Poverty and Loneliness

I know it's been two months since I last posted anything. A lot has happened in those two months, mostly self discovery and wonderful stuff like that. Since the last time I posted I went through some difficult times that I never want to have to go through again, at least not like this year. Those times are called the Holidays. Now usually I am a huge fan of the Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas season, it is probably one of my favorite times of year, this year was different though. This year I didn't get to go home and I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas by myself. I'm not looking for pity because although it was not something I would ever want to repeat I think it was a good experience. Part of the reason I'm doing this year of volunteer work is to live in solidarity with the poor of the world, and for me that doesn't mean just physical poverty, but also poverty of spirit and deprivation of people.
I woke up on Thanksgiving day prepared to be depressed but I couldn't, it was a beautiful day and as I walked to church I made up my mind to say hi to every person I saw on my way that morning. I cannot walk past a person and not at least smile or say good morning to them, I blame Benedictine for that, and in a city where people don't do that I think it was a welcome change for the people I passed that morning. That evening I had to work and I realized that even though I was going home to an empty house there were people going home to less than that so with all the leftovers we had at work I made up three plates of Thanksgiving dinner. At 11:00 pm as I was driving home I saw people with their signs and I handed them the plates of food I had made up, if you have never given food to a homeless person I highly recommend that you do that at least once because if they are truly hungry they will be the most grateful people not just that you fed them but that you talked to them, you recognized they were human, when all too often when people see a homeless person they turn their eyes because they feel like they can't help or shouldn't help, I have been guilty of this many times in the past. While I was wandering the streets of Baltimore that night, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone, it was not the smartest thing I've ever done, I realized that I would be ok during the holiday season even if I didn't get to go home, and I was for the most part.
I'm now going to fast forward to Christmas Eve, the rest of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas wasn't very eventful minus me laughing at the east coasters who have know idea how to function in the snow. I worked Christmas Eve until 11 and then decided to go straight from work to Midnight Mass at the Basilica. I got there 40 minutes early and was one of the first people there, I thought I would be fine, and then the choir began to sing, and that was when I am ashamed to admit my human weakness got the best of me and I started to cry. It was my first time in eight years that I was not singing in the choir for midnight mass, the first time in my life I had ever worn jeans to a Christmas Mass, and the first time in my life that I would not be spending Christmas with my family. Then someone else who was by themselves slipped in next to me in the pew, and I realized I was not the only one to be spending the day of our Savior's birth alone, maybe that person was going home to a family but if they were there were many who were not. I at least had people who wanted me to be there with them and the fact that I wasn't was from necessity not choice. After Mass was over the people in front of me turned around and told me I should have been in the choir, I said thank you but what I was thinking was I know, I usually am. As I was waiting in for my car to warm up the same people walked passed glanced in and saw me and waved and told her husband probably, "hey it's that girl from Mass who was behind us." I just laughed and gave thanks that small gestures like that didn't make me feel quite so alone anymore.
I put out cookies for Santa that night. I'm one of those people that have this complete faith in Santa Claus, maybe not the man so much as the spirit. "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy." Christmas morning I woke up, and even though the cookies were still there I knew Santa Claus had been there. I had a present from my family to open, which turned out to be a family picture we took a week before I left, and I had two presents from "Santa" really of course from my housemates Megan and Erin which were a big calender, a pocket calender and a colored picture of Timon and Pumbaa saying Hakuna Matata. Can you tell we're volunteers? Even though I wasn't physically with anyone that morning I know they were there and I was with them. I went to work at 3 and most of the people there didn't have anywhere to go on Christmas which made me to quote Irving Berlin's White Christmas "Count my Blessings". I must say though I have never really listened to the lyrics of I'll be home for Christmas more than this year, "I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams."
I did get to go home in time for New Year's my cousin and I drove the 14 hours from Maryland to Iowa, we were fine until Chicago and then we went five under the speed limit the rest of the way home. I enjoyed my time at home and it made get re energized for my time left in volunteering. I know this post about the holiday's is a little overdue but please just remember those who don't have a family to go to or a home to go to. Not only during the holiday's but even now. If you live in a place where you see homeless people on a regular basis just keep some granola bars in your car or at least say hi. Jesus was born a homeless person, although it was temporary, but if you are in the position to give in some small way you should take it. That is what I learned this holiday season and while this post may be a bit overdue I wanted to just put that out there for people to think about.
I love you all.