The Wire - Viva House

I have heard it said that The Wire is the greatest television series of all time. People suggested I didn’t watch it before or while I was living in West Baltimore, so I didn’t. Having left Baltimore, and having consumed 4+ seasons of this show in just about as many weeks, I have not yet decided whether or not I was given sound advice.

I have, however, decided one thing: The Wire is the greatest television series of all time.

I am sorry Jack. I am sorry Kate. I love you both dearly. Every time I board a plane, I think of you. And every time I board a plane, a small part of me still wishes it would crash-land on a mysterious island. But no work of TV fiction has ever come close to documenting a forgotten part of our world and an ignored part of our human community the way The Wire has.

I know some people give David Simon shit for a pattern he has established of piggy-backing on tragedy and destitution for media success, but if anyone deserves the right to do this, it is Simon and his gigantic head.

The Wire is resolute, it is tender, it is gritty, it is smart, it is analytical, it is objective, it is subjective, it is cerebral, it is heart-felt, and it is an all too real depiction of an ugly urban landscape and its beautiful people.

Before I get carried away by the genius of this series, I will get to the point of this post.

I just watched a few episodes of season 5, in which a little Catholic Worker place called Viva House is sympathetically featured. I am so glad it was selected to make an appearance in The Wire, because it is a special place and a vital mainstay in a community with a superficial penchant towards decay.

Viva House is Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham. Viva House is their home, but it is also a soup kitchen and a refuge for the poor of West Baltimore.

Brendan and Willa are a married couple. They are both ex-clergy. They are both close friends of Dorothy Day, the mother of the Catholic Worker Movement. They were both a part of the “Catonsville Nine”, a group of antiwar protestors who torched Vietnam draft files with homemade napalm outside a Maryland draft board in1968. They both are badasses who have been providing service to the people of the neighborhood for over 45 years.

My housemates and I got lucky. We had this couple and their humble home of mercy next door to us all year, right there on S. Mount Street. We helped serve lunch with them a couple of times. Every once in a while they would invite us over for dinner, and they would have fresh peach cobbler for dessert. They shared a similar distaste for early-morning workouts. We would talk with them about their mission, their stories, the city, healthcare, their grandkids, but not so much about God or Jesus. They were just an implicit part of how Brendan and Willa lived, so maybe that’s why God or Jesus didn’t really get talked about.

Brendan and Willa were always there for us, with their wisdom— giving hope to the oft overwhelmed recent college graduates, who were starting the 17th grade in a very different school.

For those unfamiliar with the Catholic Workers, and their Movement, let me start by saying you should probably not rely on me to inform you, because I am not that well-informed. Read about it here, if you want the details.

I will just try to tell you what Brendan and Willa are to West Baltimore, and maybe that will give you an image of the Catholic Worker.

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Workers, students, parents, children, dealers, addicts—it doesn’t matter, because everyone’s got to eat. They all make their exodus from every corner of West Baltimore towards 26 S. Mount Street, and wait restlessly under the shade of the hanging branches out back. The friendly sound of a windchime fills rare silences amid the symphony of conversations that coalesce in the alley. Brick is decorated with murals of saints and scripture, communicating messages of peace in a city where violence is a dominant rhetoric. The vitality of a garden growing from the side of the house collides with the drabness of abandoned homes and unkempt streets, but the life and color of the flowers find harmony in the words of the city’s people, who speak with the faith and dignity that Viva House instills within them.

Brendan and Willa are trusting voices filling the air of that side alley off Mount Street, singing numbers assigned to men, women, and children who know they are much more than a statistic when they enter the walls of this home and take a seat at its table.

In the morning, they are burnt fingers and dried-out palms, melding the gifts of friends, family, and gracious donors into one delicious flavor of love that will satisfy a hungry community.

In the afternoon, they are tired feet barely separating from the hardwood of a living-room floor with each step, hurrying to fill a perspiring cup with the sweet tea that cools a hot summer’s afternoon.

By the evening, they are throbbing forearms, exhausted from half a century of scrubbing the walls of pots and pans that will be needed for use again tomorrow. Because people will be hungry again tomorrow.

They are the person who sits down next to you for a meal, so that you do not have to eat alone.

They are family when yours might not be there.

They are a home for people to gather and know they will not be dispersed.

They are the Gospel without the paper and the words.

Brendan and Willa are love in action. That’s not what they preach. That’s not even what they believe in. It’s just what they are.

“If somebody’s hungry, you give them a sandwich”

-Brendan Walsh

#baltimore