Deep Homelessness Quotes

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.

A truly compassionate man gives a poor woman a portion of his meal before he eats, not after he has eaten.

Most human beings strongly believe that money is way less important than the life of a human being, but in reality five hundred, fifty, or even five dollars are way more important to the lives of most human beings than the lives of most human beings.

For a few minutes, maybe, life lingers in the tissues of some outlying regions of the body. Then, one by one, the lights go out and there is total blackness. And if some part of the non-entity we called George has indeed been absent at this moment of terminal shock, away out there on the deep water, then it will return to find itself homeless.

Keep in mind, we are past the age of enlightenment. This is past reason. We are pretty deep into modern history and the decline of religion. This is when nature itself has been stripped bare of its cozy personality and we all feel homeless in our natures as well. "The Limits Of The World

Pain is not insignificant. Neither is bewilderment or fear. Or conditions like poverty or homelessness. But somewhere—somewhere—there is peace. It is not even far off. It is somewhere deep inside us, in fact, ever present, just waiting for us to look inward to find it.” She

The night air has such a deep definition of the earthbound because everything is asleep as it is firmly attached to the earth without movement—just resting to prepare for the next day.

Here the mystery of drinking the cup becomes clear. The coming and leaving of friends, the experiences of love and betrayal, of care and indifference, of generosity and stinginess can become the way to true human freedom. Yes, people who love us also disappoint us, moments of great satisfaction also reveal unfulfilled needs, being home also shows us our homelessness. But all of these tensions can create in us that deep, deep yearning for full freedom that is beyond any of the structures of our world.

Jim told the audience, “I like to think of this problem of homelessness as a prism held up to society, and what we see refracted are the weaknesses in our health care system, our public health system, our housing system, but especially in our welfare system, our educational system, and our legal system—and our corrections system. If we’re going to fix this problem, we have to address the weaknesses of all those sectors.” It was a bleak assessment, implying that the only cure for homelessness would be an end to many of the country’s deep, abiding flaws.

At the gala, before he made his exit, Jim told the audience, “I like to think of this problem of homelessness as a prism held up to society, and what we see refracted are the weaknesses in our health care system, our public health system, our housing system, but especially in our welfare system, our educational system, and our legal system—and our corrections system. If we’re going to fix this problem, we have to address the weaknesses of all those sectors.” It was a bleak assessment, implying that the only cure for homelessness would be an end to many of the country’s deep, abiding flaws.

I was so used to being caught in the tides, but the moon always untangled me. The moon has always been here with me, and I am forever grateful. The stars left a trail as I follow it to a selfless soul. The night sky was darker than the deep blue sea, but I was granted a night light from the shooting stars.

Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two unrelated chairs, stood in the open.

I never knew my life was precious until a selfless human being saved it. I was so used to being caught in the tides, but the moon always untangled me. The moon has always been here with me, and I am forever grateful. The stars left a trail as I follow it to a selfless soul. The night sky was darker than the deep blue sea, but I was granted a night light from the shooting stars.

The weavers I’ve met are extremely relational. They are driven to seek deep relations with others, both to feed their hunger for connection and because they believe that change happens through deepening relationships. When they are working with the homeless or the poor or the traumatized, they are laboring alongside big welfare systems that offer services but not care. These systems treat people as “cases” or “clients.” They are necessary to give people financial stability and support, but they can’t do transformational change. As Peter Block, one of the leading experts on community, puts it, “Talk to any poor person or vulnerable person and they can give you a long list of the services they have received. They are well serviced, but you often have to ask what in their life has fundamentally changed.

Carlo felt sad losing the companionship of his new friends and thought about how fortunate Americans were to have immigrants in ever-increasing numbers blessing their country with their presence. He realized that as hard-working and industrious as they are, they would in time raise the spiritual level throughout the whole country by sharing their deep faith, their gentle, unselfish spirit, and their beautiful family life.

Safe! All I wanted to do was keep them safe. How do you protect your brothers at eight-fucking-teen? How do you make enough money, get enough respect to do that? I wasn’t smart, Eve. I’m a big, dumb fucking bastard. I couldn’t even get a job as a bagger at the A&P. I wanted to make their lives worth living. That’s what they’d done for me—made my life worth living. They’re my family. I can’t…I just can’t.” Beckett pounded his chest. “They would’ve been better off without me,” he continued. “Blake would still be homeless, but Cole made his own damn way. But I wanted in. I wanted to belong. I was too fucking selfish to walk away. I should have walked away. But I didn’t and now—” Beckett choked on a deep, angry sob. “Now, they’re paying for it. All my stupid decisions. They’ll die tonight. They’ll both die, and I can’t stop it. I can’t plug it with money. I can’t bring them back from the dead, even if I act tough or kill more people.

Mom stood fifteen feet away. She had tied rags around her shoulders to keep out the spring chill and was picking through the trash while her dog, a black-and-white terrier mix, played at her feet. Mom’s gestures were all familiar - the way she tilted her head and thrust out her lower lip when studying items of potential value that she’d hoisted out of the Dumpster, the way her eyes widened with childish glee when she found something she liked. Her long hair was streaked with gray, tangled and matted, and her eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, but still she reminded me of the mom she’d been when I was a kid, swan-diving off cliffs and painting in the desert and reading Shakespeare aloud. Her cheekbones were still high and strong, but the skin was parched and ruddy from all those winters and summers exposed to the elements. To the people walking by, she probably looked like any of the thousands of homeless people in New York City

Exile. It is not simply being homeless. Rather, it is knowing that you do have a home, but that your home has been taken over by enemies. Exile. It is not being without roots. On the contrary, it is having deep roots which have now been plucked up, and there you are, with roots dangling, writhing in pain, exposed to a cold and jeering world, longing to be restored to native and nurturing soil. Exile is knowing precisely where you belong, but knowing that you can’t go back, not yet.

