box now blocked my view of the high-rises. I noticed
that on his box, a packing box normally used by moving companies, were
written these instructions: “This End Up.” “Fragile.” And “Do Not Drop.” I
stared at these words for a few minutes. I thought, “How wonderful. Asher has
found cardboard shelter this night, shelter that comes with instructions to all
who pass by: ‘This end up. Fragile. Do not drop.’ He is safe. This human package
is safe for this night.”
And how ironic. These words on the box, “This End Up,” “Fragile,” and
“Do Not Drop,” were never meant for Asher’s or any other human being’s welfare.
These words were meant for material goods that are to be moved from one
household to another. Goods we consider precious and irreplaceable—expensive
china, priceless kitchenware, glass and porcelain fixtures and ornaments—material
goods we can’t bear to have damaged or destroyed. Yet now this box of
Asher’s, and my own, and no doubt hundreds of boxes throughout Atlanta that
night, were being used as overnight huts and homes by countless numbers of
homeless folk, fragile and broken folk who cry out for justice, whose presence
begs us to recognize them as human beings who need our attention and care.
“This end up.” “Fragile.” “Do not drop.” I stared at these words on Asher’s
cardboard home, thinking that perhaps if God could slap this same label on each
and every one of us—homeless and housed, rich and poor, prisoner and free,