the small and the powerful

I was never afraid to suffer. Neither did I deny when I suffered. In a way I think I've always been a very altruistic kind of person. As soon as I woke up from my beautiful childhood dreams I started to suffer: the extinction of animals, the plight of the whales, the pollution of the planet, the poor and the weak. It's hard for me to walk past a homeless person or a beggar, it is wonderful for me when i can at least give a comforting smile or word, in case they happen to look into my eyes when i walk by. It is interesting how often they do not because they are not used to being looked at like human beings. I just say hello or Good Morning to the residentials in Hollywood and it took one guy approximately three weeks to realize that I actually mean him when I say Good Morning.

I found this little story, accompanying a picture of a north hollywood homeless guy on flickr: (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.flickr.com/55/124554077_f1b3b19fc4_m.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/zollo/with/124554079/&h=213&w=240&sz=33&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=cvfmAadKiY25MM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhomeless%2Bin%2Bhollywood%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG) i know i know that sucks, but hey this link thing doesn't show on safari! hey, blogger! can you change that for me????

Anyways, here the story and the pic:

Homeless
in North Hollywood, he's
from Massachusetts, and said, "What was it that Three Dog Night said? Get rid of all the cars and all the wars?"

I gave him a cup of the sangria I was drinking, and he sat down at a nearby table to enjoy the free concert. My son and I were listening to the music, too, and he came over and showed us a little scar on his hand, and said, "Know what that is? A squirrel bite."

A few moments later, an elderly woman sitting near him came up to complain to me for giving him sangria,
saying that he smelled bad and now would stay. I didn't know what to say to her, and my little son was angry at her for saying that, knowing she has a shower in her home that Erik doesn't have. Then the woman complained to the owner of the cafe, who insisted that Erik leave, which really upset my son, who started to cry, and told me to please call the cops,
and have the cafe man fired for not being nice. I told him the cops wouldn't do that, but he didn't understand, and was upset most of the night. When we got home, he asked to see Erik's picture, and we both agreed that he has a nice face.



You know...these are the kind of stories that totally show a child's mind, well, at least how my mind worked too. And still does.
Mother Theresa is a woman who inspires me beyond words.
she is the one who pinpoints it so well: "You can’t do great things in this life…
You can do only little things with GREAT LOVE."

Great expectations often just hinder our doing. Everything has to be ready, this and that has to happen first and lalalalala. no! Even if we DO pursue 'greater goals' we still can and should do the little things with GREAT LOVE every day.


I think a lot about how much I love you and how I love and about love and how everything is alright.

I think about what I do and what I want to do and about how beautiful this world still is.
And I think about the small and the powerful. It's so funny how I met this girl in the greyhound bus to St. Barbara. When I travel I am always extremely alert and energetic, just thrilled to be on the road again. I feel most comfortable and ironically 'at home' when I am on the road. So you meet the right people to the right time and we were exactly the right people for each other. She studies international relations and political sciences and works in Mali for an NGO as a Grant Writer. It was extremely interesting to hear about her work and studies, since it is exactly what I want to do (spare the political sciences!). We both agreed on the predicament that although the powerful do have powers to change things in a bigger way it becomes less and less attractive and meaningful or senseful to go down this way since the real deal maybe, after all, really lies in the small. Just as Mother Theresa says, wherever God has put you, there is your vocation. I totally think she is right except for God has put me into a situation that is so blessed that I can choose where to go from there. I know that at home there is stuff to do too, but maybe I will go somewhere else. Who knows, but I guess what it boils down to is, that you just have to do what you do, but this with love. And if you become a figure like Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela then only because you did what you had to do. Not because you wanted to be powerful in the first place. But because you loved.

Good night everybody!