Sensitive
People
“Highly
sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged
goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is a
trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath
who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and
emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic
feelings. Those who are at times described as a 'hot mess' or having
'too many issues' are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive
for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears
shine a light in this world.”
Anton St.
Maarten
I read an article in the
Washington Post this morning in which our president declared that
homeless people were ruining the “prestige” of our great cities
and that his administration is taking steps to address the problem.
At this point, I don't expect anything more of him, but I am none the
less always gob-smacked by his complete lack of compassion. If I
thought “addressing the problem” meant providing in a caring way
for the thousands of people who can no longer afford to live in
houses or even apartments in those cities, I would get behind it
whole-heartedly. However, from what I can glean from the report,
abandoned air fields and other such structures are being considered
for “relocating” homeless people so that the real estate
developers can ply their trade without the inconvenient truth of
their existence. This is the epitome of what St. Maarten meant when
he wrote that our society is dysfunctional and emotionally disabled.
I recall hearing my
grandmother talk about the great depression, when everyone was poor,
and many people became homeless. She spoke of hobos coming to the
kitchen door begging for food and how she always provided what she
could for them. This in the face of losing her own home and business,
and for a time living in a boarding house with other homeless people.
I recall watching ordinary folks doing everything they could to haul complete strangers out of rising floodwater in New Orleans and Houston, and so
many other places. Lots of people in Birmingham and other inland
cities took into their homes people displaced by Katrina—the local
hospitals made room for them, as did the churches, my own included.
This is America, and the true nature of the American people. We have
empathy. We don't “relocate” out of sight and out of mind those
who have met with misfortune, we take them in. We help them get back
on their feet.
This blindness that
manifests as indifference to the suffering of others is not an
affliction of the American people—only of our current government. I
can't tell you how sad I feel every time I see more evidence of it.
It is a soul sickness, and more to the point, a trait of people who
have neglected their own souls for so long that they have atrophied
and dropped off like shriveled fruit. Let those of us who remain connected to
humanity, to the plight of our earth and all its creatures, preserve
our own humane nature and reject this disastrous approach to life.
Stay close to your soul and keep your heart open—it will help to
counter-balance the unkindness all around us. Never be ashamed of
feeling compassion for any reason. It is a sign that the Divine is
alive and well within us and among us.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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