Friday musings

Read this. It brought tears to my eyes.

No doubt we've all encountered homeless people in our daily lives. For me, the encounter usually causes incredible guilt on my part, and while my first instinct is to ignore them (and sometimes I do, to be honest), I also remind myself that they are human beings (in fact, I feel a little icky even saying "them" right now). Whatever circumstances in their lives have brought them to the point where they are living on the streets, whatever self-medicating they do to make that life a little more bearable - they are human, no better or worse than I.

So. I don't have any answers (well, I have some ideas...). But the economy is in the shitter, and you can bet it's gonna start affecting more and more folks; those who were previously living on the edge are gonna find themselves without many other options. In Dallas County, one in five - one in five - families with children lived in poverty in 2006. Why do some have so much and others so little? I do believe that the choices we make impact our lives beyond measure. But the truth is, some choices are already made for us, on the day we are born. It's not because of hard work that I am where I am today. I'm not saying I didn't, and don't, work hard. But I don't work any harder than someone who has a hell of a lot less than I do. Luck. The grace of God. Whatever you want to call it.

So. What's the point of all this. I don't know, really - I just started writing and this is where I ended up. But I do know that it's not ok. It's not ok that some people can afford the best cancer treatment available, and others can't. It's not ok that some kids have three healthy meals a day, and others barely have one. So many agencies work so hard to close the gap, equalize things a bit. Now those agencies are hurting, too. Things are bad, and may get worse.

This is probably too heavy for a Friday. I'm almost done, I'll just say two more things. One is a piece of advice/wisdom my father passed along to me many years ago, that I have held very close to me. Never be ashamed of what you have or what you don't have. I try to remember that when the guilt overwhelms me.

And here's a story about my husband - then fiance - that affirms to me over and over what a wonderful person he is, and what a good choice I made. I was in the bath on Christmas Eve several years ago, getting ready to go to our Christmas Eve dinner, when he came home and grabbed the big wool blanket off our bed. We were living downtown at the time, and there was a homeless guy who stationed himself at a nearby intersection; we saw him almost daily. My husband found out that someone had stolen this man's stuff, including his blanket. So Pierre came home, grabbed our blanket, and took it to this man. That's the kind of guy I'm married to, and that story gives me hope that things can be better. I will never, ever forget what he did.

So, back to the beginning: read this. And may we all err on the side of charity just a little bit more.