Yesterday, as I was driving home from work, across the bridge which connects both sides of the city, I saw a man pushing a grocery cart overflowing with empty bottles he had most likely collected out of the large garbage containers behind office buildings. He must've been headed to the recycling depot (aka the redemption centre....what a name!) to cash them in. He was headed in that direction, but had at least 2 more miles to go. He was disshevelled looking in his worn threadbare clothes that were all greyly muted. A scraggy patchy beard covered his cheeks and chin...........a stained baseball cap covered his unwashed matted hair. What was most predominant however, was his posture...........bent, older than his years, wasted tired. I wondered how many people driving by saw him.......really saw this man's head to toe exhaustion and wondered what his story was.
Poverty seeps through our communities like an invisible toxic vapour and strips away the hope and dignity of our most vulnerable. No one seeks out poverty.
It is not a life choice.
It is not a life choice.
It is a symptom of one or several life events and factors. Abuse, addiction, illiteracy, mental illness, family dysfunction, lay-offs, sickness, economic downturns, minimal formal education, geographic location, a family history living in poverty........the system too adds another cloak choking layer often too difficult to overcome. Poverty is a life of suffering through daily struggles to survive and often a dependence on the same system which foists the biggest barrier when it is supposed to be the way out.
On Saturday morning I took a walk along the Trans Canada trail and the Saint John River. I parked my car in the parking lot adjacent to the buildings which house several services frequented by the people I work with on a daily basis.........the mental health clinic, the detox centre, the methadone clinic, the Emergency shelter and the Community kitchen. All of these services and more are within a stone's throw away from one another. On the other side of the parking lot is the grand estate of New Brunswick's Lieutenant Governor.........a beautiful old mansion which used to be the headquarters of the RCMP at one point. The trail cuts through the back of the estate. It's such a contrast between have and have not.........no real middle ground.
It was a beautiful morning........the sun was filtering through the autumn colours, touching the path. A group of young men all dress in black formal suits were posing for wedding photos, using the grounds of the estate as a background. Apart from them, I didn't see anyone else on the trail.
I took my time ambling along stopping to take photos and to take in the quiet beauty of the area. When I reached the part of the trail which put me directly behind the estate, I looked down the small hillside which leads to the Saint John River and noticed an old mattress and crumpled blankets laying there abandoned. "Home" for a homeless person. Despite the numerous services available and located a short walk away, there are homeless people in this city who either are not welcome at the shelter due to out of control substance abuse or mental illness which forces these people out into the cold night because they can't handle the shelter environment.
It's a sad dilemma, one that doesn't have an easy answer or an easy fix. But, there has to be a better way to intervene and to help these people who have no choice but to sleep outside in a country where the temperatures dip below freezing at night for half of the year........with no amenities, and no safety. I wonder how many people who walk along this part of the Trans Canada trail even notice let alone think about what can be done about it.
today many bloggers around the world are recognizing the issue of poverty as a way to voice concerns and outrage. It's time we all took part in the solution. It's time we made it very visible and helped out. John O'Donahue writes....."Suffering brings you to a land where no one can find you. Yet when the human voice focuses in empathetic tenderness, it can find its way across any distance to the desolate heart of another's pain. The healing voice becomes the inner presence of the friend, watchful and kind at the source."
Perhaps the key is to find our healing voices as well as our advocacy voices to reach out to touch the people who lives in the margins of our society.....the tired human beings who live hand to mouth off the land, or in the dumpsters where empties lay like urban gold nuggets. "The ability to care," according to O'Donahue, "is the hallmark of the human, the touchstone of morality and the ground of holiness. Without the warmth of care, the world becomes a graveyard. In the kindness of care, the divine comes alive in us......"
Its time to walk our prayers. Its time to find our healing voices.
3 comments:
Years ago I used to work in an office building in the middle of the night. I was always alone and when I would drive past the city parks and see the homeless scrunched up under newspapers trying to keep warm my heart would die a little. I wanted to stop and load them all into my car and offer them a few hours of respite from the elements while I did my work. Naturally for my own safety and to minimise the risks to the property of others I couldn't do that.
I knew of a very large building that sat empty for years until it was eventually knocked down and I wondered why the city couldn't employ a few staff members so it could be opened up to the homeless as a warm, safe place to spend the night. There never seems to be any answers but rest assured Dana, I always think of people who are in deep poverty and have no hope, no comforts and no feeling of the safety we are all entitled to feel. Nothing makes me sadder in fact.
Oh my!,Such poetism
It is a terrible heart rending dilemma...And it is hard to see what he answers can be unless people really DO open up their hearts.
Another beautuful post, my dear.
The picture of that lonely mattress in the middle of the foliage, says it all!
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