July 29, 2011
A curious day, reflection on the plight of the people
Evening
The ice cream truck rolls by, ringing out its song to lure the hungry -- “We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!” Listened to three cycles, reflecting how they’d finally changed it from “Greensleeves.” Should have left the tune alone. Greensleeves did not start out as a Christmas song unless you think "Alas, my love, you do me wrong to treat me so discourteously. For I have loved you for so long, delighting in your company" is a good thought for the holidays... And this wasn't the right day for Christmas in July.
Lying down for a short while, before the evening ball game with Elf in the back yard, when the corgi came charging through her dog door to stand beside my bed, pounding her front paws to drum out a message. Five seconds later all sounds in the house were drowned out, literally. The skies opened and gushers of rain pelted down. Oh, dear, little dog, no ball games in the back yard tonight. Grassless, it will now be a mud wallow.
Then come shrill toots of coach’s whistle over the pouring rain. Sure enough, the middle school football team is practicing hard out there. A pile up, and kids are rolling around in a tangled heap of arms, legs and helmets. Too bad there is -- was -- so much white in those black and white uniforms. I pity whoever does their laundry, but admire the youthful insouciance which keeps them pounding away. The rain hits the ground hard enough to shoot up again a foot or so before finally settling into the grass beneath all those stomping feet... When the downpour eased up, the team filed off the field. As for Coach, he must have been a Marine.
The day had other oddities. Mid-afternoon an elderly gentleman wearing a white shirt, shiny black running shorts held up by spiffy black suspenders, a pork pie hat and sports shoes with knee high socks rang the doorbell several times before I could get to it. He had come to express his sympathies at the loss of my husband. Er, husband, what husband? Seems he meant to be two doors down. Very polite about the mistake.
Early in the day as I was heading off for a quick resupply of fruit at the grocery store a familiar voice called from down the road... A young man who had spent some time in the neighborhood earlier in the year with his adopted family. From him I learned that the adopted family “Might just be ending this particular chapter of their lives,” leaving five dogs penned up in the backyard. Luckily the young man looks after them while awaiting word from the others about what comes next. [Update: Several days later the family reappeared. In the meantime, the dogs were cared for. Thankfully, sometimes things turn out alright in spite of difficulties.]
All of this as a ferociously partisan Congress locks horns over the debt ceiling, what vital services to cut and on whose back -- eventually -- to balance the budget. The young man and I had a talk about the terrible effects that cutting into certain social programs will have on those who are now slipping, or have slipped, from the extreme edge of hanging on. Last year I read that Valencia County is one of the very poorest areas in the nation. There are people around here whose utilities were shut off weeks, months, years ago, people who live in their aged trucks. People living in motor homes and mobile homes that never had any utilities to begin with, beyond a generator and what water they can haul in a tank on a pickup bed, parked out where cell signals do not exist. People so far off the grid of social services that their Social Security numbers have seen no changes in years. People who are very, very hungry the last part of every month. A Baha'i friend works in the local food pantry a couple of blocks away, where business is more than ever. Some neighbor kids have been putting well loved toys on a bookshelf in the front yard many days, with a box on the sidewalk in front, hopefully proclaiming "YARD SALE". They told me they needed to get a little money for food.
The hardest part is knowing how very Not Alone we are in these things.
And there goes the ice cream truck again, its song changed to what sounds like the background music to an old Doors song, the name of which I can’t recall. Dark, very dark... Rumbles of thunder suggest more rain is on the way.
I reflect on these words of Baha'u'llah, Prophet Founder of the Baha'i Faith:
O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH!
The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.
O CHILDREN OF DUST!
Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.
The first teaching of Baha’u'llah is the duty incumbent upon all to investigate reality. What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not.
~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
