How I Learned the Meaning of Love on the Meanest City Streets

I've told you that I consider myself to be a student at the University of Skid Row, this most unusual school in the middle of Los Angeles.

One of the first things I noticed on my new campus was the fact that Skid Row has more amputees and wheel chairs per capita than anyplace I know.

At first I thought that all of the wheelchairs were an ugly part of the landscape. Some people smoke crack in their wheelchairs. There are other challenges to having so many amputees in a condensed area, too. Just think about how often you see someone missing a limb in other neighborhoods? Every once in awhile — and the infrequency makes it much easier to be to be thoughtful and polite. You open the door to help the person in a store or office building. You leave patting yourself on the back and thinking about your good deed.

You're really not inconvenienced by the occasional encounter with someone in a wheelchair, though. You are not challenged.

Try to maintain the spirit of the good deed when you find yourself getting the wheelchair-bound person his food before you get your own at dinner time at a homeless shelter. Would you feel so good when the person blocked your way into the common bathroom? Would you still be giving yourself pats on the back after he defecated on himself in the middle of the night and was unable to roll to the bathroom because the wheelchair was beyond reach? Could you keep the spirit of the good deed alive while the stench of the feces assaulted your senses?

Most individuals are never challenged in such ways. Most never face the chance that such sheer misfortune will open the door to an ugly side of their self.

I've learned to appreciate the challenges, though. I want to graduate from this peculiar school, my University of Skid Row. I know that I must go deep into my studies. I believe I have the chance — here, on this unlikely campus — to confront the ugly side of my soul. I think these challenges can lead to transformation.

I arrived at the University of Skid Row with "seasonal" convictions. I had the courage of my convictions so long as they were convenient in terms of my daily life.

I seek to become a person with convictions for all seasons — an inner core of true tolerance, understanding and compassion. I want to know that my convictions can face challenges and remain structurally sound through all seasons.

This is a process, and I am working my way through it. I started the process as one of the thousands of residents of Skid Row — one of the many students on this campus. I more recently began to meet the challenge as an employee — a servant of the Skid Row community, working my small part to provide social services.

The requirements of tolerance are different for an employee compared to a resident. As an employee I have to draw on different levels of patience. I didn't have to be patient as a resident. I have worked to develop my patience because it is now part of my job — but also because I see a chance for some personal growth to go along with my pay. As a resident I would get irritated when someone asked me for something, some help. I now welcome the chance to help them and improve the quality of their daily existence. It's my job, but also more.

For me, as I seek a new way, a new life, this is the magic of the University of Skid Row. This place can transform a person. If you are fortunate enough to graduate to upper level "self research" courses here — Advanced Patience, for example — the rewards are priceless, immeasurable and enduring in ways that I am certain will reveal themselves in the future.

I thought I was a good person before I landed here on Skid Row. I had problems, but I thought I loved my fellow man.

I've learned that love is an action, an exercise.

I've found out that I had never really been challenged to exercise a certain quality of human love.

I've discovered that the quality of love is relative until you learn the truly generous nature of unconditional love.

I have learned that uncoditional love can be forged in something as ugly as an amputation — or the ugly side of myself.

I don't know where these lessons will lead me.

I hope you will return to journey with me next week.

Walter Melton is a writer for the L.A. Garment & Citizen.

Photo collage by LA Beez