The Showers Saga 10 - It's Groundhog Day! (originally posted Feb 5/08)

Sadly, there are no Biblical references to groundhogs, so really no way to make a lame tie-in between the latest work party and the fact that it happened on Feb. 2.

(There are Biblical refs to badgers -- as in the kind of skins required in the building of Moses' tabernacle -- but that's as close as it gets. But as we know ... WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING BADGERS!)

But I digress ... The Oasis gang returned this past Saturday: a much smaller work party than the week before, and, supplemented with Murray Scott, they got the fourth shower stall set up, the showers dry-fitted and the plumbing roughed-in.

Gerry Wall stayed home this time, but Brandon came, and told us how his dad decided to cancel last Sunday's sermon because 15 guys from the work party got up to testify about what working on the showers -- and being on the Downtown East Side -- meant to them. This past Sunday, it was Murray's turn to give the announcements and receive the offering, and he gave testimony. This is obviously about more than providing showers for street people. And yet that whole concept brings hope to the area. People at the Mission are asking, When will it be open? Still don't have an answer yet, but people can see that something is happening and it's going to be a good thing for them.

The really good thing, of course, is that people coming into The Lord's Rain will feel something besides hot water and clean skin: the love of Christ. That's the motivating factor behind all of this. It's not the "do-gooder" mentality that burns brightly on high and then disintegrates when it gets closer to the earth; it's something that keeps burning through the worst circumstances and spreads as others catch the same vision. Whether the others catching the vision are those working on the project or those benefitting from it, the underlying theme -- the love of Christ -- is the fundamental factor.

The police like the idea, by the way: I spoke with the Inspector in charge of neighbourhood policing in that zone -- Insp. Cam Murdock, VPD -- and he thinks it's a great idea. He's given some good insights into security and means of preventing the place from turning into a "shooting gallery". One method is to install lighting of a particular color that makes it impossible to see one's veins. (There's a Petro-Canada station near my place, where the restrooms have some kind of funky black-light action: I assume that's what it's for.)

Unfortunately, when I asked what kind of lighting would be best, he suggested I call InSite, the "safe injection site" (or, more truthfully, the human rejection site) on the Downtown East Side. I opined that they probably wouldn't like me too much, since I made some rather pointed comments about the operation in a TV interview last month. Simply put, the comment was: there are still people shooting up in alleys and wandering around like zombies on the streets because of drugs; don't tell me the operation is "working" because no one has OD'd or died on the premises. Rather like the little kid saying, "The emperor has no clothes!"

Anyway, Cam agreed they probably didn't like the truth, and said he'd look into it. I don't know why InSite would know what kind of lighting would prevent a place from becoming a shooting gallery: InSite is a shooting gallery. It may carry the cachet of a medically supervised safe injection location, but it passes the "duck test" for a shooting gallery -- walks like, quacks like, therefore it is. (Cvacio, ergo sum, is probably how Descartes would have put it. If he'd been a duck. But that's probably a canard.) THANK YOU! I'LL BE HERE ALL WEEK!

OK ... enough of this ... more work to come ... more photos coming on this site as well.