Wednesday, May 27, 2009

On Homelessness

The defining features of a homeless man are these: long beard, unkempt hair, clothes that are dirty or which do not match.  Perhaps a homeless man is carrying his possessions on his back.  Perhaps he is pushing them in a cart.  Maybe he mumbles to himself incomprehensibly.  Maybe he walks in a way which is abnormal: a shuffle, a stifled gait.  It is possible that he will be wounded, and that evidence of his wound will be visible to the naked eye: a bandage, a cut, an arm in a sling.  His hands will be rough and worn.  He will look in places ordinary people will not look.  He will speak to you as you pass him with unnerving frequency and in an unorthodox style.  He will seek you out when and where you do not wish to be sought. 

Mr. Jesus, it seems to me, possessed many of these same characteristics.  He kept the company of prostitutes.  His hair, presumably, was rarely washed.  His clothes, when held in comparison to the well dressed people of his day, were ordinary, and likely quite dirty.  His hands would have been rough, worked, and worn.  There was dirt beneath his fingernails.  He would not say “consider the Tabernacle” in order to teach.  Instead, he would say “consider the mustard seed,” using perhaps the most lowly thing to teach his lessons.  Were Jesus alive today, He would appear to be a homeless man.  A vagrant.  A derelict.  A bum.

He spent much of his time speaking about the differences between his teachings and the teachings of the Pharasees, who were the established religious men of his day.  He said, for example “Woe unto you hypocrites,” regarding the men who dressed in fine clothes and proclaimed themselves to religious leaders.  He called them serpents, he called them a brood of vipers. 

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Mr. Jesus became too powerful.  People were starting to follow him around and listen to what he had to say.  People were starting to understand His message.  So the Pharisees, working together with the Romans, had Him stapled to a big piece of wood, in order to teach everyone a lesson about bums.  The lesson was this:  Once a bum, always a bum.

Mr. Jesus had a lesson to teach too.  His lesson was this: To find God, do not look up.  Look down.

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Religion is such an odd thing.  Today it is a subject of many discussions, and a great deal of anger.  This is because we have forgotten the lesson of Mr. Jesus.  In America, the president is one man whose religion is very important to us.  If the president does not talk properly about religion, we get very upset.  Atheists, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, we get upset.

When we want to know about Religion, we look up to the very top part of our society.  We say: Mr. President, what do you suppose is true about religion?  If the President claims one thing, we are happy.  If he claims another, we are angry. If a bum shares his idea on Religion, what do we say?  “Ok bum,” we say.  “Whatever you say.”  We are a strange society.

If you ask me, Religion does not come from the very high places.  It comes from the very low places.

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Mr. Jesus spent a good deal of time talking about the end of the world.  “The end is near!” He would say. 

Bums say the same thing, but nobody writes books about it.

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Mr. Henry David Thoreau once said some thing very interesting.  He said, “Beware of any enterprise which requires a change of clothes.”  I got to thinking about this, and I got to thinking about the sorts of enterprises that normally require a change of clothes.  One of these enterprises is going to work.  When we go to work, most of us put on special clothes which tell other people how official we are. 

Another enterprise that requires a change of clothes is going to Church on Sundays.  When people go to Church on Sundays, they also put on clothes that prove how official they are.  To me, this does not make any sense.

Once Mr. Jesus was walking along in a field, and his disciples got to worrying about food, money, and clothes.  Mr.  Jesus stopped the conversation right there and taught a lesson.  He said, “Consider the birds in the fields: do they put food in a big barn and worry every day about what to eat?  No.  Even so, God is giving them food to eat every day.  Consider the flowers.  Are they saving up money to buy expensive clothes?  Do they worry everyday about looking beautiful?  No.  But look at them: God has given them the most beautiful clothes in the world.”

Then Mr. Jesus said something amazing.  He said: “God is loving birds and flowers so much that they get clothes and food every day.  Are you trying to tell me that God doesn’t love you too?  Are you trying to tell me that God won’t guard you just like God is guarding the birds and the flowers?”

How interesting.  A homeless person will not change clothes to look official.  Maybe in this way, he or she is like Mr. Jesus.

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A homeless person will usually not be on the news explaining world events.  To me, this says more about the news than it does about homeless people.

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Sometimes homeless people are doing amazing things.  In the American Midwest, for example, there is a homeless man that dresses in a bright pink leotard and plays the saxophone all day.  As an artist, he deserves my support.  He has it. 

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It is about love.  In everyone, there is something to love, something which was put there a long time ago.  Many times people are obsessed with covering this thing up, because they are ashamed of it or afraid.  They are “insecure.”  Sometimes on the street I will come across a man who will say something ridiculous to me.  For example, once in California, a man yelled “I am the kite king of San Francisco!!”

At first I was afraid, because I thought the man might attack me.  Later I realized this was nonsense.  If what he says is true, then he has no reason to attack me.  I imagine that when no one is looking, he gives the kites orders as they move around in the sky.  “Go this way!” he says, and they go.  “Go back that way!” he says, and they go back.

That is beautiful.  Why was I so afraid of a man who is able to talk to kites?

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Sometimes we think that we do not need to pay attention to what other people are telling us.  We think “I am an educated person with a sound mind.  This person is talking nonsense.  I will not listen.”

This is bad.  Imagine all those people who said this to old Copernicus, who decided to start saying that the Earth revolves around the sun.  Those people were a real disaster.  So the next time someone tells you they are the Kite King of San Francisco, think of Copernicus.

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Maybe we do not always understand what is right.  Imagine a person who has lived their entire life inside of a medium sized box.  They are probably real experts about the inside of the box, but would we say that they understand the entire world?

It is the same with brains.  We go through life only being inside of our own brain.  We are the real expert about the inside of our brain, but that does not mean we understand the whole world.  Maybe there are amazing things outside of what our brains understand that are waiting to be discovered.

Maybe the Kite King is on to something!  Who knows?

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It is really about love.  That is one thing I know.  Mr. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That does not mean that you should stand inside your box and think about how quaint somebody is.  That means that you try to understand their box from the inside!  When I do something idiotic, for example, I am always understanding that there was a reason for my action, even if the reason is stupid.  When other people do an idiotic action, however, I sometimes think “They are just an asshole.”  This is probably wrong.  That person probably also had a reason, even if it is a stupid reason.

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Society tells us many things about each other, but most of them are crap.  It is worth listening to other people, even if they seem crazy, dirty, disheveled, or poor. This is true because our society is based around the ideas of crazy disheveled people, such as Mr. Jesus, Mr. Henry David Thoreau and Copernicus.  Even if Copernicus was not disheveled. He wasn’t, he was quite well kept.  Not that that is a crime.  It isn’t.