TheBanyanTree: Opposite yet the same

[Russ Doden]

Most evenings you can see them sitting on the curb at the intersections,
usually the busy intersections or off ramps.  You have seen them, sitting
there wearing the tattered clothes, looking forlorn, looking unkept.  They
usually hold a sign - a childish scrawl from a black marker on cardboard,
with the sign reading a variant of "Homeless, need work" or "Homeless, God
Bless" or perhaps "Homeless Veteran - need food".

You rarely see them in the morning when people are going to work, just in
the evenings, during rush hour when people are eager to get home.  You see
the marks of where they have been though sometimes the grass is trampled.
Sometimes their signs are left behind - just like they are left behind.

This morning I came in to work, and as I sat waiting at the light to make my
left turn from the off ramp I looked over to the side.  There, on the ground
were two signs.  One said "Homeless, God Bless" and the other simply said
"Homeless."  Laying between the signs, also now useless and forgotten was a
plain brown paper sack wrapped around an empty bottle.  A mute testomony to
the sad state that so many find themselves in - often through the actions of
others, often through their own actions and decisions.

As I sat there looking at this portrait of despair and poverty, I only felt
one thing - sadness.  Sadness that peopel would fine themselves in such
straits, sadness that people have so little to live for, sadness that such
situation exist, not just at a corner in Tulsa, OK, or in the US, but
anywhere in t he world.  Sadness that there are so many with so little, and
the number of those sitting on the corners holding those signs seems to be
increasing.  Sadness that most people were driving by and not even seeing
such a commentary on our times.  I didn't feel anger, or judgement, I didn't
feel indignation that the holders of those signs would waste the money they
received on that bottle, I didn't feel anything but sadness and compassion
for thm.

Then I came into where I work.  I have had a summer cold and have felt
rotten, but had to come in as I'm the only full time employee here - and the
only one, other than the owner who rarely comes by, to open and close the
shop each day.  My overblown sense of responsibility dictated I drag myself
in ths week.  On Tuesday, a friend of mine that knew I was under the weather
had sent me a boquet of a mix of yellow and white flowers in a big yellow
mug with a smiley face on it.  I came in this morning, still thinking of
those two signs, and the bottle between them.  This had a great impacton me
it seems.

Then I saw the flowers.  My somber thoughts of sadness lifted.  I felt my
heart feill with gratitude.  Not just for the flowers, though I have enjoyed
them every day, but for the opportunity to have a job, though it doesn't pay
well at all. Gratitude for the many good things in my life, though I seldom
seem to reallly see them.  Gratitude or friends who care.

These two feelings, sadness and grattude seem to be so much opposite sides
of the same coin have left me feeling . . . how fragile life is, how much we
have and yet how eaily it can all be lost, much beauty there is in the world
and how much pain there is.  How my friend sending me flowers and the two
peope with those signs were both sharing something with the other.  The
unknown sign holders were sharing a way to numb themselves of their plight,
my friend sharing joy and gratitude with me.  So much opposite, yet the
same.


Russ