You may well ask: when the bubble finally burst, why did we not let the bankers crash and burn? Why weren't they held accountable for their absurd debts? For two reasons. First because the payment system - the simple means of transferring money from one account to another and on which every transaction relies - is monopolised by the very same bankers who were making the bets. Imagine having gifted your arteries and veins to a gambler. The moment he loses big at the casino, he can blackmail you for anything you have simply by threatening to cut off your circulation. Second, because the financiers' gambles contained deep inside the title deeds to the houses of the majority. A full-scale financial market collapse could therefore lead to mass homelessness and a complete breakdown in the social contract. Don't be surprised that the high and mighty financiers of Wall Street would bother financialising the modest homes of poor people. Having borrowed as much as they could off banks and rich clients in order to place their crazy bets, they craved more since the more they bet, the more they made. So they created more debt from scratch to use as raw materials for more bets. How? By lending to impecunious blue collar worker who dreamed of the security of one day owning their own home. What if these little people could not actually afford their mortgage in the medium term? In contrast to bankers of old, the Jills and the Jacks who actually leant them the money did not care if the repayments were made because they never intended to collect. Instead, having granted the mortgage, they put it into their computerised grinder, chopped it up literally into tiny pieces of debt and repackaged them into one of their labyrinthine derivatives which they would then sell at a profit. By the time the poor homeowner had defaulted and their home was repossessed, the financier who granted the loan in the first place had long since moved on.

We can’t help but coo and clap our hands at the so-cute things of this world. At the ducks, oh my god, look at the ducks, so cute. At the sky, oh my god, look at the sky, so cute. At the tall buildings reflecting the sun setting, look how shiny shiny they are. Homeless man don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, that causes an owie inside. No, do look, it’s sad. Makes you think, makes you deep. Our mothers always said to look hard at the things of this world that are owies on the eyes because they will put more colors in your inner rainbow.

People are not fleeing churches today because they have lost their deep hunger for a spiritual connection and participation in authentic spiritual communities. Rather, they are fleeing because so many churches now seem bereft of the very spirit that birthed them in the first place. If clergy want to find their people, they might try looking in coffee shops, in homeless shelters, among the young who have pitched their tents in parks to dramatize economic injustice. While we shop, salute, and worship celebrities and athletes, the world is falling apart. What we need today is a move to Occupy Religion.

For the first time Goldmund felt not only desired by a woman but loved. Once Lydia said: "You are so handsome and you look so happy. But deep inside your eyes there is no gaiety, there is only sorrow, as though your eyes knew that happiness did not exist and that all that is beautiful and lovely does not stay with us long. You have the most beautiful eyes of anyone I know, and the saddest. I think that that's because you're homeless. -But where is my home? When you go away, I'll still have my father and my sister and my room and a window where I can sit and think of you; but I'll no longer have a home.

I'll tell you, I now know why Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd. It was because he had such a deep and beautiful feeling of love for people like you, and among all the people he knew in Palestine, they were the ones he loved and worried about the most. And he made treatment of you and those like you the basis for how he will judge people when they die. He will say to people who are kind to you, 'Come, blessed of my Father, into the kingdom of heaven, because when I was homeless and hungry and naked and ill and in prison, you cared for me. As long as you did this for the least among you, you did it to me. So come into my Father's home, and those who are not kind to you, God will give them a hard time, a very hard time.

At the first trans health conference I ever attended, a parent asked about long-term health risks for people taking hormones. The doctor gave a full assessment of issues that trans men face; many of them mimic the risks that would be inherited from father to son if they'd been born male, now that testosterone is a factor. "What about trans women?" another parent asked. The doctor took a deep breath. "Those outcomes are murkier. Because trans women are so discriminated against, they're at far greater risk for issues like alcoholism, poverty, homelessness, and lack of access to good healthcare. All of these issues impact their overall health so much that it's hard to gather data on what their health outcomes would be if these issues weren't present." This was stunning-a group of people is treated so badly by our culture that we can't clearly study their health. The burden of this abuse is that substantial and pervasive. Your generation will be healthier. The signs are already there.

But that’s where the bad news comes in. Our global civilization came at a huge cost. We needed a whole bunch of energy to build it, and we got that energy by burning fossil fuels, which came from dead plants and animals buried deep in the ground. We used up most of this fuel before you got here, and now it’s pretty much all gone. This means that we no longer have enough energy to keep our civilization running like it was before. So we’ve had to cut back. Big-time. We call this the Global Energy Crisis, and it’s been going on for a while now. “Also, it turns out that burning all of those fossil fuels had some nasty side effects, like raising the temperature of our planet and screwing up the environment. So now the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and the weather is all messed up. Plants and animals are dying off in record numbers, and lots of people are starving and homeless. And we’re still fighting wars with each other, mostly over the few resources we have left.

They climbed through the fog, trusting their guide, whose sheepdog ran ahead of them, unearthing a hedgehog among the crags. As they got higher, ‘the ground appeared to brighten’. A flash of light illuminated the turf and, all of a sudden, the moon was out. Wordsworth looked down. They were above the mist, which now resembled a sea with the peaks of the surrounding mountains emerging like the backs of whales. In the distance, they saw the mist dipping and swirling into the real sea. And somewhere between the mountains and the sea, they spotted ‘a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour’, A deep and gloomy breathing-place thro’ which Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams Innumerable, roaring with one voice. ‘In that breach’, Wordsworth writes in The Prelude, ‘Through which the homeless voice of waters rose’, Nature had lodged ‘The soul, the imagination of the whole’.37 This idea of the imagination filling a gap, emerging from an abyss of emptiness, and indeed of homelessness, is at the core of Wordsworth’s vocation. His poetry, the work of his imagination, filled the void of the losses – of parents, of home, of political ideals, and later of friends, siblings and children – that afflicted him.

Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: “When did the wind die down?” “An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it.” “You’ve been awake a whole hour?” “My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you.” “Idiot.” She lifts her body to tell me to slide out. I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. “I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry.” “You’re forgiven.” She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. “Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it.” I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. “You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance?” In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. “What?” “Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any.” I trace her cheekbones. “Semiattractive? Cheeky moo.” She yawns an octave. “Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow.” “I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you.” “Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party.” I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. “No.” Her hand explores my shoulder blade. “No what?” “No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it.” Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. “Second?” “Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up”—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—“with me all day.” She presses her ear to my ribs. “Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant?” The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. “If time had a pause button,” I tell Holly Sykes, “I’d press it. Right”—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—“there. Now.” “But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever.” I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere. She murmurs, “You only value something if you know it’ll end.

