Christmas Thoughts

by Pa Rock

It's Christmas morning in the Missouri Ozarks, but there isn't even a hint of sunshine, much less snow.  The word is "rain,"   It rained, nice and slow, most of yesterday and last night, and it is still coming down light and steady today.  The ground is soaked, many of the low water bridges are under water, and if the volume of falling rain were to suddenly increase, we could be in a real mess.

But the mess and the muck and the mire are extreme trivialities compared to the hardships that many are facing this Christmas.  We have homeless people living on the streets of America, today, on Christmas morning.   They're out there wrapped in blankets, if they are lucky enough to have blankets, and clinging to their pets, or their children, for warmth.  They are on the streets of Kansas City, Salt Lake City, and New York City - and most small communities, too.  We try to keep them hidden, but their presence persists.  They are always with us.  

Today a few will score a free meal courtesy of some club, or church, or other assemblage of do-gooders, but tomorrow, after Christmas has passed, they will be back digging in dumpsters in hopes of surviving off of the table scraps of those more fortunate.  Tonight the lucky ones will sleep in public shelters, or jail cells, or cars, and those less fortunate with curl up on subway grates, or in covered doorways, or under makeshift tents created from garbage bags and duct tape.  Most will awaken to more of the same tomorrow, and some will not awaken at all.   

People will simply lie down and die on the streets of the United States tonight.

And the suffering stretches around the globe.

Russia is bombing the hell out of Ukraine's power plants today, leaving millions of Ukrainians to try and survive without electricity - heat and light and refrigeration - and in some cases even water.  Children in Sudan are literally pulling grass from the ground and eating it in an effort to stay alive, and the families and children of Gaza, regardless of what political leaders would have us believe, have been enduring the ravages of famine for months.  An entire people are being exterminated and starved into extinction while the world looks the other way.

And while the world collapses into chaos, I sit in my warm home, far removed from the ravages of real life, cussing the rain.

If governments won't move to end hunger, homelessness, and poverty, the people must step up and do it for them.  Choose a charity that will help others, and support it vigorously in the new year. 

Let's all do our part - and then some - to make the world a place we can be proud of on Christmas Day.