Category Archives: HumanLoving

“It’s looking like my dad isn’t going to make it. So I’m…

“It’s looking like my dad isn’t going to make it. So I’m sitting here trying to figure out what life is going to be like without him. He was my North Star. Everything I know about being a man was because of him. This morning I went on a long run, and I began to feel tired. Suddenly I remember being thirteen years old, jogging alongside my father, and having him say to me: ‘As long as you can take one more step, take it.’” (1/3)

Source: “It’s looking like my dad isn’t going to make it. So I’m…

Poverty & Privilege: A Divine Lesson In Humility. | Rebelle Society

To my sorrow — a mark of my failings — I no longer always engage with people on the street: homeless or not. I used to: I used to smile and say Hello to everyone, meeting their eyes and offering out my heart, hoping it would be some small gesture, that, maybe, a token of my love would brighten their day.As is often the case with naiveté and innocence (of which I both have a shocking abundance and disturbing lack of, depending on the situation), mine bit me in the ass a few too many times to continue to so openly offer myself. I was followed, harassed. Screamed at.Straight up challenged to a fight on a busy New York street, all 120 pounds of me slack-jawed in bewilderment.Because, when you’re in pain, who really wants someone smiling and making eye contact all the time? Who did I think I was? A rainbow fairy?So now, I often nod. Avert my eyes. Give the tight-lipped smile that is a fan favorite at funerals and cancer wards.But this girl.She was my sister’s age — about 25 — and earnestly pretty through her sunburned, tear and dirt-streaked face. Her freckles were fresh as new milk, and her eyes were hollow and old. She was holding a sign that said Just hungry.Hunched over, she counted pennies on the sidewalk and I counted blessings that I don’t deserve, circumstances and coincidences that put me in Yoga pants and her in rags.Both counting.All I could bring her was dinner and my own shame. I placed the bag at her feet, head bowed, and cautioned a glimpse into her face.She looked like Christmas morning. I felt like last night’s party.I wanted to thank her: for humility, for humanity.For the struggle she carries and the mirror she gave me.All I could do was nod.

Source: Poverty & Privilege: A Divine Lesson In Humility. | Rebelle Society

An ‘Appeal to Affection and Empathy’: Barcelona’s Mayor Wants Spain’s Cities to Welcome Refugees · Global Voices

she also thanked all the families who offered their homes as shelters, whose solidarity “dignifies our city,” and announced that her council will start working on a project very soon, creating “a volunteer families database” and “organizing networks for sheltering and assisting refugees.”She finished by highlighting the human lives behind the refugee quotas with which European governments seem to be bargaining, and the responsibility of cities, families, and citizens to take action:Translation Original QuoteIn Turkey, Greece, or Lebanon they are taking in millions of refugees, [but in] Spain [it’s] barely 2,000, in spite of having many more resources. These are no quotas: they are human lives. And if states refuse to understand this, [then] here we are, the cities and the citizens, ready to take action. Because yes, we can… and we must.

Source: An ‘Appeal to Affection and Empathy’: Barcelona’s Mayor Wants Spain’s Cities to Welcome Refugees · Global Voices

“My wife has a brain tumor and I haven’t sold a suit in two…

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“My wife has a brain tumor and I haven’t sold a suit in two weeks. I was with my grandson last week and he asked me to buy him a chocolate. But I had nothing in my pockets. I had to tell him: ‘Wait until your father comes home.’ I wanted to melt into the soil.”

(Tehran, Iran)

via “My wife has a brain tumor and I haven’t sold a suit in two….