Dear One Million and Two Dreams, I never knew my life was precious until a selfless human being saved it. I was so used to being caught in the tides, but the moon always untangled me. The moon has always been here with me, and I am forever grateful. The stars left a trail as I follow it to a selfless soul. The night sky was darker than the deep blue sea, but I was granted a night light from the shooting stars. I made one million and one wishes on dandelions, and one of those millions of wishes came true. The never-ending sky seemed like it was falling on me. However, now the endless skies had been lifted and are filled with unlimited opportunities. My wings were clipped, but they grew back. However, they have been clipped again, and the process will continue until I free myself from my past. I made a million wishes, but none of them were on my side. I was exposed to a cut-throat life that spoke a language of hate. The emptiness in my life had more than one million questions. However, I was immune to abandon answers. Although I had one million questions, I received two million answers that were one lie after another. I walked around with one million and one brown paper bags with words written on them in different shades of ink and a dull pencil lead. I have a heavy rush in my heart because I’ve been fighting for so long, and now I can rest. When I think about it, I do not need a million wishes to come true. I feel my lips curving as they form a smile. Once upon a time, I made a million and two wishes, and two of them came true. I have my brother and Nurse Hope in my life—Ember; how much better can life get than this? So much better.

In the shores of twilight, Wide and deep as your eyes, I swim. In a way, I feel her Night, a crowned goddess commanding the stars to swim, So peaceful, even death escapes into serenity. Stars so far, they seem as they tell the living world, lights, live into shinning, die into nothingness. Worlds I want to travel, away to shadows of your eyes in the hold of your lips. So far, so far away.... As your kiss, as my lover. Night, With a soft touch, Touches my face, winds to the trees, sunlight on grass, life, breath, so quite, death screams in the abyss, a black pearl with grains of sand. The dance of the night..reminds me of her. Her tender laughter, the gleam in her enormous eyes, her soft whirlpool lips. As a reflection from dark streams, She reveals hot love, Nothing hidden, no shame, just love that hurts. The solace in the night makes me cry... The lights of stars as arrows to me. Night, Hits my eyes, Beauty of the wilderness, Calling me, Homeless in a city, naked on cold steel At home with the sea, with night above, foam of waters breaks below. As my companion, friend I speak to. I say to the night sky. Does she love me? When travels of the heart goes outside of me, outside the seas into clouds of your warmth, To another place in her heart trying to find out... Does your heart want me to visit or stay? Night, Calm is the winds, feeling the air, Night, She is beautiful.. Hitting me with such painful softness, I don't want day to arrive, I want to stay.. In the night, Peaceful, loving...with you... Night...vast space in time, Nothing, empty, to hold, for night, you are me. For I cannot have her. A love vast, beautiful and alone. For in the night, We see each other, In the light, Nothing hidden, Everything revealed, Night..I love you.,,as I love her. For I don't have her but I have you. As my love, invisible and forever waiting like a lost sailor in the night sea....

There are things I can confess only after swallowing a bottle of ink. How i crushed a moth between my palms before it rushed to the fireplace. These hands that are used to killing things midflight. Like my mother tongue. Before I can roll out my rounded R and O. Because women like me are believed to practise witchcraft and blackmagic. We swallow men and spit out their bones. These hands that danced with your ghosts on the bluest 4 AMs. These hands that raised a knife to its throat. How deep was the longing to be nothing more than an empty bed, an empty room. If someone asks you tell them writing was the closest I came to witchcraft. Poetry was the closest I came to being possessed. I wanted to leave behind more than emptiness so I wrote. . They say it takes 7 seconds for the eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. I glide across the dark room like the light was never here. Your body imprint on the mattress lost to the frenzied waltz of sunray and dust. How easy was it to just grab a handful of you before you dissolved. If someone asks tell them loving you was the closest I came to seeing god. . On some nights I open the curtains and you are the moon. I am the darkness surrounding it. Which is to say I don't know how to love without being consumed. If they ask you tell them remembrance was the closest I came to being sick. . Once I met a homeless man who spoke in madness because he had forgotten his mother tongue. How long do you hide yourself from the world before you forget your beginning. Like him - I too am full of silence. My beloved - a handful of you, your body. There are things I could only tell the moths but they no longer visit. I have put off the fireplace. Which is to say they too don't know how to love something that won't kill them. . My phone always autocorrects I love you to I live you and what is love if not living the other person. One summer afternoon our bodies turned into each other's. Your breath played lye strings on my neck. If they ask you tell them that was the closest I came to being alive.

The Poetry that Searches Poetry that paints a portrait in words, Poetry that spills the bottled emotions, Gives life to the feelings deep inside, Breaks through all the times wept, To sweep you in a whirling ecstatic delight. The chiseled marble of language, The paint spattered canvas, Where colors flow through words, Where emotions roll on a canvas, And it all begins with you. The canvas that portrays the trembling you, Through the feelings that splash, Through the words that spatter, All over the awaiting canvas. Such is the painting sketched with passion, Colored with the heart's unleashed emotions. The poetry that reads your trembling heart, The poetry that feeds the seed of your dreams, That poetry that reveals light within rain, Takes you to a place where beauty lies in stain. The poetry that whispers- "May you find the stars, in a night so dark, May you find the moon, so rich with silver, May you sip the madness and delight In a night berserk with a wailing agony". Such words that arise from spilling emotions, So recklessly you fall, in love with life again. So, you rise shedding your fears, To chase after your dreams, As you hear thunder in the rain, That carries your pain, Through the painting of words, colored with courage, Splashed with ferocity, amidst the lost battles. Such is the richest color splash in words, Laid down on papers, that stayed so empty, For ages and ages. At times, you may feel lost, Wandering homeless in the woods, But poetry that you write, To drink the moonlight and madness, Poetry that you spill on a canvas with words, Calls you to fall, for life again. The words that evoke the intense emotions, The painting that gives the richest revelation, The insight that deepens in a light so streaming, Is the poetry that reveals the truth and beauty, In a form so elemental, in a way so searching, For a beauty so emotive, Which trembles, With the poetry's deepest digging. The words that take your eyes to sleep, The poetry that stills your raging feelings, Is the portrait of words that carries you, In emotions bottled within, held so deep, For an era so long. Forgotten they seemed, yet they arose, With the word's deepest calling, To the soul sleeping inside. The poetry that traces your emotions with words, Is a poetry that traces your soul with its lips, To speak a language that your heart understands. The Ecstatic Dance of Soul Copyright 2020 Jayita Bhattacharjee

