Yesterday I had a wonderful dinner with good friends who share in a community of love and modest prosperity.  Just prior to that, I stopped in Starbucks, another privilege of wealth and stability, and there I encountered a man who one might just dismiss as a ‘crazy homeless guy.’  He was wandering around the shop picking up bits of paper from the floor and moving too quickly for the number of people in the space, he had dirty clothes on and hadn’t bathed.  His eyes didn’t meet any focused point and he muttered to himself.  He then went over to the ‘fixins’ stand and proceeded to drink the half and half out of the dispenser.  I was on my way out and went by him and as he was standing in my way said “excuse me”, which I think were the only words anyone said to him the whole time he was in there.  He then went off, still fairly under his breath, cussing me out for “excusing” him, but was still deeply engaged in making a meal out of sugar packets and milk.  It was jarring to some extent and came back to me this morning.  Having experienced dementia in my family, it was a reminder to me that even at the most “sane” of times, we don’t know each other’s journeys.  We aren’t in each other’s heads; all we know is what we present to each other and how we perceive that experience all depends on how we experience our reality…and that is entirely up to our personal view point.  Some may call it God…others may call it life.  We can’t judge…we must find ways to accept it and move forward as one.

Spirit of life, God, Goddess, Power that is…

Some of us experience this life as a community

With goals and obligations related to one another,

But what of those who when most of us see a bird,

They see a cat;

When most of us hear music,

They hear a drill…

We pray that just as you walk with us into our churches,

Synagogues, Mosques and Temples,

Just as you comfort those of us who look for individual personal peace,

And just as you are the immediate experience of life that for some only exists in the now,

All of us who “know,”

Protect and walk with those who have no words

Or have no connection

And don’t know that they are in a struggle with our limited reality;

(or is it us struggling with their unburdened freedom?)

Love them just the same.

In your many names, Amen.