Being Homeless and Grateful

The movie "In Pursuit of Happiness" that I saw today was by far one of the most moving films I have seen in a while.  Will Smith plays a real person who goes from homeless to rich all the while doing his best to raise and shield his little boy.  Nothing quite moved me as when he was hired at a big firm and the first thing he did was go to where his child was being cared for to embrace him as the tears streamed down his eyes.  From the moment that they told him he was hired, I was not just crying I was whaling like a child, mostly out of joy.  As a father I could not ever know his pain yet in some ways I related to it because like him I had times when I thought myself to be inadequate as a parent and that I would have liked to spare both my daughters the pain of my pain.  What we realize as father's is that we cannot do that and that in fact it is impossible.  For me it was the first night of having a baby in my home that I understood with clarity that my life would never be the same.  I cried in silence for  a few days at night but it was more out of gratitude than fear.  

In the movie Will Smith does everything in his power to not demonstrate his own fear to his son and as they laid sleeping inside a public bathroom with the door locked someone needed to get in and kept knocking as tears poured down his eyes and he held his hands over his sleeping child's ears so that the sound would not awaken him.  At times he played this magical pretend game with his son as if they were going on an adventure and dinosaurs surrounded them as they went from homeless shelter to another homeless shelter, at times getting there too late to get a bed.  As I watched these episodes of his life with his child without his mother I honored the fact that he insisted on caring for his son, allowing her to leave him if she would only allow him to stay with his boy.  It was heart wrenching to witness something that actually happened and that happens all the time when couples' split up.  Nothing can shield a child from that kind of pain and yet as a father he did a great job taking each day one at a time and doing his very best.  What struck me the most was his ability to be in a place of gratitude instead of being in a place of victim.  His child was literally more loved than children who are raised in a privileged situation with lots of material things. 

When I lived in the city there was a homeless area about four blocks away.  I lived in a beautiful condo with every bell and whistle one could imagine: Quartz counters, mother of pearl backsplash, a fireplace, French doors, lighted ceilings, surround sound system everywhere and even a wet bar.  I had it all yet there were times when I felt badly because just moments away there were people living under an overpass doing all they could do to survive.  I wondered how many died in the winter cold and how little they had to eat.  The person who lived with me at the time could care less.  In fact she kept wishing the police would remove them from where they were because it was going to reduce the property value.  No where inside of her did she think to take a meal to them.  Finally I decided that I would not pass through that area near me without doing something.  At least I would take them a meal or a certificate for some food.  Although I made very little difference in the eyes of many, I felt like I had done something, knowing fully that I could be them someday and that they were exactly like me.  Nothing separated them from me as a human being whether they were educated or not.  

I use to be around a lot of homeless people when I first moved into Uptown which today is an up and coming area.  Many parts of it have beautiful rehabbed homes and gorgeous condos.  I happened to get in before the prices soared up too high.  One night I woke up in the middle of the night suddenly and heard noises in the kitchen.  I went to see what it was when to my dismay there was a man standing in my kitchen who had broken the window, opened it and walked in through it.  At first I was furious until I noted that he did not know where he was at, talking to himself as though he had made a wrong turn.  He was completely innocent and harmless but I was still unsure and when he said he was leaving and apologized I asked him to go back out the window he came in from.  For me it was a revelation and a witnessing of my own karma for almost every time a homeless person asked me for anything I would give them a dollar, five dollars and at times ten dollars.  Once I took one of them to MeDonald's and bought him food.  I share this not to brag at all.  I was in a place that I could afford to do this and I was living way below my means and making a lot of money.  What I knew a was that the reason I was so blessed was because I was suppose to pass it on.  Still today I feel like I have done so little that it is almost embarrassing to share what I have done.  Yet many do nothing and actually criticize and degrade the homeless not knowing that there are many who are just like them, in fact most of them.  

God did not put us on this earth to ignore and put down others who are less fortunate than us.  I believe that serving others is what we are put on this earth to do.  I will not ever forget when my reverend at the church I attended had a book reading club.  The books was about who is worthy of grace.  Soon into it I realized that it was everyone or no one.  The women in the prisons and the children who are addicted to drugs.  It does not matter, we are all worthy.  This is what I think: If there are people who are not worthy and others who are then who decided this?  The truth is that we do and we do so without regard for others in pain and who have made mistakes in life.  This is why I agree with God: "You are all worthy".  The homeless included and for even better reasoning.