Spent the day in bed. Pressure is high so I need to take it easy.
This past Friday I read poems at an open mike in a bookstore. I recited a poem titled Lily*. This is a true story about a homeless woman found dead on the street three or four years ago. Lily's plight reminds me of the many transgender people living in the streets because their families do not want them.
It's getting colder here in the northeast. When the rains and snows come, I have a warm place to retreat to. Lily didn't and neither do a lot of transgender people. With the increased visibility trans people are getting this and other needs will come sharper into focus. I wish that more TGLB organizations would discuss and address this crisis.
2 comments:
Homeless people are not some kind of half-human monsters. They are people from our community. People who have lost their way. People who desperately need our help, and our understanding. They are living ---and dying--- on our street corners, and in our parks. How callous some of us have become. There but for fortune, my friends... For these people need our healing and our help - not our harsh words of hatred and harassment. If YOU were in their tattered shoes; if YOU lived their shattered lives, then YOU would hope and pray and plead for compassion and understanding; YOU would hope and pray and plead that when YOU fell, people would help to lift you up - instead of kicking you further and further down. Love thy neighbor? Yes--- ESPECIALLY- - if they are poor, hungry or homeless. THAT.... is the true meaning of “community”. For what kind of society, what kind of community, and what kind of people are we - IF we close our eyes, IF we turn away, and IF we let people die on our street corners, in our parks..and.. in our hearts? IF we let that happen, then ask not for whom the bell tolls, dear neighbors. It tolls for thee....
I was homeless for a year. I know the feeling. I a doing whatever I can to help them. Prayer, contact with resources, food, whatever they need.
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