Connecting with Spirit
The evening of Monday 3 March 2003.
There are many homeless as well as people who lack a sense of spirit in this city. The homeless are the most obvious as they are good at asking for help. When the world around someone does not function, many find a strength in their own spirit and relationship with God, and this is what I see in many of the homeless people I have spoken with in the last week. Many of them have a close relationship with God, and have a spirit that ignites when I talk with them about God as it becomes the natural subject that is brought up most of the time by them.
Too few even bother to respond when a homeless person asks for help, and pretend they do not exist. To notice a man who has a strong liqueur breath and red eyes begin to cry when we talk about God, shows that by reminding him of his own relationship with God that it ignites something inside and brings him a sense of comfort that God takes care of him. Homeless people have a purpose and are there to remind all of us that what we take for granted is not taken for granted by them. Most homeless people are not scary and just need some extra help from us.
The black middle-aged woman nicknamed Cornbread
The black middle-aged lady nick named Cornbread sits on the sidewalk across the street from my hotel (Travel Lodge on Sunset and La Brea) leaning against the white plaster wall of 7-eleven. I went out to get some dinner and noticed her there, so I walked over after a moments of hesitation and asked her if she was hungry. She quickly with a strong voice said yes. I asked her what she wanted and she quickly replied a double Wendy´s burger with cheese, as if she had been thinking about it all day, which she perhaps might have done. I came back a few minutes later from the Wendy’s fast food restaurant down the street with her double cheese burger and a salad and a root beer for myself. I am back in my room and can see Cornbread sit outside with a blanket covering half her body. She will likely spend another night under the same grey blanket, wearing the same grey hooded sweater. This night she sleeps outside my window in the mild Los Angeles air.
The homeless people are no different than you or me. Some have had problems they have not been able to deal with, and have often times turned to drinking to forget. They have many times also not had the support around to help when they really need it the most. Because of various factors probably most because of lack of money they have end up on the street.
Later in the evening I looked out and noticed that Cornbread had moved on. Perhaps to find a better place to sleep for the night as the 7-eleven store plaster wall facing a busy street just a few feet away is not a good place to stay for the night.
I went out as I was hungry and dropped by Subway and picked up what would become my breakfast next morning. Before I came into Subway my thoughts were on what I was going to do this evening. I needed some new material to give me ideas, and at Subway I picked up a new free issue of La Weekly filled with ideas on places to rent, movies to see, concerts to go to. I went through to see what I could find.