Inspiring Chaos (it's not what you think)

I’ve been at St. Vincent de Paul for three months now. Those three months have flown by for me. I think that it is the busyness of my schedule that keeps me unaware of the time throughout the day. My day is not measured in hours but measured in the number of people I meet. Very rarely do I come across a day saying “I wish this day wasn’t taking so long” in fact it usually just the opposite, I wish I had more time. Between the number of programs we offer here and the shear volume of clients we serve it keeps the days short. The only other job I’ve had that experience in was at a summer camp I used to work at with 15 college employees and 90 teenage kids. The same whirlwind atmosphere of 50 kids playing dodge ball is surprisingly similar to the in and out of hundreds of faces a day at St. Vincent’s. It’s an organized chaos. Sometimes it’s hekka confusing (see Oakland is rubbing off on me), when trying to keep track of Ms. Jones homeless court application, planning an outreach meeting, getting cookies for the kids in the visitation center, and trying to eat lunch. But there is a quote that my roommate Julia told me, (*brownie points*) that says that “confusion is a state of grace”. Never have I seen that more true then at St. Vincent’s.
One striking example of this grace that seems to be present at St. Vincent’s showed itself today. The public defender was doing intakes for homeless court here at St. Vincent’s. There were about 20 clients or so waiting to see her, and it took about 10 minutes to see each person. So the people towards the end of the list ended up waiting for about 2 hours, and for anyone who hasn’t been into the community center at St. Vincent’s there are no coffee tables with magazines on them. The only thing to keep people occupied is talking to the person next to them or people watching at the front door. So it was a long wait. As the people were finishing up seeing the public defender I had to run off and meet with another client. I asked one of my co-workers to watch the list and call off the names of the people who still hadn’t seen the public defender. To make a long story short one of my clients was missed in the fray of whirlwind activity in the community center and ended up missing out on his meeting with the public defender. I was in a panic because this guy had been waiting for so long for his meeting and missed it. I wanted to make sure he “had his day in court”. I told him he missed the meeting and all he said to me was “OK. No problem. I’ll try for next month.” I was floored and humbled.
See I pride myself on my patience. Being the oldest of 5 and having worked with kids for the last 6 summers I have developed a very patient personality. But it definitely gets tested from time to time and with the busyness that was going on today I was definitely reaching my limit. But this one act of calm collected patience, by a man who is 19 by the way, made my day go from chaotic and confused to absolutely positive that God is present here. Thank you Yosseph. If you spend enough time here you will see what I’m talking about its all around you just have to notice it. And it’s not always perfect here by any means but those times when you catch the Devine at work, are worth all those trivial matters that might be annoying you during the day. That’s it for this entry.

Mike