You’re probably wondering what happened before you got here. An awful lot of stuff, actually. Once we evolved into humans, things got pretty interesting. We figured out how to grow food and domesticate animals so we didn’t have to spend all of our time hunting. Our tribes got much bigger, and we spread across the entire planet like an unstoppable virus. Then, after fighting a bunch of wars with each other over land, resources, and our made-up gods, we eventually got all of our tribes organized into a ‘global civilization.’ But, honestly, it wasn’t all that organized, or civilized, and we continued to fight a lot of wars with each other. But we also figured out how to do science, which helped us develop technology. For a bunch of hairless apes, we’ve actually managed to invent some pretty incredible things. Computers. Medicine. Lasers. Microwave ovens. Artificial hearts. Atomic bombs. We even sent a few guys to the moon and brought them back. We also created a global communications network that lets us all talk to each other, all around the world, all the time. Pretty impressive, right? “But that’s where the bad news comes in. Our global civilization came at a huge cost. We needed a whole bunch of energy to build it, and we got that energy by burning fossil fuels, which came from dead plants and animals buried deep in the ground. We used up most of this fuel before you got here, and now it’s pretty much all gone. This means that we no longer have enough energy to keep our civilization running like it was before. So we’ve had to cut back. Big-time. We call this the Global Energy Crisis, and it’s been going on for a while now. “Also, it turns out that burning all of those fossil fuels had some nasty side effects, like raising the temperature of our planet and screwing up the environment. So now the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, and the weather is all messed up. Plants and animals are dying off in record numbers, and lots of people are starving and homeless. And we’re still fighting wars with each other, mostly over the few resources we have left. “Basically, kid, what this all means is that life is a lot tougher than it used to be, in the Good Old Days, back before you were born. Things used to be awesome, but now they’re kinda terrifying. To be honest, the future doesn’t look too bright. You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out. Human civilization is in ‘decline.’ Some people even say it’s ‘collapsing.’ “You’re probably wondering what’s going to happen to you. That’s easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You’re going to die. We all die. That’s just how it is.

The man was naked. He was all bones and ribs and snarling mouth. The front of him was caked in blood, a smear of charcoal black in the dim red glow of Palmer’s dive light. There was just a flash of this grisly image before the man crashed into Palmer, knocking him to the ground, desperate hands clenching around his throat. Palmer saw pops of bright light as his head hit the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He heard his own gurgles mix with the raspy hisses from the man on top of him. A madman. A thin, half-starved, and full-crazed madman. Palmer fought for a breath. His visor was knocked from his head. Letting go of the man’s wrists, he reached for his dive knife, but his leg was pinned, his boot too far away. He pawed behind himself and felt his visor, had some insane plan of getting it to his temples, getting his suit powered on, overloading the air around him, trying to shake the man off. But as his fingers closed on the hard plastic—and as the darkness squeezed in around his vision—he instead swung the visor at the snarling man’s face, a final act before the door to that king’s crypt sealed shut on him. A piercing shriek returned Palmer to his senses. Or it was the hands coming off his neck? The naked man howled and lunged again, but Palmer got a boot up, caught the man in the chest, kicked him. He scrambled backward while the man reeled. The other diver. Brock’s diver. Palmer turned and crawled on his hands and knees to get distance, got around a desk, moving as fast as he could, heart pounding. Two divers. There had been two divers. He waited for the man’s partner to jump onto his back, for the two men to beat him to death for his belly full of jangling coin— —when he bumped into the other diver. And saw by his dive light that he was no threat. And the bib of gore on the man chasing him was given sudden meaning. Palmer crawled away, sickened. He wondered how long the men had been down here, how long one had been eating the other. Hands fell onto his boots and yanked him, dragging him backward. A reedy voice yelled for him to be still. And then he felt a tug as his dive knife was pulled from its sheath, stolen. Palmer spun onto his back to defend himself. His own knife flashed above him traitorously, was brought down by those bone-thin arms, was meant to skewer him. There was a crunch against his belly. A painful blow. The air came out of Palmer. The blade was raised to strike him again, but there was no blood. His poor life had been saved by a fistful of coin. Palmer brought up his knee as the man struck again—and shin met forearm with a crack. A howl, and the knife was dropped. Palmer fumbled for it, his dive light throwing the world into pale reds and deep shadows. Hand on the hilt, his knife reclaimed, he slashed at the air, and the man fell back, hands up, shouting, “Please, please!” Palmer scooted away, keeping the knife in front of him. He was weak from fitful sleep and lack of food, but this poor creature before him seemed even weaker. Enraged and with the element of surprise, the man had nearly killed him, but it had been like fighting off a homeless dune-sleeper who had jumped him for some morsel of bread. Palmer dared to turn his dive light up so he could see the man better. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” the man said. “Thought you were a ghost.” The

