Homeless

(Image from Living Blue in South Carolina posted on FB)

Tonight I'm honoring in my thoughts all those who understand that a person who has  no home is first, and foremost, a person.  Not primarily a homeless person.  We share all the same emotions, trials, joys—how can we ignore them?  How can we be fearful of "them?"  Maybe because we're thinking of the people without homes as "other."  

Consider pausing to speak to someone who looks a little world weary...walking along with his or her hump of a backpack...figuring out the next place he or she might "be" for a while without being asked to move along.  But do it only if you recognize the person is your equal...with positive traits and negative.  Flesh and blood like you and me.  Shadow and light, just like the rest of us.  Only without the shell we human turtles call "home."  

 

I'm coming across as preachy and getting on my own nerves here.  Some of these words are for me as much as for anyone who might read them.  I tell myself I care about the horror of homelessness.  What have I done lately to make the plight of homeless humans any better?  I have volunteered at shelters and served on a board at one of them.  But that was a long time ago, and I received as much from the people there as I gave to them.  

 

My small contributions back then are nothing compared to the work of people who devote themselves to eradicating homelessness.  Who spend exhausting days and evenings working for whatever nonprofit they represent, endlessly striving to convince the community that homeless people are not criminals.  Not thugs.  Just humans.  It's okay to acknowledge them.  Okay for them to live a block away.  No one in your house is likely jeopardized by their presence.

Here's to the friends who spend much of a  lifetime searching for solutions just out of their grasp.  To people I am proud to have the honor of calling friends.  To Anita, Paula, Kathy...and others who have passed on and many whose names I do not know, Thank you for giving yourselves to the homeless among us.  To making their lives better. To being the bearers of hope.   Thank you for not giving up.