Palm Sunday: No electricity and wake up calls.

Part 1: Goodbye PECO

In a nutshell, my roommate decided he wanted to fore-go the responsibility of having to collect money for PECO, our electric provider. He and my other roommates insisted I should be the one responsible, but I argued that I'm trying to figure out things with my housing for next year and don't want to have to worry about moving more money around. Plus, I'm only in the apartment another month and a half.

Bottom line, everyone (including me) is being stubborn, and we canceled our electricity. We have 24 hours (well, now about 20). I immediately am choosing to look at the bright side, and now I'm really just downright excited to see what it's going to be like.

1- I can shower at the pool (electricity powers water heater); this will force me to swim and go to the pool every day. Hooray for forced exercise!

2- My apartment complex has a 24-hour computer lab.

3- I really only need to charge my phone. There's outlets in the computer lab.

4- I think natural light by day and candles by night is the right way to go. Not to mention the flashlight.

5- The weather's getting nicer, and there's really no need for heat or cool air quite yet.

So, the only real problem I have is storing and making food. But, I, unlike my roommates, know people in at least 5 other apartments in the complex. One of them has been absolutely incredible and already made space in the fridge for me. Thank God for people like that.

Why is this relevant/pertinent to you? Cliche, but it really puts things into perspective. There are people who lived without any electricity for thousands of years. Why can't I do the same? This isn't even really that bad; there are plenty of people in Philadelphia alone who live without a house, let alone electricity. I'm excited because I think it will be a wake-up call.

I'm currently reading Mitch Albom's (Tuesdays with Morrie) latest book; Have a Little Faith. It tells the true stories of drug-addict/dealer-turned preacher, and an ailing rabbi. Homelessness is one of the big aspects of the book; I just read a passage about an interview Albom had with one of the preacher's patrons. The man lost all ten toes to frostbite from sleeping in the back of a car. How's that for no electricity or heat?

Part 2: Hello Reality

I had the privilege of walking all the way from Center City, Philadelphia to the Art Museum and then up to Temple's campus.


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That is 5.4 miles. There were three great things that came of this walk.

1- Exercise (walked off last night's pizza)
2- Got to explore parts of Philly I had never seen before
3- Yet again, a big reality check/wake-up call.

The walk from the Art Museum down Spring Garden is absolutely beautiful, I highly recommend it. Once I turned onto 15th however, and began heading North, the houses started to change. It was as if someone were telling a sad life-story through a walking tour. Imagine a healthy person in their youth that slowly begins to grow old and neglect his or her own needs. Sidewalks began to become more cracked, grass grew longer, bricks began to crumble, fences became rusty and twisted.

It was like watching a human body go to waste: the once fine-toned muscles began to deteriorate and show only bare, weakened bones. There were skeletons of houses, patches of grass growing like clumps of hair that had not yet fallen out. Fence-posts were worn and weather-beaten, and were like crooked teeth. The peeling paint and collapsing porches were like wrinkles. This was on fifteenth, only one block away from Broad Street. Maybe 100 feet, at the most. It amazed me that people lived in these areas; this wasn't even the worst one I had seen, and this was the middle of the day on a Sunday afternoon.

Part 3: Faith
Despite the dilapidated houses, there was one sweet sound that could be heard during my walk. Beneath the skeletons and crumbling bricks, I could hear a soul, a heartbeat. I passed churches and saw cars parked around them, as to be expected. But then I passed tiny brick buildings, and could hear screaming inside. I soon realized the screaming was accompanied by an organ, and followed by a chorus of "Amen!" These were chapels, small congregations of people praising God on Palm Sunday. It was an extremely powerful feeling, and made me smile as I passed by.

I finally arrived back at campus, and I almost began to feel guilty of my own safe reality as I headed to Palm Sunday Mass on campus a few hours later.

I'm almost done with Mitch Albom's book. The pastor, Henry, runs a congregation in Detroit. They have no heat, and no electricity, just a huge old abandoned church. The homeless are welcome to service, and despite what they don't have, they continue to praise for the things that they do.