Wandering in the Desert
We wander through our lives, looking, looking, waiting, waiting. For What? Humanity shares a closely-hidden, protected secret; we pretend, we put on a minstrel’s face, hiding the fact that in our society, humanity suffers with the sickness of the human spirit. We care little for those on the bottom rungs of society, as long as we are safe. We ignore the language of the poor which is entreaty. We hide behind our castles, protected by our artificial strongholds against anything that may challenge us, or harm us.
Our lives are like the desert; we wander aimlessly looking for something to soothe our tender frailties. We pretend we know; we pretend we are saved because we are upright members of our local churches. But the strongholds we build are only facades in our minds. We are not protected by these artificial castles. We will never find water in these arid deserts we roam.
We neglect the second greatest commandment given to us by Jesus; “Love thy neighbor as we love ourselves.” Every day I stop my car and give a few dollars to the poor man pleading for help; I wish I could give more; sometimes I do not see them and wonder where they have gone. This is the man, this is the family, that our humanity must open its ears to, hearing the pleading for assistance.
Governments are too greedy to lift these people from poverty. Big business is too interested in giving massive bonuses to the already superrich. And the churches can only give minor assistance; they too have to count pennies to remain alive. Humanity must clothe the poor, feed them, house them, to relieve their suffering. I can afford to give a few dollars each day to the poor man pleading for assistance. Imagine what it would be like if all of us stopped to give these poor people a few dollars from our material wealth. Three hundred and fifty million people giving a few dollars a day to help those in need. That is almost two and a half billion dollars . . . a day.
Imagine what good that could be doing. Imagine what our society would look like if we respected the poor, treating them with dignity, not demonizing them.
Let us stop wandering in our personal deserts.
Meditating to Heal 