Recently, in a Santa Monica coffee shop, I overheard two men boisterously chatting up both of their newly acquired properties in the neighborhood. One of them smirkily said “Yeah, the only drawback is the alley activity, if you know what I mean!” And the response? “Oh man, it’s disgusting! I wish they’d get rid of those people, they need to find someone else’s garbage to pilfer, they don’t belong here!”
It’s taken me awhile to be able to write about this. What is there to say? What part of the human heart doesn’t flood with tears and upset over this degree of selfish unconsciousness?
Several years ago, while still living in the blue house, I attended a personal growth program for two weeks, and one of the required exercises was to not eat for three days and then go out into the world (upscale Santa Monica in this case) weak and wearing sweat pants, tee shirt, no make-up, no wallet for a whole day. The only words that you were allowed to speak to anyone were ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘Will you feed me?’ This was an incredible sobering experience. In one afternoon….one afternoon out of a lifetime of ‘other’ for most….we discovered the courage that it took to ask this question, the humility experienced to appear less than, the ego lessons around not being able to defend our apparent helplessness, the kindness and willingness of strangers to help and the cellular realization and gift in knowing ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ with those in true need, and let us never turn a blind eye or deaf ear again.
Again, w