During much of the last 15 years, I have been a sponsor or volunteer at local shelters
for the physically abused, many also homeless. People ask why I do it, as it is often depressing, and sometimes futile.
The women who have been abused, present an image to the world that is often one of stone, hiding the pain, hiding the bruises, until eventually, one night, the stone is shattered by the fury of a long fall or a storm surge. Sometimes it's simply eroded away, what is unique, distinct, worn away over time, as if by water, drop by ceaseless drop. Perhaps with those who will listen and support, some of whom have been there, a little of what is left can be reclaimed, still capable of beauty.
Some of them will go back, the fear of the unknown overwhelming, the knowledge that someone, otherwise, will wish them, forever, anything but peace. Peace is not often plentiful. I could almost always guess which ones would go back, they wore that quality of outworn violence like perfume, drawn back to the evangelical zeal of their abuser, simply too tired to fight any longer. It was often a fatal mistake, realized too late, as they were borne beyond the hurt and harm of man, into the ground.
Better they said, to go back, then live homeless.
Many of us already live homeless. Not in our dwelling, but in the neighborhood of our true self. We spend years trying to change someone, only to realize the only thing that could change was ourselves. We spend so much time chasing after things, that we ignore what we have here now.
Some of the unhappiest people I know, have the most expansive and expensive of possessions. I sold or gave away most of mine two years ago, downsizing to live much simpler. I sometimes look at pictures of my that home, the thirty foot entryway, the three car garage, and have a twinge of regret, but not often. I could pay off debt, learn to do the things to sustain, not just consume. I could ensure Dad could stay in his home as his health declined. I could spend time with people who were important, not just labor for the upkeep of those walls.
I don't own a lot, but if the world falls to ruin tomorrow, I will still have food to eat, a modest roof over my head and the knowledge and means to know enough to protect it.
My parents always helped those that help themselves. Dad, getting his CPA after the military, did income taxes for free for the elderly. He was active in the church and in other organizations, living his life in a brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God, as he would say if you asked him. Mom, as well, volunteered at the church and at the local hospital.
There, she was the Tel-Med operator, where people could call and request recordings on medical topics from a published directory that had the topic by number. There was everything from child illnesses, cancer screening, nutrition and baby care to several on sexual issues and other embarrassing personal topics people might be too shy to ask the doctor about. Dad would disguise his voice and call when she was there and request those "special" numbers just to hear her stammer "
thank you" as she was turning red, then she'd exclaim "
Bud, it's you isn't it!" and they'd both laugh. But I know he respected her for that volunteer work, even as she herself was battling cancer.
My early career days were such I couldn't volunteer but I did sponsor a child through one of the Christian children's charities, just enough to provide for some schooling and at least one hot, nourishing meal a day. Sponsors were allowed to give extra money, with the stipulation that it would meet a specific need, not to be squandered. So one time, when bills were light, I sent a few hundred dollars I had saved up, with a specific need in mind.
I got a letter back from the little girl I sponsored in Africa , Louise Marie, hand written, with colorful crayon drawings of a little house with a roof and a door, with little crayola cartoon chickens and smiling children gathered round. You see, before the gift, her family had been living on the ground, in a lean-to, her widowed mother's $50 a month income as a sustenance farmer not enough for real shelter. With the money, and the assistance of the charitable foundation, they built a house. It wasn't a house like you and I expect to live in. But it was a grand house to them, with four walls to protect them from those that would rob or hurt, a floor and a real roof to keep the water and elements out.
Some folks would say I spend too much money on firearms or tools. I don't mind spending money for something that has a use, retains its value and can be passed down to generations. I have absolutely no issues with spending money on those tools that can protect my life and others. I have a hard time spending money on just "stuff". A woman I knew from a community organization, proudly showed off her $500 designer purse one day. She has about 50 purses (I'm not kidding), but this one was special because, well. . . . .it was $500!
I don't have a $500 purse. Until I was out of college I didn't even have a $500
car. But I have friends that would take a bullet for me to keep me safe. I have the openness of the horizon, and the strength of my free will. I have freedom, I have balance and I have friends that totally understand this.
Hopefully, most of you won't ever get to the point where you have nothing left of yourself but the letters of your name and what you can shove in a suitcase. Most of you won't give away most of your stuff and totally change how you live, when you don't have to. But when you do pare down, by circumstance or by choice, it is quietly liberating, as you discover just what it is that
was, still
is, precious to you, what is worth your time and attention.
Thoreau once said "
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.". That meant little to me when I first read it in English class. It would mean little to people who have had everything handed to them, with little effort, the cost of their education, their sustenance, their lifestyle. After years of sweat, tears and hard work, I understood, having severed ties with things, even people, who gave me only pain for my efforts, for in the end, such things, by their exchange, violated my sense of thrift.
We wake to time's incessant alarm, casting ourselves onto shores of time unaccounted for, rushing headlong from nights of God's silence to days of great discovery. We can stay in, intact for one slow, sure, unremarkable day, gathering useless possessions and people around us, as what sparked our dream fades to almost sleeping ember. For many people, that is their safety. We can just sit and talk about it, the changes we need to make, the tools we should learn to use, but talk is just that,
talk - arming ourselves with the satisfaction of courage without the inconvenience of danger. Or we can cast off our fear, gather those tools that can keep us safe, shedding that which only seeks to hurt us and head out into the world, eyes wide open.
What is ahead is unknown, often coming at us, so towering and fast, one can sense from it neither distance nor time. You can treat it with fear, no different than standing on the edge of a cliff, dreading that feeling as the ground falls away, the tiny rocks clamoring down like the first throw of dirt on a pine box. Or you can treat it as perceived feast, like a wafer on the tongue, a leap of faith for all you believe in, a willful jump into a place free of time and regret, where all the names and the faces of those you love surround you, as all around you, the wild things that call to you, run on ahead of soundless guns.
I know where my home is at, and it's not four walls. I know who my friends are and they could care less that I don't have designer clothing or fancy surroundings. As I look at a small crayoned note on my fridge and a photo in a frame, someone who will phone me later on, just to make me laugh, I know I have the comfort of a life, in which, if only for a moment, I meant the absolute world to someone. That is something you can never buy, like the heat of a candle that warms you from the inside out.
.JPG)
