Emotional up and downswings caused by relational conflicts or life disappointments are magnified by the struggles of living outside in the sweaty heat, freezing cold, or soaking rain. Add mental illness and addiction and the fight to hold on to hope is desperate. Finding joy is a treasure.

From day to day, I never know who will show up or how many. Some days it’s a dozen. Other days 25 people gather to eat and connect. We check in on each other, notice who we haven’t seen in a few days, offer encouragement, and eat yummy food.

As Brandon eats his chicken noodle soup, we put a hat on his head. Someone hands him a pair of those warm socks, and the new guy wraps a warm blanket around his shoulders. Snot drips from Brandon’s long nose. 

(Excerpt from Beloved Chaos. “Chuck” died in his sleep on the back porch of Joe’s Addiction on May 24th, 2019. He died at home.)

The difference between this young man’s life and Drew Barrymore's in “50 First Dates,” is he has no supportive family to lovingly help him through each day. His father died years ago. His mother is an addict, who is suffering a long, slow, terminal illness.

A couple of minutes later, a Love Gang guy came to me and said, “I’m going out there. She just looked through the window with that ‘Rescue me’ look in her eye.”

They told him to load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and to empty them when they finished washing. Chuck is a bit OCD, and it bothered him that sometimes dishes came out with cooked-on-crusties.