A can of corn

Every town has homeless people, even small, affluent towns. Santa Rosa is not too small and not very affluent and it definitely has its share of homeless folks.  Cooper and I walk every morning, usually before 7:00 am.  Since we are creatures of habit, we generally walk the same circuit each morning.  After months of walking and watching, I now know where many of these homeless people sleep: next to buildings, in doorways, in a corner of a covered walkway near the parking lot, by the church. 

The Unitarian Church on Mendocino Avenue has a free breakfast early on Sunday morning and there are always dozens of people there at 7:00, waiting for their eggs and coffee.  Most don't pay any attention to me and Cooper as we walk by, their attention is focused on their food.  Often I wonder where they get the rest of their meals.

This morning I saw something that hit me as one of the saddest sights in our over-indulgent world.  Next to the curb on a side street was a can of corn, plain corn, the lid half-way bent back and a plastic fork sticking out of the can.  Was this someone's entire meal?  Did some poor person pry open a can of cold corn, sit there on the curb and eat it for dinner?  That's it?  And where did the can come from?  Some food box, or  was it found in a garbage can?

While someone sat there, eating from a can of corn, I sat in my small house eating whatever I wanted, a fat, over-fed woman who turns her nose up at canned corn.  Where is the justice in that?  It simply struck me as incredibly sad.

Ah, yes, not to belabor the issue but it reinforces, once again, the vagaries of life, the unfairness of the world and, at the same time, the luck most of us have had.  Were we to have been born in another time and place, we could be the person sitting on the curb, eating out of a can.  Makes you really appreciate whatever grace got you to where  you are now.

Be kind.  Share.  Give, give, give. 
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