A homeless person does not have a home. You know, like
Jesus: ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of Man has not where to lay his head.’ A person experiencing homelessness is
having an experience. There’s a lot of experience around. I could experience
bullying, home violence (often fatal), disability, sickness (physical), illness
(mental), addiction, imprisonment, or a range of other misfortunes. I might
experience discrimination, racism, or misogyny. Nobody is despised or rejected:
Jesus was both.
I struggle
to read the news, comprising the lie direct, indirect, imaginative, rhetorical,
masked, theatrical, privileged, or corrupt — typically pronounced by the
powerful — and the soup of euphemisms in which the rest of us daily swim. Jesus
wasn’t experiencing asylum seeking as he went into Egypt with his family. Herod was
experiencing wrath, killing young children right, left and centre: they fled
for their lives.
All worldly
enterprises, the Buddha noted, end in sorrow. Sometimes they begin there. In
the process of experiencing life, it may be necessary for the sick to seek
healing, the despairing comfort, prisoners freedom, the despised and rejected
to seek justice. Hear truth: show mercy, do justice.
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