Tag: homeless

the only thing that can save us

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[…] What he understood is the difference between charity and community — a difference founded in kinship, in recognizing that we all fall down, that sometimes it takes another hand to pull us up again. “All you have to do,” he once told the novelist Ann Patchett, “is give a little bit of understanding to the possibility that life might not have been fair.” ….

What Father Strobel understood is that compassion is the only thing that can save us.

—  Margaret Renkl, from “Proof That One Life Can Change the World” (The New York Times · August 14, 2023)

Don’t miss rest of Margaret Renkl’s Opinion essay here.

Photo credit.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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I like to follow the path that nature gives me. Much of what happens in life is not in my power; most events are the outcome of stuff that happened thousands of years ago and will have outcomes of their own in years to come. I adapt and enjoy and refuse to fight the things that can’t be fought, I let go of the questions that cannot be answered and instead I push at doors that fall open to my touch and ignore the ones that resist too much. I have worked hard, tried hard, learned that life has flow and that resisting it brings problems. I’ve known people who fight too hard for what they want—fighting and wanting become a way of life and they never stop and never get happy. I ride streams that are going my way, share moments with people who are friendly, stroke relaxed dogs and approachable cats, cut the grass when the sun shines, shelter when it rains, and so on. Instead of standing in the ocean and feeling its swell pushing at me, trying to resist its push and then staggering and falling, I like to lift my feet just a little and be lifted. Bobbing effortlessly along like a leaf in a rill, turning this way and that to look at the world as it passes—enjoying the ride. That doesn’t mean simply accepting the ways of people. Injustice, cruelty and greed must be addressed, but I try to do it with love, with understanding and compassion. Not to confront, but to gently open a better, kinder desire-path for the stream to flow into because it’s easier. Some people, of course, are beyond the ability to change and so must be resisted. It’s not all plain sailing.

I wasn’t always a follower of the path. I wanted to be a writer and I tried so hard, entering, applying, but the doors remained so tightly closed that my knuckles bled from knocking. Then I gave up fighting and fell in love again with life, wrote the poetry of my days and the things that woke me in the early hours, demanding to be held in the mind for a moment and be seen. Now I don’t care about ‘being’ anything, I like writing for fun. Desire got in the way and slowed me down. I do what the moment tells me to do, instinctively. Of course I make plans of a vague, uncertain kind but I’m not overly attached to them.

—  Marc Hamer, Spring Rain: A Life Lived in Gardens (Greystone Books, April 4, 2023)

Notes:

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Their experiences in the world are involvingly varied: one was a nurse in Colombia, another an orchid keeper in Vietnam. But as I prompt them with questions to write about, I feel repeatedly surprised by how alike their answers sound. 

What do you miss from your past? 

The warmth of home, the smell of grandmother’s cooking. 

What is life like in the present? 

Confusing. Lonely. 

What surprises you about Denver? 

People sleeping on the streets. In my country they’d be with family. 

When you picture your future, what do you hope? 

Safe children. To feel at home. To live my dreams.

— John Cotter, Losing Music: A Memoir (Milkweed Editions, April 11, 2023)

 

Notes:

  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Sunday Morning (Images that stick)

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Notes:

  • Backstory on Human Sleeping on Bench: “Walking. With Moment that Sticks“.
  • Geese swimming in a row. (“Ducks in a Row“)
  • Last Photo Inspiration: “I want to believe that if humans really leaned into this impulse to mother one another, it would be stronger than the impulse to tear one another apart.” —  Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria Books, April 12, 2022)
  • Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 4:40 to 5:07 am, June 26, 2022. 67° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

Walking. With Moment that Sticks.

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4:33 a.m., or so. You are so damn precise with your clock.

I pulled into the Cove Island Park parking lot, my headlights illuminated her…sleeping. Hold that thought.

It’s been 770 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk. Like in a row.

I was going to share a different story.  A running story. I page through the dates of my prior posts to find my last running post: June 6, 2020! MY GOD. It’s been 2 years! And, this back and these legs carrying 12 lbs more. Yep, I decided to lace up the shoes and run. 2 days in a row.  My body is so tired, that it couldn’t lift my fingers to the keyboard to tap the words out. So, we’re going to hold this thought for another day.

Back to this morning’s walk. A spectacular morning. 60° F. 5 mph breeze.  And it had the three elements of a perfect morning. 1) Low tide. 2) 30-60% cloud cover. 3) No Humans. So we have ALL of this going for us.

And I spotted my Swans, George and Grace, feeding.

And I spotted a black-crowned night heron, a mime, frozen in place; this morning’s twilight, the finest, lightest bulb, illuminating its thin, light white plume.  “Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.” — T.S. Eliot, from La Figlia Che Piange.

And then there’s my spirit bird. Plural, Birds. A flock of cormorants. Must mean that I’m going to have a great day.

And on the back side of my walk, I stalk a white-tailed deer, and snap a few shots of her. It’s a her I think. In this world of pronouns, I’m sure I stepped into it again.

So, you can pick any number of these moments, and hold them, for a moment, the day, into next week. Yet…one moment stands alone, higher above the rest.

It was 1 hour after I had first spotted her, and she was still sleeping, in the same exact position, undisturbed.

I’m going to remember this. Continue reading “Walking. With Moment that Sticks.” →