I was hiking on a lakeshore trail in a nearby state park. Ahead was a small wooden bridge across a stream. Several good steps and you would be across this bridge. But crossing it on this early morning, I noticed something that brought me to a stop. Someone had written something there. I imagined it to be the hand of a young boy. But instead of "fuck you" or "parents suck" it was something strangely different.
"I love you!"
As I walked on, I began pondering this message. It was not addressed to anyone. Usually you would expect a name attached. "I love you, Mary!" Or Jane, or Sally . . . someone with a name.
Was the boy shy? Did he want to leave the message anonymous, so he could point it out to any girl he brought and claim it was to her? Or could his love have been for another boy, and no girl at all? Or was this message more of a wish than a reality? He felt love, but his love had no name to attach to? Or could he have just been happy on a bright, sunny day and in love with life and with everyone? I kept wondering because there were all these possibilities, and no way to tell for sure about any of them.
However, I vote for the bright, sunny day. A day with an exclamation mark beside it. A day when love was an overwhelming feeling that had to be written down, even on a bridge. A day when it was free and unbounded, including all the world and the entire human race.
I know this sounds like nonsense. I know such writing was not placed by the head of the local chamber of commerce, kneeling down on those boards in his business suit and tie. It is nonsense for sure to him. This is the work of a child, we assume. It must have been a child, we assume. Thus we make it childish and foreign to our practical lives.
Sometimes on televised football games the camera shows a person in the end zone holding a sign saying "John 3:16"–the location of a verse in the Bible. The person wants us to get a Bible and read that verse. He believes it will do us some good. Perhaps it will for, if I recall correctly, this passage begins "God so loved the world . . .." So in this theology it is god-like to love the world, but that is in theory. It seems that the majority of god-fans don't see it that way. Their god loves their particular portion of the world–their country or tribe or religion or ethnic group, or whatever.
Speaking before a fundraiser for his political party, Newt Gingrich recently declared: "I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous!" In this view it is every country for itself, and may the best country win. Or it is every race or language group for itself. Or it is every social or religious group for itself. And so we always at war, one against another. So it goes, and so it goes.
Human love, if we have any, tends to narrow down, not broaden out. We love only certain classes, races, political persuasions. We love children and relatives only if they behave themselves and treat us as they should. We certainly would never love an enemy. Our loved ones are the loving ones, meaning those who love us. Thus does love amount to no better than a practical selfishness.
I know the author of the inscription didn't have all of this in mind, but it's what I think about every time I cross his bridge.
Room With A Disturbing View
The office where I spend my days looks out across a restaurant parking lot to a major intersection in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. The restaurant draws people who work in offices like mine, mostly well dressed and prosperous appearing. There are groups of men, groups of women, couples, arranged meetings, and a few singles. I am on the ground floor, so I have a good view of this activity. I also have a good view of the activity just beyond it where Nicholson Lane crosses Rockville Pike. All day long the cars and trucks travel there: slowing, waiting, signaling, turning, sometimes honking. There are usually lines of cars just sitting and waiting their turns. This is why the intersection draws homeless people seeking assistance in the form of cash. Quite often there are several of them, and quite often they are there for most of the day. I have watched them in the cold of winter, the heat of summer, and everything in between.
I see this all day long, every day, since my desk faces this window. I have only to glance above my computer screen and there it is. Although I am used to this sight, it remains disturbing, an embarrassment. I know that nationwide over 100,000 of these homeless are veterans of our wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Most are disabled in one way or another. In another day, or in another country, these would be helped, But no more in America. We say we can't afford that. We can't afford helping people who aren't helping us.
Some of the people passing by think these homeless should get a job and work for a living like everyone else. America is the land of opportunity, after all. They should be ashamed of themselves, out there begging for handouts. They could take care of themselves like everyone else if only they were willing to work.
Some of the people passing by think that many of these are actually very well off. They read a story once that claimed a man who begged on the street during the day lived on his yacht in the evenings, or had a chauffeur, or owned a condo in Florida. Or maybe it was on the radio they heard about this.
Some of the people passing by give money now and then, and wish for a solution to this problem. But the problem seems overwhelming and far beyond the the means of one concerned individual. If you give money at one intersection, someone looking just as needy is waiting for you at the next.
As I follow these scenes every day, my feelings get mixed. I am thankful to have a good job, drive a nice car, work with pleasant people, and leave at the end of the day for a good wife and a good home. I do not know where the street people go, but I doubt that many will be sleeping on their own yachts. I sometimes wonder about them on dark, rainy nights or in the bitter cold of winter when some will freeze to death. I feel grateful and guilty both.
I could turn my desk around and face the wall, I suppose.