I’ve been thinking a lot about the intersectionality of people, faith, and politics. No house party, or convention, is complete without the awkward and polemical feelings these types of conversations at times can provoke. I’m up at 5 in the morning reading interviews, articles, philosophy, and scripture, and the right balance within this intersectionality has never seemed so clearly close and so vengefully hidden.

We had a concert a couple weeks back for a beautiful place called Covenant House. They are people who care and so we decided to love and support them, even managed to ship off about 20 coats to them just in time for the bitter wind. But a piercing question that keeps me up at night is this: Is it enough? What happens when that coat rips and Paul or Jane or Maria is still on the street? Am I just a band aid pressed firmly against a broken levy? What is left to do? or perhaps to believe? Jesus is such an honest figure. He seems to rise up and out of every lunchbox and picture frame we paint him in, up and out of every thing we’ve used his name to sell. I want more than what they tell me He is. I do. And so it’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting in the waiting room of a youth shelter biding my time till the head of PR shows up and we can talk. She doesn’t show, the front desk tells me she’ll be by around 8 for Mass. I tell her ok, thanks.

As I sit there stories pile up all around me. People with sons, and vengeful girlfriends, and homeless tears fill the space around me. I’m wearing gloves with holes for the fingers so naturally I feel a bit more like I belong. Some of the guys say hello to me, they seemed so worn down by life but yet they still reached out to me to say hello; I treasure them for that. I drop off the coats and the food and I leave. Irony presses itself on me, bitter sweet painful irony on Christmas Eve. Is it enough? I don’t know. I’ll do what I can for now…..

-David J. of BOY PILOT