Bleak weather

It's a Saturday morning, mid-November in Kansas City. Some years the weather has been bleaker, some years there was still some sunshine left to reflect on the gorgeous hues of the fall leaves. This year is seems to be something in the middle, not the most bleak but not the best, either.

Even though there are fall leaves scattered all over the yard, there is no sun to reflect anything. It is gray bleak weather, with its accomplice--rain--wailing on the leaves, the pavement, on life in general. It reflects the misery I feel inside. Indeed, life is not sunshine, at least not long enough. I have lite a candle and am keeping it beside me, in an attempt to not forget the light of God. Like candles are lite in Church, I also lite this candle for a special prayer request. I suppose lighting the candle is really important to me because it assures me that I haven't completely succumbed to the darkness before me, that I still have some glimmer of faith in the tiny bit of light that flickers from a small candle.

While sadness descends on me, I am even sadder as I think of all the homeless in Kansas City. I have a home, food, drink, even heat (for now, anyway). I visualize the people on skid row, their shoes torn (if they even have shoes), hungry in ways we have never known because we usually know when we will our next meal. I see how the warm cars pass them by, dismissing those in wretched poverty as pariahs and freakshows (a feeling that I myself have felt many times). Lord, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

They may get a cot. They may not. They may be able to hide in a bathroom or they may get caught. They may be able to get food, they may not. They may be an addict, they may not be.

They may just be like the average person, trying their best just to eek out a living. They could have been that person who tried and tried and tried to find a job but had every door slammed in their face (yup, I relate). They could have been that person that didn't expect handouts from the government but simply needed them to survive. What they wanted more was a job. Nobody would give them that. However, what they don't have in any shortage is rejection, slander and judgment (yup, know that too).

As I stare into the small light of the candle next to me, the small radius of light which it emits, I think about all the homeless in this cold weather right now. Homelessness just touches the surface. What about the ones with children, with AIDs, with diabetes? The list is endless and it goes on and on....