Change!
I was driving home the other day when I came to a stop at a traffic light that dangled tirelessly beneath an overpass. The air was damp and brisk; uninviting of an afternoon stroll.
I looked over to my left, and observed a man who I presumed homeless, clad in weathered and trodden garb that draped his emaciated frame as he held chest-high a cardboard sign with faint and faded letters that read - “Please Spare Change” – with the word “Change” being the most discernible and prominent of the three.
I watched as passer-bys conveniently held their cell phones to their ears, eyes locked in a wayward gaze in every direction except towards the wanting man, all but calling him “invisible” - which in fact he was - merely an erasable figment of Will justified by society’s classification as the “lowest of the low”, “the despised of the despised”, ranking even lower than the vilest crimes of being “black”, “brown”, “female”, or “foreign”; all of which he was neither.
I watched as he cautiously approached pedestrians, eyes wracked with sincere hope and want, only to be met with gazes of judgment and condemnation; sneers of scorn that might as well have been hurled with warm spit, but rather, were cooled with cold-shouldered retorts of “I have nothing to give you”, “I can’t help you”, “No, sorry!”, “Why don’t you help yourself?”,……but most frequently, silence and avoidance.
The light turns green and I proceed; eyes still locked on the pariah, observing as he repositions himself for the new batch of opportunity that is streaming up to the intersection; his hopeful eyes fighting persistently against the downward pull of dejection and inhumanity that weighed heavy on his brow, which again, soon come. But there, he stood.
For some reason, this image sat with me – closely - sharing a space in my conscience that alluded disregard, like the proverbial Pink Elephant in the room.
And just as I felt that I had succeeded in painting the Pink Elephant brownish-grey, I walked into my home, turned on the TV, and was met by a news report of Barack Obama, copiously flanked by craving patrons; their eyes brimming over with sincere hope and want, bearing chest-high and overhead cardboard signs sprawled with the beggar’s cry for “Change”, seeking rescue from a stream of past disappointments, in the desperate hopes that this passer-by will be different. And there, at this intersection, they stood.
I couldn’t help but wonder how we – those of us who believe ourselves to be better off - are any different than the beggar on the street; blaming the homeless and destitute for their failed conditions while ignoring our own, while sitting together, side-by-side on the curb of “hopelessness” begging for “Change”; with each side asking the other, “How could you let this happen???”
Still inebriated on the ether of our pseudo-success and regressive progression, we chide the beggar to “Change” himself; to stop wallowing in the pity of irresponsibility and economic duress, while we simultaneously - and excusably - beg our government for the same type of “Change” resulting from the same shortcomings; pathetically disregarding our own advice.
Our sobriety now offered in vapid doses of foreclosures, unemployment, and a weakening dollar, has transformed our neighbor to nemesis and savior to enslaver; revealing the hater to be no different than the hated, foreseeing our reckoning with Humility to be inevitable, which undoubtedly, soon come.
One has to wonder what would happen – what could be accomplished - if we changed ourselves instead of waiting for somebody else to change us.
“If you want to change the world, change your mind.” – Unknown
Peaces,
Tungz
I was driving home the other day when I came to a stop at a traffic light that dangled tirelessly beneath an overpass. The air was damp and brisk; uninviting of an afternoon stroll.
I looked over to my left, and observed a man who I presumed homeless, clad in weathered and trodden garb that draped his emaciated frame as he held chest-high a cardboard sign with faint and faded letters that read - “Please Spare Change” – with the word “Change” being the most discernible and prominent of the three.
I watched as passer-bys conveniently held their cell phones to their ears, eyes locked in a wayward gaze in every direction except towards the wanting man, all but calling him “invisible” - which in fact he was - merely an erasable figment of Will justified by society’s classification as the “lowest of the low”, “the despised of the despised”, ranking even lower than the vilest crimes of being “black”, “brown”, “female”, or “foreign”; all of which he was neither.
I watched as he cautiously approached pedestrians, eyes wracked with sincere hope and want, only to be met with gazes of judgment and condemnation; sneers of scorn that might as well have been hurled with warm spit, but rather, were cooled with cold-shouldered retorts of “I have nothing to give you”, “I can’t help you”, “No, sorry!”, “Why don’t you help yourself?”,……but most frequently, silence and avoidance.
The light turns green and I proceed; eyes still locked on the pariah, observing as he repositions himself for the new batch of opportunity that is streaming up to the intersection; his hopeful eyes fighting persistently against the downward pull of dejection and inhumanity that weighed heavy on his brow, which again, soon come. But there, he stood.
For some reason, this image sat with me – closely - sharing a space in my conscience that alluded disregard, like the proverbial Pink Elephant in the room.
And just as I felt that I had succeeded in painting the Pink Elephant brownish-grey, I walked into my home, turned on the TV, and was met by a news report of Barack Obama, copiously flanked by craving patrons; their eyes brimming over with sincere hope and want, bearing chest-high and overhead cardboard signs sprawled with the beggar’s cry for “Change”, seeking rescue from a stream of past disappointments, in the desperate hopes that this passer-by will be different. And there, at this intersection, they stood.
I couldn’t help but wonder how we – those of us who believe ourselves to be better off - are any different than the beggar on the street; blaming the homeless and destitute for their failed conditions while ignoring our own, while sitting together, side-by-side on the curb of “hopelessness” begging for “Change”; with each side asking the other, “How could you let this happen???”
Still inebriated on the ether of our pseudo-success and regressive progression, we chide the beggar to “Change” himself; to stop wallowing in the pity of irresponsibility and economic duress, while we simultaneously - and excusably - beg our government for the same type of “Change” resulting from the same shortcomings; pathetically disregarding our own advice.
Our sobriety now offered in vapid doses of foreclosures, unemployment, and a weakening dollar, has transformed our neighbor to nemesis and savior to enslaver; revealing the hater to be no different than the hated, foreseeing our reckoning with Humility to be inevitable, which undoubtedly, soon come.
One has to wonder what would happen – what could be accomplished - if we changed ourselves instead of waiting for somebody else to change us.
“If you want to change the world, change your mind.” – Unknown
Peaces,
Tungz
