Sunday, September 30, 2007

Let's All Collaborate And Love Eachother

It's been a while since I've blogged - that's such a boring word - but here I am again. To be completely honest, which I feel like I must do seeing as how the point of a blog is to do so, I forgot that I had started this blog. But over the last few days I've pined over my lack of creative writing since college started, and so here I am typing words on a computer.
Today something quite interesting happened. I was stopped at a red light as I was coming off the freeway and there on the median by a crosswalk was a man. Now you must know what I'm talking about, we see them everywhere. Homeless men and women standing on street corners with ragged cardboard signs asking for food, shelter, work, or money. I'm not one of those high-brow, cold hearted people who looks down upon those less fortunate ones thinking "well if they weren't so dumb and lazy they could get a good job and make some money to support themselves". But that being said, I am far from perfectly Jesus-like humble. No, I often sit in my nice warm car with my favorite CD playing, clothed in clean, good-fitting (and probably matching) clothing, wondering exactly how they got to this point of need. Something bad must have happened at some point, because it would be hard to imagine a healthy, happily married, well-off father of 4 would up and leave his family, his job, his house, his security, and everything else but the clothes on his back to go sit on some street corner in the rain just for the fun of it. So considering that this has not happened to me, I am willing, and even honored, to help those who can't help themselves. But remember that man I mentioned back at the begining of this incredibly long paragraph full of run-on sentences? He was different. He was offering something instead of asking for something. He wanted to share something with everyone passing by, instead of hoping that someone would take pity on him and give him something. The ragged, rain soaked sign he held read something like "God bless you, Lynnwood. Thank you!" With one hand he was signing I Love You and the peace sign.
Now that got me thinking, in the few minutes that I was at that red light, that a monumental lesson can be learned from that man. Here he is, possibly at the lowest point in his life, sitting on the ground in the freezing rain, and all he wanted to do was give. He didn't want to improve his situation, then thank someone. He wanted to share some joy with everyone, even the people who would have looked at him and judged him. And if this guy can so boldly love strangers when he could so easily be selfish, then what are we doing? Sitting in a warm house on a computer reading blogs when there are probably more important things we could be doing, like loving people. We're not even at our lowest of lows. There's a whole boat-load of worries we don't have to deal with, like where am I going to find food, or where can I sleep where I won't get too wet. It seems we should be able to carve out a tiny portion of our daily lives to give back to the people around us. That's something I need to try to do more.
Well anyway, I should probably be doing some sort of homework right now. Have a marvelous day.

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