Doors Always Stay Open - Even On A Lockdown

Saint Paulus just posted a Facebook update:

At a time like this when the media incited fear (solely to increase readership) which accelerated lock-downs around the planet, Saint Paulus maintained one stance: We keep walking the same road, together. Our goals don't change, our vision never falters and our faith rises in always advocating for the poverty. With people obscenely hoarding food, taking away from others that sensible shopped, these individuals didn't consider that the homeless are still homeless. They're still without food and now are suffering even more without everyday resources. Less people on the streets to give them a dollar, less foot traffic to share food, less garbage to find possibly a pair of discarded shoes. Please adhere to social distancing, but before you pop out, take some food with you. Drop it six feet away from a homeless person. Got spare time to spring clean? Bag up old clothes and drop them by the public trash. Just be kind, thoughtful and keep paying forward. We may be on a lock-down but we can always keep the door open. Blessings.

We live in a society whereby one disruption causes overinflated havoc, so let's review a few examples based on situations we've self inflicted the past few days:

• Irritated by having to wait 15 minutes longer than usual for $18 sandwiches, just prior to the mandatory Coronavirus lock-down.
• Aggravated because you have to work from the comforts of your home in pajamas, and meetings need to be moved online.
• Frustration from being on hold for an hour with the local pizza store about ordering a pie, even though you achieved an impressive amount of work during this hold time...in slippers, in bed.
• Moaning about an increased work load yet refuse to delegate.
• Extreme anxiety that seven bars of soap may not get you through the next three weeks.

 Now let us view this from a different angle through a homeless person's eyes:

• The homeless would spend those 15 minutes buying two weeks worth of food for $18 and share this with at least one other displaced person. Those 15 minutes would be a very happy occasion and $18 would feel like $1,000,000.
• Around 30% of homeless have a degree, are newly street living and have no addictions. They would relish being back in working society and wouldn't care where their office/desk was.
• Knowing the phone lines were jammed for pizza requests, they'd hang up because a: why stress the pizza company and stall existing orders? and b: another less busy restaurant would appreciate the business instead.
• The homeless run a survival-of-the-fittest yet also a collaborative society. If they had an increased work load, collaborative 'no ego' team work would immediately be utilized.
• The homeless would have traded or given away six bars of soap by the time you paid for your seventh.

Yesterday, an employee of our partnership organizations was on the bus. She was heading home after San Francisco announced the lock-down. On this virtually empty bus, a guy sat in the next chair to hers, wearing his mask. When confronted about this irony (the mask - no social distance - an empty bus), he refused to move, claiming he was a healthcare professional and this employee was beneath his social status. His ego, chauvinism and lack of common sense is standard practice of what we experience daily. After getting off the bus, this employee saw a few homeless people. They were all six feet apart from each other and passerbys.

The homeless, for all their faults and quirks, have great common sense, street smarts, logic and always say please and thank you. The ones with homes, bank balances and job security usually do not. Over the next few weeks, be grateful for the roof over your head, cash to pay the monthly bills and even the basics of job security. But always keep that door open to help the needy.