Horrible.

Been a little down, a little disillusioned the past day or two. I think it has to do with that grocery cart.

Wait, hear me out.

Every so often a woman comes by the church looking for clothes and food. (She always asks for clothes and food, and then proceeds to ask us medical questions that we don't have the answers to.) And she keeps all her worldly belongings in a grocery cart. "I need that cart," she'll say, "'cause I got a bad back." Anyway, the Senior Pastor gave her a ride to the social services the other day. Somehow the decision was made to leave her cart standing outside the church. And so she went in and told social services that she needs clothes and food, and they told her about exactly the same places we do. Well, by this time the Senior Pastor has gone to the hospital for a visit, and what's more, his car battery has died, so it falls to me to go pick her up from social services and bring her back here--or rather to the food pantry next door. No big deal.
"Where's my stuff?"
Sure enough, her cart is nowhere in sight. I'm flabbergasted, after all, we're on the "Gold Coast" and I have a hard time believing any of the neighbors are desperate enough to steal what little was in that cart. So we get her some food, question the nice people next door to see if they saw anything, and then... we hit the streets. And we do eventually find her cart.

Can you guess where?

With some dumpsters. Somebody was so offended by the sight of her cart that they took the time to take it across the road and behind a building and pushed it up next to their dumpsters. The totality of this poor woman's earthly possessions, treated like garbage.

A person's life treated as "unsightly."

I'm sure it wasn't an intentional slight. After all, her things did get left alone on the sidewalk there for a whole hour.

I don't know. It just doesn't seem right, is all.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
081706

PS This is horrible in a completely different way. Funny though. Thanks to Wil Wheaton Dot Net for bringing it to my attention. I think.