Choices:
We all make decisions, maybe thousands from the time we wake up to when we go to sleep. For most of us here today our choices are between good things. Are the clean socks that we decide to wear blue or brown, do we make a peanut butter sandwich or go out to lunch with a coworker, do we use flannel or regular sheets on our bed? However some of our community only have the power to select between two bad things. Clean socks of any color are a huge luxury, lunch or even their first morning cup of coffee could be a big question and never mind flannel or regular sheets, one of the hardest choices of all they have to make every day whether to go and sleep in the shelter, if they can get in, go to a church and sleep on the cold floor or in a tent and brave the elements, wind, cold rain. There aren't any good alternatives. For a society that has a big enough heart to collectively cry and mourn for over a week for Sandy Hook, why is that 14 people died this year on our streets because of our neglect. These neighbors were somebody's children. Where is the national outcry?
It is is unconscionable and yes, the solution must rest with our government officials. Now some of our our folks are great. Janice Barton continues to be a great representative of the Barnstable Town Council but you and I have abdicated our responsibility to hold them all collectively accountable. Setting aside money like many towns do to help struggling families pay the rent in the range of $100 to $350 a month is totally inadequate to house a truly poor person on the Cape Cod. It primarily funds the landlords of the town. Plus it doesn't provide the counseling or education necessary to make it a sustainable solution. Building a brick and mortar building might take years but here and now we have a model in Homeless not Hopeless.
Hillel, 110 BCE - 10 AD Jerusalem, known for the development of the Talmud and two sayings: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the commentary; go and learn." And the second, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others though, what am I? And if not now, when?"
It is time for you and me to examine our choices. What are we? I offer myself as a small example. Yes there have been times I've been greedy and thought only about myself but I have made choices to do things differently. I could very well afford to live in a large house with expensive gadgets and drive a fancy car with yearly vacations to someplace warm. But instead I choose to live relatively simply (although I an not spartan) in small cottage and drive something that my friend Alan calls a "toy car". Not only is my carbon footprint reduced, which is important, but I invest in something I believe to be more permanent by giving that money to buy this house, the one on Baxter St and earlier support for Homeless not Hopeless. And tonight the choice I am making is not to sleep in a large house or even my small cottage but to sleep in one of those tents, outside in solidarity with those who do this night after night after night.
Scale doesn't matter. What does matter is you do it, you help. I encourage people individually and our towns to simplify just a little and turn it back to community so that we all can afford to care more, using less for ourselves we have more to share. Imagine if each town donated an abandoned building and even 1% of revenue for renovations, imagine if each of you likewise contributed to HnH. If not now, when?
I'm reminded of this it in the following story. A person had three friends. One friend was truly beloved, a second was also loved, but the third was taken for granted. All of a sudden this person was ordered to appear before the king and were very frightened. He called each of the friends to go with him. First, of course his closest friend who said it would be impossible. Disappointed but confidently he then turned to he second friend who said, “I will always love you but can go as far as the gates of the palace.” Extremely sad, the man had only the third, neglected friend left, the one to who had been taken for granted. When asked this friend said with assurance, “I will accompany you anywhere, but first I will go directly to the palace by myself and plead for you with the king.” The first friend reflects a person’s stuff and wealth, which cannot accompany you to the grave. The second friend represents a person’s relatives and friends, who can only follow you to the grave site. The third and last friend represents the good deeds of a person’s life. These never desert you. You choose. I invite you to join me in personally making choices that live on, using this power for positive change for wholeness, for Love.
I will close with another statement from Hillel "whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world." Its all about choices. The thing about choices that favor the material is they are ephemeral, like soap bubbles, most are here then gone the next moment. so at this time of solstice, as it says in Isaiah 58:8 . Lets work so our light will break forth like the dawn, our collective healing will quickly appear and our good deeds go before us” On this path we will create a world of Love and peace.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121223/NEWS/212230324/-1/TABLET100
