On Wednesdays, I visit the Washington Street Mission here in Springfield. It's a non-profit establishment directed towards (mostly) homeless and low income individuals. Every day from 9am-11am, they get coffee and donuts, and bi-weekly, there is a free clothing shop open for them to receive donated clothes.
In the few weeks I been doing this I have learned a little about the alternate universe that exists on the streets. Even more than that though is the social structure that exists among the homeless. I have come to find that race is inconsequential among the majority of the homeless who come to the Mission. Religion is a ploy to get food and shelter. Gender distinction is useful only for sex. Respect is earned and not dependent on status i.e. less or more homeless. Trust is none existent.
I talked to Scott today (the adult ministries director). We were talking about Vern, a man with cataracts who once had the opportunity to have surgery to have his vision corrected. He turned it down. The reason? He wasn't sure how to deal with having sight again; responsibility would be very real and inescapable...
Scott said "most people don't realize that as much as the homeless would like a warm place to sleep and warm food, it is as bizarre to them to have someone say here you go, here is a 'normal life for you to live,' as it is for someone to say to a person with a home and car "now you get to live on the streets and make do with that." Fear of the unknown sometimes makes you stay right where you are regardless of your circumstances..."As crazy as that is to hear, there is such truth in it. How many of us, because of fear of "what could happen" remain in our own little boxes of comfort and familiarity regardless of how unsatisfied we are. Here's something I have learned: Fear is limiting, even debilitating. But with God on your side nothing really "goes wrong." Go out on a limb with God.
Posts
3 comments:
Fear… that is crazy you know; but it’s the truth anyway. Howbeit, Vern’s case is really extreme. Retrieving his sight…responsibility(ies) would be very real and inescapable...No. No way. People should be taught that it doesn’t work that way. They should begin to understand that (it is only) with ability comes responsibility. Nobody should try to please anyone thoughtlessly or foolishly…to his own detriment...Forgive me… No one should be familiar with unbearable situations. No matter the intensity, most often, fears are not real. Somebody said FEAR is False Evidences Appearing Real; and that, it is the dark room where people develop their “negatives”. Fear keeps one in a state of non-satisfaction(you've rightly said that)…fear of the unknown. Of a truth, those little boxes you said are the comfort zones where many have resolved to console or soothe themselves. People should be enlightened about the danger and the degrading consequences of irrational fears. People need psychologists, or is it psychiatrists, but most importantly, they need something much more than that. So, I quite agree with you “if God is at the wheel or steering, I shall not mind to be at the back seat or even give the car a push”.
You can't say fears are not real. Reality might be a relative thing, but it is real to those who perceive it as such. You cannot tell a person with dementia not to be paranoid; his/her reality is one of constant paranoia and because you cannot perceive it does not make it less true to the person. Fears are real. My point was sometimes, fear is an excuse and it should not be, not that it is not a substantial feeling...
I absolutely agree with you. But when I said “not real”, I did not mean to say, they are “not factual” per se: and remember, I said “most often” and “irrational fear”. It’s actually a question of semantics: I failed to express myself the way I should have – poor me. Fear is “really” part of the human nature, just as one would panic on the way of an uncontrollable vehicle or inside an uncontrollable air plane; it is somewhat an involuntary/instinctive/inborn action that must not be allowed to drag for long – they often have to do with the mind’s psychology. What I mean is that (most) fear(s) creates a kind of unimaginable despondency, but “most often” they are not and can never be what they appear to be... For instance, something happened, and there is perplexity and anxiety here and there. There are seeming evidences here and there that you are either going to be injured, lose your job and remain unemployed, indicted, jailed and even executed/die. The fact that the “feelings” are there, does not mean that any/all of these might happen to you. … My pastor was traveling by air…, there was announcement that the plane encountered a problem. A man very close to where he was seated was frenziedly panicky. The pastor, sensing that the man’s act was trying to affect him prayed: Oh God I want to sleep until I reach my destination of landing and off he slept and safely they landed. …A man went to the (more than one) hospital for HIV/AIDS test and was diagnosed with the disease. Within a few months, he drastically emaciated and was on the verge of dying. He had the feelings of weaknesses all over his body …etc, and of course, all hope was completely lost. Meanwhile, he did not have access to retroviral drugs “to sustain him”. Many thought he was going to die before the year runs out. He went back to the (same) hospital(s) after about a year to check the damage caused by the disease to his system (actually for a fresh HIV/AIDS test; whatever informed that decision was best known to him and God) and was told that he was negative. Within the first three-four months or so, he recouped his normal weight and even more. This had happened to a lot of people from this part of the world. On the contrary, there are many people with this disease; instead of “perceiving” that they have this disease, they “ignored” it and defeated the power of fear and damn the consequences that would have otherwise been brought by “fear” – for a short time though. As true and real as fear is, all the “substantial feelings” that comes along with it “most often” are not real… I insist. Moreover, I wasn’t trying to condemn Vern or those that might have had the same experience or have taken the same stand as he did: but they need to be salvaged from that dungeon of ignorance, that demented state of mind. Now for those who suffer from dementia, I will bow to accept whatever excuses they give and will try to understand every course of action they will choose to take. Howbeit, we should try to find a way to help them get out of that state of mind, especially if the case is the reversible type.
Post a Comment