Now, years later, he had been commissioned to fashion pictures with sugar water and dyes, a holiday mural. He had risen into something he could do, he had been recognized, and those years spent enduring his father's impatience seemed far away. He would do it for number 98,761,580, his love whose hand he held, cold as it was, who had lain beside him in the tunnels, in the filth. What had haunted him was the thought of her lovely body wasting away. It had torn at his eyes, his throat. It had taken away his faith. He painted a band of sugar on the walls of the hotel, the mural reflecting the city back to itself - the deep green park, the holiday windows, lovers under golden angels, flowers spilling out of markets in December, a resurrected skyscraper, a choir of variegated faces singing in front of a red door of a dark church, the homeless - not swept away, not forgotten - their realities on their faces, hands, hair. It was not a Rockwell. There were a few artists, subcontractors, who kept trying to abscond with the project, to make it what it wasn't for the sake of something they likened to a good make-believe before bed. -- 'A Potter's Field

that Corky was his nephew Ben. And then there was old Mrs Perkin of Herbee Place, who had been so kind to him. She had pretended to befriend him simply because he was an orphan, as she was, but Mrs Wilfred Perkin had said that her mother-in-law was looking for a ‘likely lad’, so the old lady’s friendliness and generosity had not been spontaneous. She must have known he was an orphan because of his horrible uniform, guessed that he was also a runaway, and thought that someone homeless, friendless and penniless would be an ideal go-between to assist herself and Wilfred in whatever deep game they were playing. By the time he reached Herbee Place again, Corky had made a difficult decision.

He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city Detroit or South-Central LA. But unusual for Germany. Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives moves in. From someplace where they don’t really know how to use a knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched and blinking. A tough situation to manage.

What could $177 billion buy? Quite a lot. We could ensure that every person in America had a safer and more affordable place to live. Every single one of us. We could put a real dent in ending homelessness in America, and we could end hunger. We could provide every child with a fairer shot at security and success. We could make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair. Crime rates would plummet. Eviction rates, too. Neighborhoods would stabilize and come alive. Schools could focus more on education instead of dedicating so many resources to triaging the deep needs of their students.

Ah, chopped horse mackerel." "Yeah, but it's not just an ordinary chopped horse mackerel." "Oh? What?! You're wrapping the chopped horse mackerel in a dumpling skin?! And you're going to deep-fry it?!" "Here you go. Deep-fried chopped horse mackerel dumplings. It's another one of Tatsu's ideas. Eat it with Japanese mustard, ginger and soy sauce." "So this is another one of your creations, Tatsu. Ha ha! That's a pretty wild taste! The chopped mackerel is half raw. And the spicy Japanese mustard and ginger sting your nose and wrap up the flavor of the dumpling!" " Ha ha . Just playing around!" "Playing around, huh..." "Here. Tatsu's special 'Everything Rice.'" "Whoa! It's got so many things on it! Curry, omelet, hayashi-rice, salted cod roe and nori, three slices of deep-fried pork cutlet with demi-glace sauce and stewed offal. Ha ha ha ... this is so sumptuous, it's over the top!" "Heh heh. You know how we homeless people collect leftovers and eat 'em all together, right? Interestingly, they kinda taste better than when ya eat 'em on their own." "I see! You've got a point... this really is a dish that only you could've come up with, Tatsu." "Just playing around!" "Playing around!

At first, I just watched the rippers from the flat in total awe of the Taj Mahal of my dreams. I was excited to spend all my time destroying myself the infamous Burnside Skatepark, which I had all to myself. This was a deep breath of heaven.

He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city Detroit or South-Central LA. But unusual for Germany. Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives moves in. From someplace where they don’t really know how to use a knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched and blinking. A tough situation to manage. He

YOU ARE PRECIOUS   A young woman named June volunteered at a church agency that served the poor and homeless of her city. One day June met George, who had come in to receive some help. Winter was coming and he needed a jacket and some shoes to help keep him warm. He took a seat in the chapel because the waiting room was crowded and noisy. When he indicated he wanted a Bible, June went to get one for him while he waited his turn in the clothing room. When she returned with a Bible, she sat down to talk to him for a while. George looked like he was in his late ’50s or early ’60s. June noticed his thin hair beginning to gray and the deep lines which marked his face. His hands were stiff and he had lost part of one finger. Although it was 1:30 in the afternoon, he smelled slightly of alcohol. He was a short, slight man, and he spoke softly. He had come into the agency alone, and June wondered if he had any family—anyone who cared that he existed. June wrote George’s name in the front of his Bible along with the date. Then she showed him the study helps in the back, which would help him find key passages. As they talked, the thought occurred to June: George is one of God’s very precious creatures. She wondered if George knew that. She wondered how long it had been since someone had told him. What if no one had ever told him he was precious to God—and to all God’s other children as well? George had very little influence or stature, but God spoke to June through him that day, “My children need to know they are precious to Me. Please tell them that.” Since then, she has made that message a part of every encounter she has at the church agency. Ask the Lord how you might share the message, “You are precious to God,” with others today through your words and actions.   SINCE THOU WAST PRECIOUS IN MY SIGHT, THOU HAST BEEN HONOURABLE, AND I HAVE LOVED THEE. ISAIAH 43:4 KJV

she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with just half. I said, What, he’s a selfish type? That’s when she broke down and cried. Said, Oh, Mavis, if you only knew. He comes across the nicest person, always wanting to do favors for people, feeds the homeless, smiles at little kids and gives ’em candy but it’s a façade. Down deep, it’s all about him, always was, I just know he’s going to cause me serious troubles over that money and it scares me.

A deep-rooted part of me had always wanted to foster children one day. The forgotten. The unloved. The homeless and abused. It was a blooming desire that grew wings with every passing day. Reed was fully supportive of the idea, so a year into our whirlwind relationship, we fostered newborn twins that had been pulled from a drug-addled home: a girl and a boy. Mina and Jayce. Mina meant “love,” and Jayce meant “to heal.

