Ring ring. The office called as I was driving to work. I was being warned to park carefully outside my office as there was a homeless person residing under the employee entrance staircase, next to the parking spaces. By the time I had reached, the police had arrived and “shooed” him away. In the space lay a few empty wrappers of possibly chocolate bars, a used beer bottle, several cigarette butts. The only remnants of this individual who found shelter overnight.

I had lots of mixed emotions. Relief. That the situation had not escalated and arrests were not performed. Sad. A human life had to resort to desperate measures to just survive. Transposition of roles. What if that was me? What if circumstances were different and I was the victim of this seemingly terrible state of affairs. Concern. If he was reasonably okay, or was he need for medical attention. Humble. That life is not always fair and does not play out in the equality. Charity. I wondered if we would leave out some water bottles or fresh towels or a foldable chair or a sleeping bag for him, presuming that he may return the following night. Danger. What if he brings harm to the patients or staff early one morning when the office opens.

Mind you, these were all various emotions and thoughts that came up in the spur of the moment. It is hard to imagine that in this age of technological advancements and our far reaching abilities to the moon, the outer planets, the depths of the ocean, that we cannot fix a simple thing of homelessness and poverty. No nation does not face these issues. It is the counterbalance to the equation of wealth generation. Much like good health is the balance of illness. It is as it is. This is the nature of reality.

I contemplated about the nature of homelessness. The man pays no taxes, he has no responsibilities except that to himself to survive. He has no job to be accountable towards. He has no possessions to have to be attached to. Yet the seemingly superficial advantages of being homeless and a wanderer, are clearly overshadowed by the disadvantages as perceived by those who have more. Whether it is a job, home, food clothes, family, money and the list goes on. What we possess becomes our identity.

I was surprised that in this one encounter with an empty space of where one rested overnight to escape the rainstorm, so much of turmoil of thought and feelings had been stirred. I recalled my own homelessness and without possessions or funds when my parents and I escaped the Gulf war part 1 from Kuwait across no mans land with nothing except our shirts on our backs, my dirty shoes from walking across the desert, and my emptied pockets in my jeans with holes and a small bag. Perhaps this experience in that one instant brought back all those memories I had repressed since age 15.

Pity. That is what I felt. Not for that man, but for the little boy who had seen too much horror and still lived to tell the tale. Solace. That the universe will provide for this man in the the form of the shelter that the police directed him towards. And for the homeless boy who grew up in a safe home, got an education and learned to serve others as a doctor, healer and teacher.

Every experience in life affords us the opportunity to pause and reflect. To understand the perspective of others from our vantage point and heal those uncomfortable parts that require remediation. And once sealed we close those wounds with love as we become one with the other and the event and timeline naturally closes with grace and gratitude. I thought this was a closed event. Homelessness. Where I become lost in time and space and try to find my journey home. That is the true emotion that was buried for me to find and dig up. My path is not over. Much to do. So till that task is done I too must remain “homeless”, from my divine home, wandering the cosmos across time and space. You are homeless too, like me, till each of us find our way home. One day.

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I love you