Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay - Day 6

http://www.2010homelessness.ca/

Yup, I'm still hungry. But in a kind of zone, cruising along. Human beings are amazingly resilient, if you didn't already know that. That thought comes to me often as we encounter new people and get to know them and they reveal their stories. They come to live with us at our house or just cross our path for a while and are able to share their hope and accomplishments along with their sorrowful past. Homelessness can be linked to so many other struggles in people's lives - physical health, mental health, education, race, and class, to name a few big ones. I think that these aren't really the struggles of the 'homeless' but of those of us who aren't homeless. Our perception of what's normal, reasonable and acceptable in society is really quite narrow. People often end up homeless because they don't 'fit' in society as we've defined it. And their sorrow and pain is related to that sense of displacement and rejection.

I spent time at Children's Hospital tonight visiting with my nephew and his 4 month old son. The wee one is doing better now. His 2 year old room mate was having a bit of a rough night. Now that's a place of hope and anguish. It made me remember again that we are all someone's sons and daughters and that despite our best attempts to love and protect our families, life happens. Is there any greater sense of powerlessness than that of a parent of a sick child? We just want to be able to fix them! Throughout our lives as somebody's child things go awry and we're blessed if we've got family around us who want to support us and fix it for us.

But lots of things can't be fixed just like that and when we are no longer children we need something more than a parent. What we need is a community that cares and looks out for each other as if everyone was their family. What we need is the desire and ability to share our experiences, knowledge and skills so that we can learn from each other and come up with solutions together. We could use less 'doing for' and more 'doing with'. And it would be great if we could honour the survival and resilience in each of our lives with no strings attached and without the expectation to fit into society's mold; to simply be healthy and enjoy one another's company.