Perveen couldn’t wait any longer. She had to remind the judge of the fact that Sunanda wasn’t homeless, nor was she unemployed. Taking a deep breath, she said a silent prayer, and then spoke into the silence. “If it pleases Your Honor, I request permission to approach the bench.” The judge’s eyes narrowed, as if seeking to see her. “Permission granted. Madam, may I ask you to state your name and concern?” Perveen squared her shoulders and walked the final steps to the lawyers’ table. She laid her Swaine

Sure,’ Mary said, putting on a smile. ‘I have to get back. But please, feel free to look around as much as you’d like.’ Roper gave her a look that said, we don’t need your permission for that, but Jamie thanked her anyway and let her walk off.  He sucked on his teeth the way he did when he wanted a cigarette, and watched Mary go out of earshot. ‘Find anything?’ he asked, turning to Jamie. She let out a long breath. ‘Don’t know yet. Looks like Grace wasn’t as faithful to Ollie as she made out.’ ‘Lover’s tiff?’ ‘Could be.’ Jamie thought about it. ‘Spurned ex, maybe. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe something else entirely.’ She rubbed her eyes. It’d been a long morning and she needed to eat. ‘Come on. Let’s head back to HQ, get this written up. We’ll come back when Grace shows her face.’ Roper nodded without a word and headed for the door, already reaching for his cigarettes. Chapter 6 Jamie zipped up her jacket and dug her hands into her pockets, following Roper out the door. He’d sped on ahead so that he could light up before Jamie told him not to. She didn’t like that fresh stink in her car, and she definitely wouldn’t let him smoke in there anyway. And he definitely wasn’t above running out and doing it before she had time to protest. Her effort to make him quit by forcing him to stand in the cold obviously wasn’t working. He was a seasoned smoker and spent most nights standing outside pubs, come rain or shine, sucking down smoke.  That and the fact that he was far too stubborn to give in to such a weak ploy. It was like those goats that stand on the side of damns to lick the salt off. One missed step and it was guaranteed death. But they were single minded. And so was Roper. If she cared more she might have tried harder, but she knew from experience that when guys like Roper made a decision, they’d stick to it forever. As far as he was concerned, the drinking and the smoking was as much a part of him as his belly button was. It couldn’t be changed, and trying would only invite self-loathing. Guys like him had to hit rock bottom. Only then could they start coming back up. But sometimes they just stayed there, scraping the ground until they gouged a hole deep enough to die in.  She should call her mum. It had been a while. Outside, Roper was already two drags in by the time she reached the steps. A couple of the people outside had moved on and the guy in the sleeping bag had woken up and headed inside, though the urine stain that had seeped into the stone under him still remained. Jamie tried not to breathe through her nose as she hopped down the steps, her shin still throbbing from the morning’s bout with Cake.  She opened her mouth to tell Roper to hurry up when she almost got knocked over. A guy in his forties with an expensive suit and a long lambswool coat was rushing by, his head turned towards the steps. ‘Filthy fucking cretins,’ he almost yelled at the three homeless people still perched on the steps, before colliding with Jamie. He stumbled sideways, down into the roadway, shoving Jamie backwards.  ‘Get off!’ he shouted, flapping his arms. Jamie steadied herself and stared at him. Roper even stopped smoking his cigarette and came forward. ‘Hey!’ he called. ‘You’re not having any!’ the man yelled again, striding forward away from the shelter. ‘You should all be drowned. Wash this goddamn city clean!

Carl Jung once said there is no coming to consciousness without pain. In life, the only true obstacle we face is ourselves. We must face our pain. Address our faults. Stop placing blame on others.” I stop, take a deep breath, and continue, “We must face our demons. Even if we know the process won’t be easy, we need to step forward from the shadows. The things that hurt us can also shape us into remarkable people. When I was a child, I was homeless

I’m talking about the Aramaic-speaking, rough-hewn, odiferous, road-soiled, itinerant Jesus who nonetheless would be able to look straight through me just as he looked through the woman at the well, whose every fault and vice were visible to him, leaving me vulnerable and shivering. Nor is it a coincidence that the direct, unwavering gaze of Jesus would make me every bit as uncomfortable as the intense look of a desperately homeless person on the streets of my hometown of Chicago. It would make my heart race. A convicting gaze. An unblinking and slightly overlong gaze. If indeed we are to treat the poor and hungry and naked and imprisoned as though they were Jesus in disguise, then there is a deep significance in the comparison. The question is not so much “Dare I look into those eyes?” as “Dare I look away?” Is it possible (to paraphrase Tillich) that there is more presence of ultimate reality in the face of one homeless person than in all the sermons in all the world? Say amen, somebody.

All trash were once something of value

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had served on President Kennedy’s mental health task force as a young assistant secretary of labor, had also received a pen at the signing of the bill, which he’d helped draft. Years later, as a senator from New York, he looked back at that moment with deep regret. In a letter to the Times, written in a city “filled with homeless, deranged people,” he wondered what would have happened if someone had told President Kennedy, “Before you sign the bill you should know that we are not going to build anything like the number of community centers we will need. One in five in New York City. The hospitals will empty out, but there will be no place for the patients to be cared for in their communities.” If the president had known, Moynihan wrote, “would he not have put down his pen?

I’ve felt that connection with others throughout my life - sometimes it’s a random person in an elevator, where you look into each other’s eyes, and for reasons you can’t explain, there is a connection, not just simply eyes meeting, but some deeper knowing, an acknowledgement of each other’s humanity and the reality of being on the same path. And when that happens, it’s pretty magical. Other times I’ve looked into the eyes of someone who is homeless or just down-and-out, and when our eyes connect it is as if I could see my very own face staring back at me and for that brief moment, and often even longer, I experience the pain of my own journey and feel deep empathy followed by gratitude that my journey has taken me to where I am today. Everyone has a story, and I have learned that, at the core of it, most of our stories are more similar than not. Connection can be powerful. Sometimes just a brief meeting can change someone’s life forever.

That never could have happened if he hadn’t been a guy. For one, girls aren’t allowed to wear onesies to school. They’re deemed immodest. Because, you know, distracting female bodies pose a huge educational barrier for the poor boys. And if a girl had done that zany dance, either it’d have been sexualized or it’d have been stupid, depending on the girl. “She’s hot,” people would say. Or “She’s weird.” That morning, leaving Town Meeting, everyone was jostling one another, still in high spirits. “Andy is so out there.” Voices dripping with admiration. “He’s such a…” They couldn’t even finish. No words. Shake head. Smile, smile, smile. What they meant, of course, was this: Andy Monroe is so, so freaking cool. Right after that dance—still in the onesie!—he tapped the mike and said, “Next announcement. The Service Club is hosting a winter-coat drive on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless.” A girl wouldn’t be allowed to bridge both worlds, the silly and the sober. To be taken seriously, she’d have to act serious, and her seriousness would make her unelectable—just as a lack of seriousness would. It was a quintessential catch-22, and we couldn’t even call it out, because it sounded like an excuse. Well, I could be that cool, if I were a guy…. We couldn’t say it, but we felt it. We felt it as surely as we felt the weight of our bodies, because, like gravity, it was a truth about how it worked, this world we knew. Girls didn’t even consider running for Chawton School chairman because, as girls, we knew, we knew deep in our bones, that we would always lose.

