Icon by Kelly Latimore | Text by Robert Davis
GROUNDING
To you who are reading this:
If you are unhoused, you know what it is like.
Even if you are currently housed, maybe you have experienced what it is like to not know where to go, to not have a safe place to be, to be unable to rest.
Have you ever been evicted?
Slept in a car?
Slept wherever you could find a place?
Have you ever had to leave with only what you could carry?
If you have never experienced any of these, you are fortunate.
Imagine it happening to you.
Coming home from work, you find the locks changed and your possessions on the curb. Beds, clothes, television. Maybe some of it has already been scavenged by passersby. You knew you were behind on rent, but thought you still had some time. You work so hard but money is so scarce.
Maybe your kids are there, locked out, waiting for you. Weeping. They came home from school and couldn’t get in. Their beloved bike is gone.
You can take only what will fit in your car. And you need room for everyone to sit. Maybe room to sleep. Can you afford a night in a hotel?
What about the night after that?
The night after that?
Many shelters are full. Many can’t accommodate families.
What do you do?
A tent and some sleeping bags. Yes. You can charge that. In a tent city, other people will be there, who already know how to live this way.
They will help you.
You have worries. You know that sometimes encampments are cleared by the authorities. Sometimes everything a person owns in the world ends up in a dumpster.
But you’re hanging on.
You can keep your family together.
You always have.
You can rebuild.
You always have.
You will rebuild.
The safety and kindness of new neighbors give you hope.
PRAYER
Sheltering God,
forgive me for all the times when I look the other way,
the times when I imagine that the hardships of others are not my own.
Help me, help all of us,
to change our society.
May it not be this kind of place—
a hell that throws human beings away.
