Eternal life-internal strife

Observations in a big box parking lot

Parking Lot preacher
Proselytizing to the homeless
And any shoppers
Slow enough not to evade
Cherry picked biblical words
The words of eternal salvation
“I know you’re hungry now
But in God’s kingdom
There is no starvation!”
Alas, it’s easier and cheaper
To preach eternal life
Than to ease internal strife

“I’ll be meeting your maker soon
If I don’t eat”
Cries a man with a cart
“I’ll be happy to work your job
If I survive the night on the street
Feed me, clothe me
Help me with a ride
I’ll be on time and on your side”
He did not wish to hear
The disciple’s words of salvation
“I know you’re hungry now
But in God’s kingdom
There is no starvation!”
Alas, it’s easier and cheaper
To preach eternal life
Than to ease internal strife

A group of teenagers
Living on the streets
Consider themselves family
That doesn’t abuse, pimp or rape
Wounds bound with dirty rags
And pieces of tape
Faced daily with their own mortality
Parking Lot preacher’s words
Are meaningless chatter
Background noise joining the din
As they fight to survive life
A life parking lot preacher considers a sin
Yet still he spreads the word of salvation
“I know you’re hungry now
But in God’s kingdom
There is no starvation!”
Alas, it’s easier and cheaper
To preach eternal life
Than to ease internal strife

Thrown away and discarded
Ravaged by indifference and starvation
Ignored as they die in the streets
Corpses under filthy coats and sheets
Parking Lot preacher’s words
Proven prophetic indeed
Rather than beg for charity
During their time of need
If only they’d listened!
If only they’d heard!
Heard his words of eternal salvation
“I know you’re hungry now
But in God’s kingdom
There is no starvation!”
Alas, it’s easier and cheaper
To preach eternal life
Than to ease internal strife

Then again, maybe they did
Maybe they’d heard his words
While none pay homage and grieve
Maybe the hope to find anyone that cares
Led them to believe
That anywhere was better than here
That the promise of eternal life
Was the best way to ease internal strife.

¹

1. *this was written after watching American Street Kid”, a documentary about the spiraling numbers of homeless youth in the US, and seeing it first hand. Seeing people, kids, dead in the gutters of America’s wealthiest cities, firsthand. Sometimes it’s just a blanket lying on a sidewalk, it’s previous owner vanished.

Not just in Charlotte, Dallas, Salt Lake City or LA, but right here at home in America’s breadbasket, the Great Plains state of Nebraska. Show up at nearly any Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting room, there will more than likely be at least one homeless man or woman, often a teenager, looking for warmth or to cool off, safety, a meal, answers. That same week, after watching the documentary, I was approached by a street preacher handing out flyers to anyone waiting in line at a fast food drive through, refusing to take no for an answer and throwing pamphlets through cracked windows and standing in the way of those entering or exiting the restaurant while he talked of eternal salvation.

Later that same week I saw several homeless on the corner of a big big store parking lot, while another man was doing the same with every shopper leaving the store, as a homeless veteran was asking for help, a job, a ride to safety, anything that would help him survive another day. I handed him my last $10 and offered him a ride, but he was already headed to the Taco Bell 150 feet away.

I cannot see these events as anything but exactly as they are, for exactly what they are; desperation, fear, hunger, hypocrisy and willfully blind ignorance of a problem staring the nation directly in the eyes as it grows, metastasizes like a cancer, and people, children, die. All the while our politicians complain of vagrants, homeless and immigrants as vermin they refuse to hire because they’re “dirty” while shutting down public assistance programs, shuttering public toilets and shelters and complaining of trash, shit in the streets, and homeless camps in the parks.

We can do better.

We. Must. Do. Better.*