saltoftheearth

Salt of the earth

by Bob on December 15. 2007

I was sitting in downtown Boston in an atrium full of ostensibly distressed and homeless people. Looking up through the skylight one could see the towers of the posh Ritz-Carlton and then as one glanced down in the room, one supposedly saw suffering and misery.

Sure, people had old shoes on and some tattered coats in the winter's chill outside, but something else happened.

There was a certain kind of beauty in their eyes. Despite their shortcomings in life's turn of events, they seemed to be joyous that they had nothing left to lose anymore. There was freedom at last, as the 1969 song "Me and Bobby McGee" said: "Freedom's just another word/For nothing left to lose".

So some played dominoes and others just chatted. Hiding inside from the storm.

Tears came to my eyes. I realised the poor have more in common and love of another than the rich or middle class do. There is an honesty in desperation. There's nothing left to hide or have pretense about.

That was precisely the teaching of Saint Francis of Assisi. That the poor were closer to God. And that we all should never forget that the poor and afflicted are parts of our own extended bodies. In some sense, the poor give us opportunity to be good people and charitable. St. Francis had a saying that if you give one of your shoes to someone, run after him, and give him your other shoe.

This gets us to possessions. The poor and especially the homeless have no possessions to speak of. That's why we see homeless people carrying heavy backpacks with all their belongings in the hot summer or harsh winter. Or wearing or carrying a heavy coat in summer because they themselves are their own walking closet.

Many spiritual personages and varied philosophies have advised us to shed our material possessions and finally be free. Free from worry and anxiety for we no longer care.

It was such a beautiful thing to see people caring about each other in a real practical way, athough what they owned in life was minimal.

Tears in one's eyes are not sufficient to do this beautiful community justice.

It's like a band of modern wandering monks or holy men.

Society at large doesn't perceive it that way. They see homeless people as invisible beings, abandoned and perhaps to be avoided. Without, of course, realising that such poor people can give them the chance to redeem their inner souls, and be as the Good Samaritan was to the beaten man on the roadside. Happy is the cheerful giver. But not necessarily a giver of money. Many truly homeless people would rather be acknowledged as decent and purposeful members of society again rather than be the richest person in town.