H is for my weeping heart

for my weeping heart

My heart weeps today.  I am weeping like a child that has fallen and skinned a knee. I am weeping with shoulders quaking….sobs with white hot tears flowing.  My heart weeps today. Lord, thank you for making my heart so tender that I can see with new eyes the truth of the world. This is a world that needs fixing and much, much prayer. Yes, Lord, my heart weeps today.

This weekend is full of protest from every corner of the country. The young, the black, the brown, the poor, the disenfranchised are joining together to protest injustice and coming together in solidarity proclaiming that #blacklivesmatter. And that they do. There is a war going on against a generation of young black men and somebody needs to be held accountable for the numbers being snatched from our streets and put in prison for petty crimes or maybe they just end up dead. My heart weeps today. 

My heart is weeping for the mother that has lost that son and for the grandmother that did her own share of marching and protesting so that father and mother can go to school and graduate and get a good job so that they can raise their own in an environment of opportunity even greater.  My heart weeps today because I am asking what happened?

Wednesday evening was an adventure into downtown that I had not experienced in a long time. I believe the Lord positioned me to see all that I saw that evening for a reason.  I actually enjoy that walk for several block down the hill to catch the bus to downtown.  This particular late afternoon, however, I started to notice how the peaceful , middle class neighborhood that I live in is quickly changing.  A little more trash in the street.  A few more bars on windows or empty houses being restored signaling gentrification. There  were young folks standing around doing nothing here in Maxwell Park something I personally have never noticed before.  I even saw what looked like a homeless person’s shelter against the elements  nestled behind a dead, dry Christmas tree in a doorway of a boarded up building.

When I finally reached the bus stop I see my friend, a homeless white woman sitting on the opposite side of the street. I suppose she wanted to get a different perspective on the going and comings of this corner.  Regardless of the time of day or even the day of the week that I catch this bus, she is here sitting, waiting for something or someone. Because of her position today I am able to look at her closer than usual. She is older,  maybe late fifties  or early sixties, cap pulled down over her ears, wearing layers of other people’s clothes and tattered tennis shoes.  I never see her with bags so I have to assume that they are stashed someplace  out of site but near. 

Words between us are never spoken. We nod the customary greeting and acknowledgement of the existence of the other. I stand and wait, check the time, call for information on next bus and wait for what is really only a few short minutes but seems like hours.  My nameless, voiceless friend reads.  This simple act speaks volumes.

I silently wish that my site was better so I can see the title of the book and today I am wondering what is keeping me from just asking. As usual I say nothing.  I believe that it is some unwritten law between us that we don’t speak, only nod. I’m really curious and I wonder if the book is one of my favorites, a mystery novel perhaps or science fiction.  She doesn’t impress me as being someone that would get into reading a romance.

It is not so much what she is reading, it is about the mere fact that she is reading that is speaking to my heart. This woman that has a thick, tattered open book on her lap every week is probably a person of awareness. A woman of strong opinion with the ability to put words together to make a statement, I assume.  How did she arrive at this point?  What circumstance led her to this state of homelessness in her private library at the corner of Foothill and Kingsland? I got to thinking that she is probably one of the number of educated, older Americans that have been shunned to the side like yesterday’s newspaper.  Lost jobs. Lost homes. My head begins to swirl with questions. Where do these books come from? Does she root through the same box of books I do that are left by the Friends of the Library?  Does she find them in trash bins while looking for tossed bottles and cans to take to the recycle place? What kind of work did she used to do?  The vestiges of the recent economic downturn hit Oakland hard and can still be seen everywhere.

Climbing on my bus I promise myself that I am going to open my mouth and speak to this mystery woman next time.  She may just be a nut but then again she might be somebody smart and articulate that I will enjoy talking to. And perhaps this might be all that she needs to make it through the day, somebody to acknowledge her existence for a brief moment.

While on the number 40 Downtown Oakland bus we come to a stop where I see a large number of people with grocery bags and pull carts standing in line at what appears to be a church.  Again, God made me take notice.  Though many of these people were  (and it really didn’t matter that they were) Asian they all had that same look on their faces. Looks of desperation to get whatever was being given away. I observed one man with two plastic bags running to the spot. He was so worried that he was too late. Somebody on the bus chuckled, I don’t know. As I studied his face and looked at the others for those brief seconds, I noted that they all were older folks and say what you will, they looked hungry. Four o’clock in the afternoon was kind of late giving away food baskets but my heart was celebrating those that made it just in time. I hoped that each and every one of them was going to get enough to feed their families and themselves until that same time next week.  Dear God, this is supposedly the richest country in the world and there are still folks begging for bread.

My heart weeps today.  I am not particularly naïve in my thinking.  There are some people that are just plan greedy in this world.  If something says free on it they got to have it. It doesn’t matter what it is. If I know nothing else, however, I know that there are people that are hungry right outside of my immediate neighborhood.  There are children that depend on school lunches and mothers that deny themselves so that their children can eat. There are old people in Oakland that live not far from Lake Merritt that struggle to make the rent and don’t have money left over for food so those giveaways are oh so important.  My heart is weeping for the invisible.

Continuing on to downtown I get off the bus at Broadway and immediately smell that familiar aroma of marijuana which is bad enough but I look at the number of black youth again standing around doing nothing.  By now it is near five o’clock and folks are leaving their jobs in the highrises. They are walking through that thick haze of smoke. Head down they pass the fella with the very large music player on his shoulder grooving to a beat that only he can hear. Oh and did I mention that he was white? The smoke,  the confusion,  the mixture of everything that is odd and different and I am saying to myself if I close my eyes this could be San Francisco but most of those folks have moved over here because who can even afford to be homeless over there?  Folks moving fast to get out from downtown before dark and others just there because dat’s dey spot.  My head is spinning and I don’t know if I have a contact high or if I just can’t think my way through the scene at Broadway and Civic Center.

Then I spot them. Older women and men just like me.  These folks are also moving as fast they can and I know they probably got caught up at an appointment that went longer than usual or shopping and the cart is heavy.  Folks hoping that someone will be kind enough to help load that cart on to the 72 so they can get home to the safety of the television and locked doors. 

As I sit there observing,  I wonder where they live. Do they still have the house that they have lived in for over 30 years or did the bank take theirs, too? Foreclosures on a loans that are beyond anything they can think or imagine.

My heart weeps today because Oakland is changing just like San Francisco has changed and I want to cry foul.  Oakland is a beautiful place. I love its creativity, its color and its history. But as we progress what is the real cost?  Who is going to be left out, pushed out and shuffled to the side?  I am not fearful for myself because I know I will be taken care through God’s grace.  But I wonder who is going to care for those that I saw on this route to downtown?  Will I sit and do nothing, say nothing?  The bible asks the question in Matthew 7:9, “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” I think not.  What do you have that you can use to make a difference in this war on our young people, our hungry, our aging? God has gifted you with something that is to be used to build up His kingdom.  As my friend would say, “What you got in the house”?  As for me I write.

H is for my weeping heart.

#soulwriter #whatithoughtwassojustaint  #gracefulaging #livingwithpride

Books by Debi Mason:

What I Thought Was So Just Ain't - Aging through God's Grace

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Barnes & Noble (NOOK edition)

ISBN-13: 978-0692236475

Release: June, 2014

Arizona Clay: A journey of self-discovery

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ISBN-13: 9781606964880

Release: June, 2009

Follow me on Twitter:  @DebiOak