| Raymel
Johnson
Photography,
Lydia Bailey
Black
and white photography, 10" x 15", February 2002
Raymel has this core of freshness and composure,
even in the midst of being homeless. How does he keep this
week after week? "I consider myself a veteran of the
shelters," he once told me. This photograph caught
something of the quality I find in Raymel Johnson. I relate
it to Thomas Merton's phrase, 'a meek namelessness, a hidden
wholeness.' Moreover, when I'm around Raymel, I have the
inkling that he is there to comfort and strengthen me -
not the other way around, as could be assumed.
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