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St. Patrick's Church, Christmas

The Warbler

By Judi McLeod
Sunday, January 8, 2006

…"all I really want is a loony," the stranger said to me as I was exiting the lobby of downtown St. Patrick's Church. His request was more reluctant than it was resolute. Realizing that he had sat with me at St. Pat's Christmas lunch for the homeless and the poor only the week before, I gave him a fiver.

at the Christmas lunch, he had sat quietly at the table, tucking into what was in front of him and trying but failing to surreptiously store bread rolls and cookies into his backpack. When Jean, one of the party organizers I know, brought me a piece of cherry cheesecake, I passed it across the table to him. Quiet and unsure of himself before, he now rent the air with a sound: He warbled like a bird. No one paid any attention to the noise, which to him was an expression of how welcome he truly was.

In any season in any weather, he walks the streets of Toronto's downtown. Tall, slim and proudly dressed in running jogs, he stands out. as he's passing on the sidewalk, he once in awhile, suddenly breaks out into his bird-like warbling.

When I took him by surprise with the $5 bill, he asked permission before giving me a wine-drenched peck on the cheek. Staring at me with rheumy blue eyes, he spotted that the zipper on my bomber jacket was not pulled up at the collar, so he zipped the jacket up, telling me, "It's cold out there." Standing back from me for a moment, he looked me over, head to foot, then sadly pronounced: "You need a longer coat for winter." With a joyful smile, he told me about a chinchilla coat he had hidden away. "Someone gave it to me long ago and I kept it, but it's now yours," he beamed. "I just know it's going to fit you." He said he'd leave it for me in a bag hidden at the back of the church. "It's yours now. I insist."

I thanked him profusely because in his heart I knew he meant every word.

The gentleman I now call "The Warbler" has been coming in out the cold at St. Patrick's for some time. The church is as much a home to him as it is to the parishioners who attend Mass there.

The priests always have a kind word for him, and he always removes his baseball cap when he comes inside.

In a world where the homeless are sometimes sadly manipulated, by politicians and others looking for a cause, there is something real about St. Pat's. Their Christmas lunch with its spirit of giving, complete with the priests serving food and parishioners standing around the piano singing old-fashioned carols, warmed the heart.

Included among everything else I did this past Christmas, the lunch tops the list.

Some people would call my friend The Warbler a wino. I'm hoping that "some people" do not include the authors of a study recently published in the Canadian Medical association Journal and that they never find him.

Their study concludes that free drinks may improve the health and lives of homeless alcoholics and reduce their run-ins with police.

"Seventeen chronic alcoholics who drank upwards of 46 glasses a day over the past 35 years, including cheap substitutes such as mouthwash that often led to unconsciousness, were offered a glass of wine or sherry each hour, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. at an Ottawa shelter over five to 24 months." (Breitbart.com).

"Most of the fifteen men and two women, with an average age of 51 years, had tried detox programs and abstention, but were unable to maintain sobriety.

" `These are people that you and I would pass on the street totally inebriated, who had drunk huge amounts,'" said Jeff Turnbull, one of the authors of the study.

"Three quit, three died of alcohol-related disease before the end of the study, but 11 others reported `a markedly decreased' consumption of beverage and non-beverage alcohol, and most reported improved sleep, hygiene, nutrition and health, according to the authors of the study."

Problem is that homeless members of our society like The Warbler are not so many white mice in a lab. They are human beings like the rest of us, fallen down and out on their luck, and for a variety of reasons, struggling to survive daily out on our streets.

Giving The Warbler free drinks would be the wrong thing to do if the goal is to keep him among us without doing any more damage to his liver.

Lost souls like The Warbler do not belong in the realm of lab mice. The homeless person who graced St. Pat's with his presence at the Christmas lunch, not only touched everybody with his happy warbling, he made the lunch what it was, a real Christmas party with real people sharing the spirit of giving.

and to The Warbler wherever you are: "The chinchilla coat fit perfectly and is keeping me warm".

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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