The Grass Is Not Greener On The Other Side

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 There is a very thick line between not having space in your closet for all of  your shoes and not being able to afford a space on which to rest your head. In fact, there are two worlds simmering  in the cooking pot of society: the world of donation bags, glass plates, and leather couches and the world of cardboard boxes, cigarette butts, and makeshift fireplaces. The inhabitants of the second world are homeless--coined by the general public as hobos. Though the era of the hunting and gathering of  roots and berries has long faded with industrialization, these hobos still hunt and gather for survival in a world that has left some of them (those that are not able to seek refuge in shelters) to fend for themselves.

        I recall the outreach trip I took with some of my youth group friends to the homeless community at Franklin Square. As our church van pulled up alongside the curb in sync with all of the other vans trooping in, it gave the unspoken signal: there would be food today--today they would eat until their bellies inflated, or so they thought. When we parked and waited for the rest of our party to arrive and the people discovered that we did not bring food with us (as it was in the rest of our gang's van that hadn't arrived yet), lines of calmed hate quickly distorted the looks of anticipation everyone had been wearing only five minutes before. Soon, the hunting began. They ran from van to van, trying to grab as much as they could for the day. These people did not have the luxury of ordering McDonald's in the big city, or going home to a freshly cooked meal. No. They had to scrape and scour,  feed off of the compassion of charitable church folks and generous passerby.

       If we had not bothered to pull back the curtain dividing our world from theirs, we would never know that there was another way of living, much less comfortable than ours. That day, I learned that displacement does not know color or race. The pale, hunchbacked, White man who got evicted, hunts and gathers right alongside the Black man, the  Asian man, and the Hispanic man. I learned that rich stock brokers aren't the only people that wear suits. Some wear suits because it is the only article of clothing they own. Others think that if they wear it long enough, then the mirage of wealth could morph into reality.

      To end this little spiel, I will say that the point is not to isolate the homeless as an unfortunate social group that lives outside the city walls. The point is for you to cross the line that divides us, even if it is just for five minutes, to help your fellow man. Though his hand is calloused, shriveled, and half-gloved while yours is soft, smooth, and unscathed, that does not change the fact that you both own a hand, and that you both must LIVE, BREATHE,SLEEP,EAT. If we never cross the line-- if we remain sheltered in our world, we will continue to skip and jump and walk in ignorance--and ignorance my friends, is not always bliss.  The value of our good fortune might never be fully realized if we never expose ourselves to the other side--where the grass is not greener but thirsty and  pale. Besides, these hobos, are just a microcosm of the spiritual vagabonds wearing fame and fortune on their sleeves as if money can actually buy them happiness, contentment, or eternal life for that matter.