Tag Archives: homeless

What Gifts Open Your Heart?

Recently I helped a friend collect and distribute clothing for the homeless. She’s been doing this for eight years and taught me her system of neatly folding and displaying the items so that people can choose what they want, almost as if they were in a store.

I’ve had amazingly profound conversations over those neatly folded bins of clothing. But what has bowled me over the most has been the intensity of their expressions of

Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.netthanks.  Each and every person, whether taking just a pair of socks or a bag full of sweaters and coats, expressed heartfelt thanks so genuinely that it shot straight to my heart.

Last time one of the women couldn’t thank us enough as she tried on different items and filled a bag full of clothes. As we were leaving she offered us a few pieces of fruit. Her way of thanking us included giving us something in return.

Traditional Hawaiian culture teaches that we are always to give first. Imagine such a world; one where we share what we have and extend ourselves first rather than waiting to see what we can get or what will be given.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that we (myself included) have lost some of the capacity to feel that kind of deep appreciation for the gifts given to us. I am working on seeing what gifts can open my heart each day: something beautiful in nature, a meal prepared by a friend, a smile from a stranger, a hot shower, a dog eager to see me. When I take things for granted, let alone feel entitled, gratitude doesn’t stand a chance.

Published 2/26/16

Homelessness Awareness

Each story I hear when I meet with groups of homeless men and women makes me curious about the people I see walking on the street with their duffel bags or shopping carts. Before, they blended in to the sea of people, now I notice them. What’s her story, the woman who looks like she’s on her way to work at a restaurant? Or the man in rags? Homeless people are slowly becoming people to me, not just “the homeless”.

After just an hour-long meeting at a homeless shelter with parents who live there with their families, I was in tears as I drove home. Their stories echoed in my heart. The car that was stolen then totaled so the family couldn’t move out of state where they had jobs waiting for them. The man whose head injury from a fall meant he couldn’t work and his wife’s minimum wage job is the only income for their family of five.

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Also echoing in my mind are unanswerable questions of why them and why not me? Is it karma or luck? We all make choices but what’s most inexplicable are things we have no control over: what just happens to us, the families we are born into, our race, our gender, the economy, the country where we are born, the neighborhood we are raised in.

I’ve never known homelessness personally but I am learning, story by story, of others’ realities. And hard as it is to sit with suffering when there is nothing I can do to help, I feel I am being given a gift of becoming more human.

I am grateful to all the people—homeless, homeowners, and renters—who talk to me about money in their lives. They help me to feel and see the parameters and biases of my particular experiences (being white and privileged). I own a home because I inherited enough money when my mother died for a down payment. And I appreciate having a home now more than ever before.

What stories do you tell yourself about why you have the financial resources or the debt you have? I find that when we share our money worries, dilemmas, fears and/or shame, the grip (or for some of us, the stranglehold) of money loosens and lessens. We are better able to deal with money and perhaps experience more freedom in relation to it and in other areas of our lives.

Published 10/13/16