Seattle, We Have A Problem…

I saw a story a day or so ago that left me a little bewildered. It seems that many cities have now legislated against feeding the poor and homeless. So if you woke up on the wrong side of a successful life and can also toss in a dose of mental illness, its very likely you could be one of those poor folks, homeless and living from day to day on what it is you can salvage or save from trash dumpsters and the like.  The fact that cities have decided that they should legislate against assisting these people is unconscionable to me because we’re in the the United States, the land of plenty and the first country to respond to crises everywhere else in the world. We help everyone, everywhere. Why are homelessness and hunger the problems they are?

Seattle is not alone, they are just the latest big city to attempt to take the good in the hearts of people, and tell them they are forbidden from helping a fellow man, woman, or child, unless they wish to face legal ramifications. Chicago and Philadelphia have tried similar legislation as well, but in each case aid organizations and some well placed legal help backed the mayors up against a wall and threatened civil disobedience to continue the mission. The mayors and lawmakers have their reasons of course. They are hoping to keep the homeless safe or they wish to keep the city parks or public places clean. All wonderful reasons except they’re complete bullsh*t. What they’re trying to do is move the problem somewhere else where we don’t have to see the desperation in their eyes or smell the loss of property on their person. Because, and lets be perfectly honest here, its uncomfortable to see people wanting and in need. It really makes you feel bad for them, for yourself for having anything… Its probably better to not see it so you can still feel good about everything without them getting in the way.

I’m here to say that this can not be allowed in any city. We’re the United F’n States of F’n America! it is shameful that we can not acknowledge our problems with our own citizens who are down and out. They are not feeling entitled and looking for a free ride, they are good people who had bad breaks, made bad decisions, or are mentally damaged and we are letting them rot because it makes us feel bad to see it. Its a very thin line between success and failure, but its there none the less. Whats more troubling though is that lawmakers are trying to legislate against kindness. I guess kindness, which is a major tenet of every religion on earth is not a tenet of municipal government. Those of us who believe in kindness as something good to do for others and for ourselves must stand up and make our voices heard. We can’t allow public officials to lie when they are looking to create an image that’s more comfortable for their communities to handle.

Sometimes the truth hurts, or is uncomfortable to see, but if its that bad, we can do something about it. We can reach down to that place in our soul or our heart and we can decide to help. Sometimes it takes physical discomfort to empathize with others. We can serve at a shelter, work with a charity group to deliver blankets or warm clothes, or just help by talking to people and recognizing their humanity, but what we can’t do is let government of any form tell us we can’t behave in a kind manner to our fellow human beings. God, Yahweh, Allah, Shiva, Buddha, Gaia, names we invoke in our prayers, put kindness in our hearts. Let’s not let a politician legislate it out of our consciousness.

A New Hope

With homage to George Lucas, I’m borrowing his subtitle from Episode IV of Star Wars, because today 12-22-12 offers all of us a new hope. We’re still here. Alive, well and pretty much doing what we did the day before again, but that’s a choice not a sentence and I’m going to get right back to that point.

See it turns out after years of worry for some people, or wonder for others, the Mayans were wrong. Well, they were right in a sense, their calender did end and if they were here today, they would start a new one. But we didn’t experience a polar shift, deadly solar flares, fire raining from the sky, or a zombie apocalypse. You could make the argument that Eagles coach Andy Reid is a zombie. He’s been a dead man coaching since November and if you’ve heard him at a press conferences, then you know this guy is a zombie. And his play calling? Maybe that makes sense if you’re undead, but not if you’re among the living.

But let me get back to my point. Our lives continue and the world goes on, but are we going to live today and tomorrow like the yesterdays before it? We don’t have to, because its a choice not a sentence and that’s my point. Whether we thought the world was going to end or not, yesterday for good or for ill is gone, so how are we going to live today? Right now. Do we go to bed leaving our families, our communities, the world better than we found it? Do we see the face of our creator in all of his or her horrible disguises, as Mother Teresa used to speak of, and do we recognize the divinity of the person before us?

Today I have a new hope. I hope the first day of a new Mayan calender, which is supposed to be a time of peace and enlightenment, actually is. I hope every small act of kindness I perform or write about pushes us closer to a critical mass where kindness transforms itself from tenets we hear as children, to a natural behavior without reminders.  Kindness is within all of us. The news and politicians tell us otherwise, but we are kind and like the winter solstice, darkness, which envelopes us from time to time eventually gives way to more light each and every day.

So today as the light grows I have a new hope. Today I hope I recognize humanity not just in my friends, but in the people who are not so pleasant to deal with. I hope that I find chances to spread kindness in small ways and if the opportunity presents itself, large ways too. I hope that by doing that, I can affect a positive change in the people around me and spread kindness like a healing salve and that others will take the time and effort to do the same. Its not that hard to do either. creating cold fusion from the atom is hard. Being nice, honoring the humanity in the people we meet is on the whole pretty easy. Who knows, if the Mayans were right we might just have begun a whole new epoch where this will be the norm, and if the Mayans were wrong, or it was all just a bunch of mistranslated Pre-Columbian graffiti, then maybe we can start our own period of peace and enlightenment, one kind act at a time.

Be Kind  – Sean