I’ve felt that connection with others throughout my life - sometimes it’s a random person in an elevator, where you look into each other’s eyes, and for reasons you can’t explain, there is a connection, not just simply eyes meeting, but some deeper knowing, an acknowledgement of each other’s humanity and the reality of being on the same path. And when that happens, it’s pretty magical. Other times I’ve looked into the eyes of someone who is homeless or just down-and-out, and when our eyes connect it is as if I could see my very own face staring back at me and for that brief moment, and often even longer, I experience the pain of my own journey and feel deep empathy followed by gratitude that my journey has taken me to where I am today. Everyone has a story, and I have learned that, at the core of it, most of our stories are more similar than not. Connection can be powerful. Sometimes just a brief meeting can change someone’s life forever.

There was a time when love filled his heart, but no more. Once Sam had sought enlightenment and thought he'd found its path on an Ashram outside Los Angeles. Once Sam had a teacher in whom he believed without reservation, who had helped him discover the inner resonances of the divine within himself. Sam had read that one could become a completely God-realized being and was awed and inspired by this perfection he saw in his teacher. As Sam progressed, his guru became more than his teacher, he became his beloved friend. Sam grew in stature and recognition in the community of spiritual seekers gathered about the guru. Sam's utter admiration made the truth more painful still when he discovered that advancement within the order was not by merit alone but that several of the higher ranking members had been conferred their status in exchange for sexual favors and that the donations made to the center went first and foremost toward the material enrichment of the leader. Life for Sam then lost its reason. He had no faith in any human being not even himself. He certainly had no faith left for the merciful and benevolent God that allowed his loving devotee to fall into the hands of such a charlatan. Sam was deeply disillusioned and heartbroken. He walked out of the center that day with no possessions, no money, no beliefs. His great spiritual quest had brought him here to New York, a homeless man living in a makeshift shanty under the overpass of the Long Island Expressway. Sam was numb inside. He did not think about his guru; he could not bear to think about the guru. Therefore, he hid his great pain deep inside himself.

They approach most issues with equal certainty and zeal. Theirs is the only legitimate position, so all opposition must be silenced in proceeding to the mandated, top-down solution. Often superficially appealing, their causes are always billed as urgent. Remember their passion for the homeless? Why do we hear so little from Democrats on the issue now, when homelessness is rising sharply in deep-blue states like California and in other major cities under Democratic control?

Dear Secrets of the Earth, You are a place beyond belief. You are home to many, but only a few are able to understand you. When the wind is whooshing, it sounds like wind chimes. When the breeze offers its sweet gestures, it opens my heart and soul to be still and let everything—just be. The sky looks like a painting. It is a limitless portrait! When the streams collide, you can see the reflection of the sea of clouds. When the wind is whistling, it calms the meadow of the thoughts that form in my mind. The night air has such a deep definition of the earthbound because everything is asleep as it is firmly attached to the earth without movement—just resting to prepare for the next day. I always wondered how a wildflower can be so soft when it is stepped on and covered by weeds. It is because the earth has covered it in boundless, endless love. I am a wildflower; there is no such thing as being tamed; we take what is given and somehow find our way. I’ve been to thirteen homes in all. Yet, I still somehow and somewhere let love shine through the darkest hours, which lead to days. However, just like the wildflower, I am still here. Dear Secrets of the Earth, what are your golden rules? Is it to just go with the flow? Love endlessly without regret? Live and learn from your mistakes? Or is it something simple, such as continue to have faith while we reach for the stars? If so, could you give me a boost? Thank you for your company.

Dear Maze, My mind is a maze, and I do not know what to do. Apparently, I entered this maze before I was born. There was no way I had control over it because this was not a path that I would have chosen. Each level is mind- boggling because the number of paths is more challenging. The levels are uneven. When I try to climb up a hill, you unfairly tilt the maze, and I am right back at the entrance. I am not lost because I am finding my way, but when I am one step away from the end, you close the door, and another door appears—it opens, and it is another maze that I have to figure out. This time the puzzle is trickier than the last fourteen that were inconsiderately given to me. You know that Kace will be in deep trouble if my mother gets custody of him. He is too young. He cannot handle the tides. He wouldn’t know how to ease the currents. He would be a dead soul floating lifeless in the turbulent waters. Mr. & Mrs. Maze, I will gladly make you a deal. I am willing to sacrifice whatever you all need from me to save Kace. My sacrifice will solve each and every problem that Kace may encounter. I will gladly take on every route for Kace, and I will endure every challenge he will have to face. May you grant me mercy? I promise I will keep my word.

