Homeless

I was emailing back and forth with my friend, Jenny Meadows, editor extraordinaire, about the
subject of homeless people. I was remembering my reaction regarding the
homeless/beggars before and after my experience of Brad connecting with the
homeless man in Berkeley (see post re The Power of Love); and then another
shift before and after my experience of living in South Africa, where that
issue was in my face every day.

Before (and sometimes even now), when I would see a homeless person, my
knee-jerk reaction was to turn my eyes away, if not my whole body. I felt fear
and guilt. Why was I afraid of someone begging on a street corner? When I've
stopped a moment and listened, inside my head, I can hear a little voice
whispering, "There but for the grace of God, go you. At any time, a
twist of fate could land you in the same place." "NOOOOOOOOOO!",
I scream in my head. "I couldn't possibly live like that, I really
couldn't. I'd rather die than beg on the streets, cold, alone, dirty,
ostracized by my fellow man – my worst nightmare, much worse than just
dying."

Yes, pretty scary, living like that. No wonder I don't want my worst nightmare
being shoved in my face – in 3-D and Technicolor. It doesn't matter that it is
someone else, it matters that, but for life circumstances, it could be me. Then
there's the argument inside my head – "Nah, never, it would never
happen to you!" "Oh, yeah, what makes You so special?"
And while it doesn't seem likely that would happen to me now, that little
whisper, sometimes barely on my radar, keeps niggling, making tiny little
erosions in my self confidence – not much, but enough to refuse to look a
homeless person in the eyes.

But what about guilt? I didn't have anything to do with that person being in
that situation! "Yeah, but you should do something about it now. You
have a quality of life s/he doesn't, and you don't deserve it, you didn't earn
it, it was basically given to you by your parents. You've been lucky … so far. 

And indeed, I have
been and am fortunate. I don’t know why it was me that was born into my family
and my circumstances and not the homeless person. I do know that I am grateful.

My guilt about all this
was transformed over a lunch break, when I was serving as a juror in downtown Houston. A man came into
the cafeteria, shabbily dressed, asking for money from each table and from those
of us standing in line, saying that he was hungry, could we please spare some change. Without
thinking (guilt driven), I gave him $5.00, and he left. I felt smugly virtuous,
but didn’t want it to show, of course. The man behind me said, “You do know he’s
an alcoholic, don’t you? You just gave him money for his next bottle.”  My little halo disappeared in a blink. When I
got through berating myself for not recognizing the signs, which I know very
well, I imagined Step 6 of the Clearing Process (from the More to Life Weekend),
and how I would do it differently next time. Next time, if someone behaves
exactly like that, instead of doing what I did, I would take him to the counter
and buy him lunch. And interestingly enough, I had exactly that opportunity a
few months later – not in a cafeteria, but in a breakfast food restaurant. (But
dang if that smug little virtuous number didn’t come up again … grrrrrrrr. So
next time, I’ll do exactly what I did then, except do it with gratitude. And
maybe after I add the gratitude bit, I’ll find yet another tweak that will
refine my ability to be even more of Who I Am when I’m at my best…evolving,
evolving, evolving.)

A parting thought –
what if my own fear of being homeless, cast out, alone in the world (magnified
by everyone else’s same fear) is being projected out into the world and creating
the very thing of which I am (we are) afraid. The things I fear are often the
things I experience, even if I have to misread the situation in order to
confirm my fear. So if I let go of the fear (magnified by everyone else letting
go of their fear), could we end homelessness as an issue? And for those who do walk the
streets and beg, could we not see them as human beings, worthy of being honored, loved, respected…looking them in the eyes, saying hello…being with them just as they are…just as they
are.