Each week a friend & I go to the Farmer’s Market because next door a group of: Hippies, Street Kids, & Homeless people get together to drum &, well, do what they do. However, this week the drum circle stopped for no apparent reason. When I finally noticed the silence I looked over to see the normally noisy group transfixed on the ground. I then walked over to see 3 “street people,” doing CPR on an unconscious man & my friend Jacob praying for him to live. After some time the Firemen arrived & took over; that said, the man was without life.
As I spend each Wednesday afternoon with this group I have been challenged on so many levels. On Wednesdays, within a small patch of land, two groups exist: One, the “normal” Santa Cruz people who go to shop for quality produce; & Two, the “street people,” who, well, do what they do. (We do get the expired Food not Bombs food.) As I’ve spent more time with the “street people,” I have been challenged; there really are some great people in this group. Sadly, I have lumped them all together, but like any group: Christians, Muslims, Gay, Straight, Rich, or poor…there are really honest people & some really funky people. I say all this because when I saw the dead man 3 people, whom our society sees as bad scenery to their otherwise utopian coastal village, were doing CPR on a dead man.
When the police arrived they asked, “Who was this guy?” None of the people in the circle knew; he was a stranger that day. I was stunned because I realized I had watched a man give the dead man mouth to mouth CPR. Moreover, as they were giving the man mouth to mouth he threw up; & after this, as his face was lined with vomit, these “street people,” went right back to work. A person that our society deems a loser put his mouth around the mouth of a stranger; a mouth of a dead man that had just vomited. What kind of man would do such a thing for a stranger? These people, who most of the normal people will never get to know, are incredible people…created in the image of God.
5 comments:
It's so easy to lump people all together in boxes and labels. I am guilty guilty guilty. What would happen if every time I met someone I simply let them tell me who they are and see them through God's eyes? But instead I already have a dozen or more assumptions about who I think they are based mainly on appearance. Argh, what a hard habit to break!
I sat down next to a friend once on the Elmwood strip (our 'hip' area to hang out on, with lots of panhandlers to boot) and had a drunk homeless guy stumble up to us.
As he was talking to us, a group of young women in their early 20's walked by and we overheard one of them talking about her trip to Italy.
The homeless man immediately went over and asked about their trip. My initial reaction was, "are you seriously trying to hit on these girls?!?!"
It was at this point that the homeless guy and one of the girls started talking to each other in fluent Italian.
Oops, that book sure didn't read like it's cover!
wow...terrible and beautiful
Such an amazing story; such an amazing place. Don´t stop going, so that when I´m back in the states I can go with you! Please?
hello sean,
this is such an interesting yet sad story. i'm pretty inspired to do a documentary of the 'street people' in santa cruz.
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