The first year I lived in Salt Lake City, our apartment was within walking distance of a park which, every Saturday morning from June to October, would be transformed into a spectacular farmers’ market. Interspersed between the rows and rows of fresh produce were local artists, musicians, and food trucks galore. It became a ritual of mine to meander around the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings after Mass. I rarely bought anything, but I loved to experience the variety of humanity. To me, as an introvert, there is something peculiarly life-giving about walking around a place full of people by myself.
Local pastries, honeys, kale, pluots, flowers, coffee, soaps, art, music—a veritable cornucopia of delights to the senses. Everything felt fresh and alive. Smells, sights, and sounds—all seemed orchestrated to be pleasing. People from all walks of life were there—families with little kids, young adults, old adults, farmers, city people, hippies, and hipsters. It was a microcosm of the pleasant parts of the city. I liked to wonder how it would feel to be a person carrying their cute, reusable bags to the market each week, buying local produce, cooking healthy things, composting, growing herbs in their kitchen….
Even more remarkable than the farmers’ market was the incredible transformation of the park. This neighborhood was on the edge of the gentrified area of Salt Lake City, home to a number of the homeless shelters. At any other time than the farmers’ market, this park is not a place that I would walk unaccompanied. It had earned the nickname of “wino park” because of the usual crowd of homeless people, some of whom drank. In fact, it’s one of the most concentrated areas of crime in the entire city—not so much because of the homeless people committing crimes, but because of criminals who prey on the homeless. Drug deals, violence, theft, and harassment are common activities there.
Astounding, then, the transformation to this clean, well-organized, respectable community event, at which people could support local business and be environmentally conscious.
I had never seen people setting up for the farmers’ market, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the process was like. Were the homeless people asked to leave? Were they physically forced? Did they just prefer to leave at a certain time, understanding that their presence wasn’t welcome?
However it happened, they didn’t go far. In looking for a parking spot, I would sometimes drive around the other side of a nearby complex of buildings, just out of sight of the market, and would find myself faced with a long line of homeless people. They were sitting on the sidewalks, stretching out for blocks and blocks and blocks. All of these people camped out, surrounded by their earthly possessions looked a bit like how I imagine a refugee camp.
Occasionally, there would be one or two homeless people who would dare to sit close to the market, even asking for food or money. The contrast was striking: a hungry person begging while surrounded by an abundance of healthy, inexpensive produce. It was clear that this was not produce for the poor but for the privileged. Sensing this disconnect beneath the clean, friendly façade bothered me. This simple, healthy living was cosmetic. The perfect, wholesome, integrated life that had seemed so attractive now seemed so empty, distasteful, and fake.
I know this tendency in myself, this tendency to push aside the more unpleasant social problems in order to live as I please. If I make a certain lifestyle my idol, does it prevent me from seeing the Christ in front of me? Do I dismiss the way Christ is really and truly incarnate before me in order to pursue a politically correct, pleasing, clean-living ideal exterior? Do I dismiss the hungry, thirsty, needy parts of others or myself, out of a desire to falsely idealize them, to deal only with the “civilized” parts—seeing only what I want to see? Do I refuse to see Christ in my brother and sister, when my brother or sister needs a bath, or a listening ear, or a handout? Do I reject the God who cried out “I thirst” in favor of the god of pleasant chance-acquaintances, small-talk, sound bites, pious, clean exteriors, and assumed privilege?
Yes, we would like to pretend we are “there” already, in our perfect utopia—that there is no more work to be done. And yes, the poor will always be with us, and to be confronted with them will disturb our sense of complacency, our guiltless self-indulgence. But if we pretend that they are not here—that there is not more work to be done—then we are deceiving ourselves and making sure that our illusion of the ideal life is just that—an illusion. And it will always be an illusion based on a self-serving lie, one with a desperate need to shut out the suffering Christ who is begging for our love. Don’t look away.
“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’” - Luke 17:20-21
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