But this is a homeless blog, every fricking day is challenging if not life threatening. Although, I have been very fortunate myself and am housed in a labor for housing arrangement with a couple local motels.
Additionally, this has afforded me the opportunity to operate a defacto homeless assistance program within my very limited means. I have a few donors who have provided me with the bulk of the donations, and while they prefer to remain anonymous, I remain grateful for their steady willingness to give.
I thank you all for your generosity and understanding that "community" is a verb.
Your world view may very significantly from my own, and I am not one who insists that you need to adopt mine. I have no monopoly on Truth, and I am as inclined to be wrong, stubborn, and self absorbed as anyone else. Probably, more so than the average. In my opinion I am broken in a fundamental way, at the core, and moreover I cannot fix myself. A broken thing cannot fix itself. It is not in its nature. It’s nature is to continue being broken. Many of us operate in this manner every single day of work, school, parenting, marriage, and every other abominable broken thing we do.
Human nature has been thus since Cain picked up a rock to reshape his brothers skull. Now, whether you believe in that story of fratricide or you believe that the world is majestically balanced on the back of a great cosmic turtle, about the only thing that remains unchanged in all those years is us. Human nature has blessed, beaten, and propelled us from then until now.
There are many along the way who said that they could change it, harness it, mold, master, or evolve it. A few met with limited success in some key areas, such as slavery and... um... I'm sure there are others, but to be honest we have yet to abolish slavery from the planet.
Sad.
My point is not to point out our human inadequacies, but rather to acknowledge them as part and parcel of the human condition. We have common ground here because we are born with them and we must suffer them all. Our prosperity is not shared. Some have much, while others have none. Our loves and passions are not identical, perhaps not even similar. Our sense of humor, our desire for drink, all points of divergence. However; we are all broken in the same core of our being. We can manage our brokenness to different degrees, and often use them to secure a temporary shifting, sinking sense of superiority over others, but that fades quickly under our own introspective examination. Ultimately, we are never really good.
This is the first, best reason I have for viewing the world from the perspective of Christianity. Not because I am without sin, no far from it. If I were, I wouldn’t need a relationship with our Creator. I wouldn't need much of anything, would I? It’s for the broken, deficient, bewildered being I am that I reach out to Christ, and my fellow man. Here is where I found my mission to help the homeless, the hungry, the misfits, the disenfranchised, the ignored, and unwelcome. It’s not that I love everyone, that would be being perfect, again. It’s that by looking at myself I see that same brokenness in others, and thereby a mirror unto myself. In this way, I quit trying to "fix myself", which is impossible. Instead, I am doing what I can, helping others in some small manner. A blanket, a sweatshirt, a can of beef stew, or maybe just a few words scribbled in virtual digital to let you know that I care.
Whether you do or not.
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