Jesus told us to take his yoke, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

After watching Frontline this week on channel 9 I’m not sure I’m getting His meaning. I got home just in time from the Shelter to turn on the TV and see what was on, 9:02, and there was a Frontline show called Chasing Heroin, I think, and the first interview was a man who looked very familiar, and it was in fact a young man named Johnny who stayed with us last year for a short time. The show was about Seattle and how heroin use has grown out of the prescription drug, oxycontin, etc., epidemic which is mostly a white middle class epidemic. Of course one doesn’t stay middle class very long when abusing narcotics. You’ll be on the street in a year or two.

The show said a lot about how the police and courts have started handling drug offenders differently in Seattle. Instead of just locking up some one for drugs, they make them take part in long term treatment which they realize the addict may not be ready for, but it’s still better, (and cheaper for us tax payers)than putting them in jail for a year or two or ten with no treatment. As an officer said in another program from the Midwest, “We aren’t going to arrest our way out of this drug problem.” Seattle is somewhat of a model for the many other cities with a drug problem. I hope it helps. I hope it helps Johnny.

I have some experience with narcotic pain killers from around the time I had my back operation, 23 years ago. I was on and off pain pills for two years. They worked wonderfully at first and could give one a euphoric feeling as well. At least for a while, but after a few days that feeling got hard to find and I had to take more and more to kill the pain. It quickly went to taking too much to work or do anything worth doing. And it certainly dulled my thinking and sleeping. The lower back operation I finally had was painful and it took over a year to get back in shape. But the jump shot did come back.

I don’t mean to imply, since this is Shelter News, that homeless men are all drug, or ex drug addicts. How a man finds himself in need of our service for the winter is as varied as the number of men we serve. We all need a safe place to get some sleep, and some food, and the fellowship of those who serve, and the other men. We need some family. And a little lightening of the burden. Some rest for our souls as Jesus put it.

That’s the News from The Men’s shelter, on Phinney Ridge.

Ben Paul