window. ‘If this is your way of getting me to quit, it’s not going to work.’ She could almost see her dad standing on the pavement next to the car, taking inhumanly long drags on a cigarette. He shrugged at her, like, what’re you gonna do? She rolled her own window up and killed the engine, getting out of the car to look at the shelter. The building was sixties brutalist. A slab of concrete that looked like it would have been a chic and modern looking community centre six decades ago. Now it just looked like a pebble-dashed breeze block with wire-meshed vertical windows that ran the length of the outside.  Wide steps with rusty white rails led up to the main doors, dark brown stained wooden things with square aluminium handles, the word ‘pull’ etched into each one.  There was a piece of paper taped to the right-hand one that said ‘All welcome, hot food inside’ written in hand-printed caps.  There were five homeless people on the steps — three of them smoking rolled cigarettes. Two of those were drinking something out of polystyrene cups. The fourth was hunched forward, reading the tattiest looking novel Jamie had ever seen cling to a spine. His eyes stared at it blankly, not moving, his pupils wide. He wasn’t even registering the words. The last one was curled up into a ball inside a bright blue sleeping bag, his arms and legs folding the polyester into his body, just a pockmarked forehead peeking out into the November morning. Had they slept there all night on that step waiting for the shelter to open? She couldn’t say. Jamie and Roper crossed the road and the folks on the steps looked up. They were of varying ages, in varying states of malnutrition and addiction. The smell of old booze and urine hung in the alcove. Jamie wasn’t sure if you could tell they were police by the way they looked or walked, but the homeless seemed to have a sixth sense about it. Two of the three who were smoking clocked them, lowered their heads, and turned to face the wall. The third kept looking and held his hand out. The one with the novel didn’t even register them. Jamie knew that if they searched the two that turned away, they would have something on them they shouldn’t — drugs, needles, a knife, something stolen. That’s why they’d done it — to become invisible. The one who held out a hand would be clean. Wouldn’t risk chancing it with a police officer otherwise. She’d worked enough uniformed time on the streets of London to know how their minds worked.  She took a deep breath of semi-clean air and mounted the steps, looking down at the mid-thirties guy with the stretched-out beanie and out-stretched hand.  ‘We’re on duty,’ Roper said coldly, breezing past. Jamie gave him a weak smile, knowing that opening her pockets in a place like this would get them mobbed. If they needed to question anyone

Some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, “The problem with these new people is that they don’t have both feet on the shore. One is still on the boat. They don’t seem to know whether they’re staying or not.” This same observation is heard from some contemporary scholars who see in the social pathologies and relentlessly materialist culture the fruit of homelessness, a rootless past. Like my elders before me, I want to envision a way that an immigrant society could become indigenous to place, but I’m stumbling on the words. Immigrants cannot by definition be indigenous. Indigenous is a birthright word. No amount of time or caring changes history or substitutes for soul-deep fusion with the land. But if people do not feel “indigenous” can they nevertheless enter into the deep reciprocity that renews the world? Where are the teachers? I remembering the words of elder Henry Lickers: “they came here thinking they’d get rich by working on the land…the land is the one with power- while they were working on the land, the land was working on them. Teaching them.

When something in society goes so wrong, that something is often a product of one very large agreement instead of the various small disagreements that consume the political sphere. Looming over the fights about which administration is to blame for housing becoming so unstable and what percentage increase this or that program is entitled to sits the inconsistency of America spending about $70 billion a year subsidizing homeownership through tax breaks like deferred taxes on capital gains and the mortgage interest deduction (MID), which allows homeowners to deduct the interest on their home loan from their federal income taxes. Together these tax breaks amount to a vast upper-middle-class welfare program that encourages people to buy bigger and more expensive houses, but because their biggest beneficiaries are residents of high-cost cities in deep blue redoubts like New York and California, even otherwise liberal politicians fight any attempt to reduce them. These programs are also entitlements that live on budgetary autopilot, meaning people get the tax breaks no matter how much they cost the government. Contrast that with programs like Section 8 rental vouchers, which cost about $20 billion a year, have been shown to be highly effective at reducing homelessness, and cost far less than the morally repugnant alternative of letting people live in tents and rot on sidewalks, consuming police resources and using the emergency room as a public hospital. That program has to be continually re-upped by Congress, and unlike middle-class homeowner programs, when the money runs out, it’s gone. This is why many big cities either have decades-long lines for rental vouchers or have closed those lines indefinitely on account of excess demand. The message of this dichotomy, which has persisted for decades regardless of which party is in charge and despite the mountains of evidence showing just how well these vouchers work, is that America is willing to subsidize as much debt as homeowners can gorge themselves on but that poor renters, the majority of whom live in market-rate apartments, are a penny-ante side issue unworthy of being prioritized.

Today people ask why we seem to have lost a stabilizing and orienting sense of values, why the family doesn't hold together as it used to, and why aggression and anger cannot be contained, as they creep out in vandalism, crime, and ubiquitous signs of decadence. Why can't 'these people'-meaning some other race or nationality, youth, the homeless, the emotionally unstable-live properly? we ask moralistically. A more accurate question might be: What have we done in creating this modern culture that makes it so difficult to live from deep values?

Think about it. We are born into a relationship. You are born in the womb, deeply connected to and dependent on your mother. You eat what she eats. You hear what she hears. That need for connection doesn’t change, but it can end up looking like a lot of different things. What gives consistency to people is a deep sense of worth—a feeling of being loved as we are loved by God.

We talk about the rampant homelessness among us, the hunger, the isolation. And then this young brother says he doesn’t expect he has long to live. He tells us he is 18 and has been diagnosed HIV positive and with that there is a grief in the room that cannot be contained. We grieve for him and we grieve because if we weren’t aware of it before, now we cannot turn away: we live in a world where hatred is so deep that adults are fine ensuring death sentences for us young people who have done nothing but be in the world who we were born to be.

Look inside the first chapter of youth homelessness and Perth crime: http://www.deepintodark.com/documents...

To summarize, the story-editing approach tries to change people’s personal interpretations of themselves and the social world in ways that make them happier and lead to more desirable behaviors. It is a family of approaches developed by social psychologists that includes writing exercises, such as the one developed by James Pennebaker; the story-prompting approach, in which people are directed toward new ways of explaining and understanding their behavior to replace self-defeating thinking patterns; and the do good, be good strategy, in which people are encouraged to create new interpretations by first changing their behavior. The key to each approach is that people end up with a more desirable way of viewing themselves that builds on and reinforces itself, leading to sustained change. To be sure, this approach is not the cure for all societal problems. No one would argue that the cure for homelessness is to get homeless people to interpret their problem differently. Sometimes big structural changes are needed to attack deep-seated problems. But story editing can help solve many vexing problems, even some seemingly deep-seated ones.

Because I practiced good-for-nothing zazen with devotion, I felt my life was justified. Yet this intensity of practice was possible only when I was young, strong, and healthy. In this way I discovered arrogance in a deep layer of my mind.