"Hidden Stories"

I spent the day in Atlanta yesterday. I was in and around the Little Five Points area. There was the usual representation of all the diverse character types that you see in the city, from the Gothic scene type kids, to the moms from the suburbs like me.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the temperature was just right. The day was an overall great day. There was one thing that I saw, however, that bothered me immensely. It was the large number of people that appeared to be homeless.

The number seemed much higher than I am use to seeing when I'm in Atlanta. They seemed to be everywhere that I looked. Some of them were walking the streets and pushing carts and mumbling quietly to themselves. Some were standing silently, as if lost in thought, and others were in the streets shouting, and spreading the word. whether it was God's word or their own I couldn't be sure.

I know that many people see them and say things like, "it's their own fault", "they should get a job", or "they don't want help" and other comments like these.

Maybe the people who say these things believe them. Maybe it makes them feel better to believe them, or maybe on some level they are true. I don't know, but I do know that I can't just use an off the cuff comment such as these to dismiss these people from my mind. For whatever reason their images stay with me.

I do small things to try and help homeless people when I see them. I have given them money and food, I have taken blankets to a homeless man I found living in Oakland Cemetery, and I once nearly lost an arm trying to get my coat off and out the window to give it to a homeless women while I was in a moving vehicle.

The things I've done are so small and they do little to ease my mind as far as worrying about the lives of these people.

When I look at them I can't help but wonder what their story is. I know that some stories are those of addiction, abuse, or mental health issues, and these are terrible, but I'm sure that some are even more heartbreaking than that.

when I see them I am always drawn to their eyes. Maybe it's my search for their story that leads me there, I'm not really sure. I have seen a sadness and pure sorrow in some of them that is so deep it comes so close to tangible it brings an ache to my heart.

I have seen a hollow emptiness in some of their eyes that seems to reach their souls and speaks of such hard times and experiences they are beyond being voiced or even thought about.

I can't help but think about the fact that these people were someones babies, who at one time were hopefully, held, rocked and loved. They were small children who ran and laughed and played. They were just led down a different path than most of us at some point along the way.

There's not really very much that I can do to change the plight of these people, but when I see one of them,"I can hear my grandmother in my ear saying "there but by the grace of God go I".
Remembering these words will keep me doing little things for the homeless ones as I come into contact with them, and I will pray for their safety and happier endings to their stories.

Whether their stories change or stay the same, I was raised to believe that when we cross Jordan "a king and a beggar on it's shore will stand side by side". This reminds me that when it's all said and done our "stories" might not be all that different.