God help me, but I wonder about things, like what makes this or that task mine mine mine?
Many a task is everyone’s responsibility us us us but not the responsibility of anyone in particular. Something needs to be done but who should do it? Me me me? You you you?
For example, something needs to be done so more people have a place to live. I may be on shaky ground here but it seems that the lack of housing generally is not anyone’s responsibility in particular. What business is it of ours, yours and mine? Why should we we we be on the hook? We are doing enough!
Even so, I love it that some people do step forward. The task is theirs because they they they claim it as their own or because it it it claims them. Their hearts ache or something else pushes them to say, yes! yes! yes! — they will do what they can to help. They volunteer. They step forward. Perhaps they are inspired by God — call it love — or they are crazy — or they are seriously misled — or they simply want to think well of themselves — or all of the above — not because it is their duty. They choose to be special. They don’t have to be.
I suspect me me me that they they they are a lot like us us us.
PHOTO PRAYER 2025-02
Photo of folks sleeping in a graveyard. Photo copyright 2024; text, 2025 by Danny Nelson Schweers. In April of 2024, my church experimented with letting people sleep in our little bit of green grass, there among the gravestones.
COMMENTS
Ernestine B.W. wrote:
All of what was said is the truth truth truth.
Dave V.B. wrote:
Been thinking a lot about these things lately – collective responsibility and individual responsibility. When to be silent and when to speak out. What is mine to own and mine to give and not mine at all. Thanks for the reminder and nudge to continue reflecting.
Neil Jeannie F. wrote:
This is a very moving picture and reflection. What does it,it,it move me,me,me to do? I am the only one,one,one who can find out.
John J. wrote:
The most provocative (in a good sense) Photo Prayer I can recall! I will now print out and study. BTW — My guiding poem for the New Year is “Religion and Poetry” by Les Murray. It begins with these lines:
Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture
into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing’s said until it is dreamed out in words
and nothing’s true that figures in words only.
Your photo prayers are part of the “Large Poem” of my “Full Religion”. That reference is from later in the poem that declares:
Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;
like any poem it is inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask “Now why did the Poet do that?”
Arden Cookie (Helen O.) wrote:
A powerful photo. I like the colors this person shows. Maybe they were the only cloths he or she could pick, but it does bring some whimsy to the shelter. I hope that lightens the person’s heart. It does mine. It is often hard to push down our judgement for the homeless. Yes, they made the decisions that got them there. Maybe they chose to make those decisions, or maybe they could see no alternative. I’ve had men grab my arm when I reached out to give them something. Other men stepped up to drive them off. I won’t do that again. But, the bottom line is, today that person on the ground is hurting. I can, at least for a minute, respect that.
Saundra J. wrote:
Hey — I really love this piece!!! I heard a sermon titled “somebody will do it.” The sermon spoke to our deferring work to others and identifying the others as somebody. And then it gets to the question: who is the person who is supposed to do X? And did somebody do it?
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