The Lesson of Our Magic Blanket
Howdy — this week we put an approximately 3200 square foot blanket down at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. No, it wasn’t a Lutheran thing — not at first. But I’ll get to that later.
It all started last June. I’d been asked to speak at a graduation for folks with financial (and other) challenges — about homelessness. These young women had all taken their lives in their own hands and decided things could get better. They made their own graduation caps and stood tall when they accepted their rewards.
Then it was my turn to speak. I was supposed to explain to the audience supporting them that poverty is the one thing that folks can’t overcome alone. These young women could learn to stretch a penny, but they couldn’t learn to forge pennies out of thin air. I saw that my task, my job that night, was to explain how homelessness can happen to anyone. Anyone who is broke that is. Homelessness is caused by poverty. Not drug addiction, not mental illness, not physical and intellectual disabilities. Poverty. Period. I can take you to a house and show you an addict or an injured or ill person — they have homes because they can afford them.
I spoke for about 20 minutes. What can I say? They loved me. Their thoughts already ran in agreement with my own… and I’m a broadcast professional, so public speaking was my job for decades. Plus, I’m the only vice-presidential candidate that works for free and speaks at graduations for the economically disadvantaged (that I know of). So what’s not to love? When my speech ended, one of the young women came up to me and told me that she’d really like to crochet for a living. She loved doing it — and even though battling several physical handicaps that caused pain in her hands and back — she’d like to work on a project.
I was pretty moved. Her words stuck in my mind as I walked home. By the time I crossed the six blocks between her graduation and my house, I’d come up with an idea. The Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project!
You know the rest of the story. About six months ago I posted on Facebook (fb) that I needed people to knit and crochet for total strangers — and POW! I got slammed with offers to contribute talent, creations and/or money to finance the project. The response was so immediate and intense, we created a fb group page and expanded to Twitter where we got more participants. Folks started contacting me from around the country. Yarn, cash, and eventually blankets from as far away as Colorado arrived in Carlisle.
After my initial post and a day of intense immediate enthusiastic response, I realized I couldn’t do this alone. I contacted the person I always call when something is going to need the ends woven in (heh heh, like my cute little afghan analogy there? You’re welcome). I called Max Donnelly.
After a week of additional enthusiastic response, I thought to myself, Okay, I have the blankets, the tech support, volunteers to create the art installation but what if something happens to me? I’m only human, I can’t do this alone. I need another on the ground, media friendly, do-gooder to be the face of this thing. I called Pastor Matthew Best. An incarnation of him has shown up in a number of my fictional works. He’s a leader and an empath and he belongs in literature.
In a matter of weeks this kind Lutheran clergyman had involved his entire Lutheran Synod leadership. His Bishop was on board, and eventually their church’s national leadership leant their support. The Lovely Lutherans (what I call them and really, you should too) hooked us up with a top-notch broadcast and they leant organizational support at every level.
I chuckle when I think back to how exhausted the Padre and I were just a few days ago. Cold, sore and ready to get into our cars after we’d distributed the blankets and we’d cleaned up our mess. My friend Matthew turned to me wearily — though his kind eyes were smiling merrily — and said, “When you asked me to do this all those months ago it didn’t register that it was three days before Christmas.” Yeah, he thought it was hectic at the blanket (and it was) … but his job dictated that his week was about to get busy — exponentially.
That was Wednesday. Today is Christmas. I’ve been thinking about him all day. Hoping he’s hunkered down with his adorable family getting a little rest. But that might have to wait for tomorrow. Oh no, wait, tomorrow is Sunday. Never mind. That poor man — maybe Monday he’ll sleep.
In the end, 203 afghans blanketed the ground a block from where they’d been intended — because Cumberland County didn’t approve of our idea to create an art installation to memorialize homelessness. (In the movie we’ll anthropomorphize the county to resemble the Grinch).
Thirty more blankets are expected in 2022. Some of us didn’t finish in time. Sadly, that’s okay, because they’ll still be plenty of homelessness come March or April. I keep saying there were 203 blankets because I forget the one around the statue of Mary in the foyer — so 204.
During the planning stage I remember thinking, I thought the hardest part would be getting 200 blankets and the easiest part would be using the center of town’s public space. But actually, it was the other way around. The easiest was getting the blankets, volunteers, partner agencies, equipment and even homemade soup! The hardest was getting the Grinch’s heart to grow three times that day. Some stuff really does only happen in movies.
During the planning, I understood at some level that this project was unique, special, and unexpectedly so.
But…
It wasn’t until we started putting the blankets down. And even more so after the blanket installation kept growing. It wasn’t until the candles illuminated it and the crowd materialized, eager to see what the community had done — that I realized the real magic of the blanket.
The real magic of the blanket was that the community had done it. Not an organization (although the one I work for — the Charles Bruce Foundation — and many others had pitched in), not a political party, not a religious group. No organized anything — of any kind — had created that 3200 square foot blanket. Nope, just the community. Kinda nameless. Kinda shapeless. Kinda faceless. Just our community of caring, eager, generous, kind individuals in cooperation with each other. Wow! They anonymously came together to do something truly magnificent, completely unprecedented, and totally selfless.
I don’t know about you, but I thought the last few years had shattered all that being a community stuff.
I want to thank every person who made that blanket happen. You didn’t just highlight homelessness — you reminded a very weary community that we exist and we’re able to do monumental things together. We aren’t alone. We never were and we don’t have to be going forward.
I’m sure Ebenezer wouldn’t mind if I changed one word in his world famous line of redemption, “I will honour community in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
