- Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
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- Enwrought with golden and silver light,
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- The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
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- Of night and light and the half light,
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- I would spread the cloths under your feet:
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- But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
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- I have spread my dreams under your feet;
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- Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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- Cloths of Heaven - W.B.Yeats
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- People regard them as eyesores. The homeless litter
your landscape. They seek refuge in doorways and on park benches.You
turn away from them in disgust. You step over them with thoughts
of condemnation. You see them as less than human. You see them
as a visual nuisance. "They created their situations",
you tell yourself.
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- How easily you rationalize your inhumanity.
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- No, my friends, they are people. They are
flesh and blood, just like you. They have hearts and souls and, perhaps,
at one time, they too had dreams. What happened to those dreams?
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- Why are these human beings on the street?
Why are they destitute? Why are they cold and hungry?Perhaps it's
not for you to know and certainly not for you to judge. But don't
turn away. It's a very short distance from your warm living room
to the street.
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- When my children were small, I would spend one Saturday
a month volunteering at a soup kitchen in New York City.Sometimes I would
bring my children with me.
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- The first time I worked at Saint Ignatius Church, I had
no idea what to expect.I, and the other volunteers, scurried around preparing
a meal that consisted of hot soup, a sandwich, a hard boiled egg, coffee
and dessert.Since the winter had not yet settled over New York, we set
up tables outside. And then the people arrived.It was a line
that never ended.It was a line of ragged clothing and hungry mouths.
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- "The line never stops", I said to a co-worker.She
nodded.I wondered if I could ever become desensitized to the specter before
me. No, never.
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- Many of the homeless I've met have been physically and
mentally ill.Some of them have drowned their despair in liquor or
drugs. Some of them have shared their dreams. Some of them
do not speak.
-
- Judge not lest ye be judged.
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- There are limited services for the homeless.In the eyes
of the populace, they are merely "useless feeders". They
have been cast out on the street by a cold and indifferent society. They
have been cast out on the street by people who rail against humanity.
They have been cast aside by people who are quick to point a finger halfway
around the world; people who write screaming screeds, while in their
street humanity bleeds.
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- And now, my youngest son is 23 and he has a female friend
who volunteers at a Homeless Shelter. Last week, Jesse accompanied
Heather on her mission of mercy.They cooked dinner for the group and slept
at the shelter. In the morning they cooked breakfast. After
breakfast, the people are tossed back out on the street.
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- "Homeless people are just like us", he told
me. But that wasn't all he had to say. He had a tragic story
to tell.
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- Jesse told me about the man with
the colostomy.A policeman had approached the man assuming
that the bulge under his clothes was a bottle of liquor. He
demanded that the man hand it over. The man was confused
and stood immobilized.The policeman grew angry at what he interpreted to
be lack of compliance. He repeated his order. The
man looked at him with childlike innocence.The policeman could no longer
contain his rage. He punched the man in what he assumed was the
contraband. The man died. There were no charges brought against
the policeman.
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- Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
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- And what'll you do now, my darling young one?
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- I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
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- I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
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- Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
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- Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
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- Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
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- The executioner's face is always well hidden
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- Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
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- Where black is the color and none is the number,
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- And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe
it,
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- Reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
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- Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
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- But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
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- And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
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- It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
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- Bob Dylan
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- Copyright 2005: Judy Andreas
- www.judyandreas.com
- JUDE10901@AOL.com
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