heartbeating

So some conversations had last night, between laughter and plumbing the serious depths, made me think and ponder, this theme over the past few weeks, upon observing the trickles of partisan insanity, of seeing the more close-to-home troubles in a world that brushes up against my own so frequently but yet that I am not a part of, trying to see beyond the surface, to see the humanity and the hurt beneath such externals, so easy to judge and sometimes justifiably, and then to ponder a God who hung out with the lostest of lost souls that I find it hard to even look in the eye.

There are kids in my world where I've never met the parents, or I know who the parents are and see the fronts of respectability that fail to mask the damage done by hard drugs and hard living. It's hard for me to not get angry when I deal with these adults who don't let their children be children, to see kids who've never learned to read cop an attitude to hide the shame, who don't have crayons at home but the TV's always on, who don't know where their children are and are too busy working a corner or scoring another hit to care.

 I've never walked in another's shoes and should not presume to condemn, this continual re-evaluation of attitudes dredges things I'd rather not see, that pharasaical attitude of I've-got-my-shit-together-why-can't-you instead of let me walk beside you. I can't stand by necessarily, and last night we talked, we grieved, we raged and laughed, and pondered and planned. There's no guarantee that you can help pull someone out, but it's better to try than to turn away. We may not have widows in our world but we have women who are alone, not so much orphans as much as those who might as well be, and fatherlessness at this point is assumed. If this is who God loves, there's no way I can't too.