beast

Last day of urban hike.
I'm utterly exhausted today. I am still loving it, but I am sick and low on sleep, and I have been working my butt off already for 15 hours. We don't get picked up to go to the church until 9:30 and then we still have debrief. Tommorro we get to sleep in. . . 6:45. Oh well, I guess we can sleep in the van on the way home.

All of this has twisted my mind around so much. There are so many opinions, so many approaches to the problem, and so many definitions of the problem. I have my own, but would it be the right one? Every piece is important to the puzzle.

So many of these places remind me of a pound, an spca for people. We take them in, clean them up, try to treat them with kindness and hope that they find a home. It sounds so crude, but it's true. I didn't start to think about it that way until I was cleaning everything with bleach, spraying things down with hoses. We feed them so fast. We work for hours upon hours, and within an hour they have gone through the line and eaten their fill. It's all about making sure they don't freeze to death, keeping them fed, and letting them have a few hours of sleep. They are all woken up and out of bed by 6 every morning.

So many people are devoting their lives to helping. I have thought about devoting my life to this. I'm still thinking about it. It just amazes me, the total difference in culture.

When we first got here, all I could see was the need, and I was so upset, horrified. Today, after a long day of work, and a lot of talking to people and listening to them, I started to feel frusterated with them as much as us. There were day jobs, paying 15.00 an hour posted over the intercom all day. 500 people sat in the cafeteria and never even thought about trying to get up and go make some money to get out of their predicament. The jobs were never all filled. I was sad again, but in a different way.

Then I heard a homeless lady talking about a boy she knew who froze to death last night on the street. He had alcahol in his system. He couldn't make it to the drop in centre.

How do I handle that news?

Is is our fault? Should we have picked him up, drug him to a bed, and forced food down his throat? He had opportunities that he didn't take. Did he choose his own death?

My thoughts sound so cruel to my own ears.

Am I a beast? Or am I trying to solve a problem with my pinkie finger that I could neverf solve with both hands?