Broken Souls
But mostly wandering the streets
Lost souls
Broken down defeated souls
The souls of the living dead
Dead inside
Waiting for death
To deliver them from the agony
Of the living
They make do
They beg
They steel
They con their way
Living the life
Living death
Broken Souls
You have two minds
One part of you the fearful part of you
Conditioned to ignore
Conditioned to walk by
Ignoing the tragic wounded lives
The broken souls all around you
But part of you knows
That you can’t do that
But you can’t save everyone
So you do what you can
You help those whom you can
All it takes is a little act of compassion
A little human kindness
A few bucks or a cup of coffee
And you walk by
Knowing just knowing
That by a simple act of acknowledging
Our shared humanity
You have made a small victory
And brought happiness
To yet another broken down soul
And the fear that you will be a broken soul
Recedes away
Not me never
Never will happen to me
But one forgets
It is a simple matter
A wrong turn in life
The wrong place wrong time wrong thing
And you could be the broken soul
On the street
Begging to be heard
Begging to be taken away
And so I walk on by no more
I will listen
I will talk to them
I will make a small difference
And in so doing
Avoid becoming a broken down soul
"Homeless Jesus" was created by Canadian sculptor Timothy P. Schmalz, who claimed, "My purpose is to give Christianity as much visual dignity as possible. Christian sculptures are like visual sermons twenty-four hours a day.... Saint Gregory the Great wrote that 'art is for the illiterate,' the use of images was an extremely effective way to educate the general population. Our contemporary culture is in the same state today, not because of illiteracy, but because people are too busy to read." The bronze is intended to exemplify the passage in Matthew
ReplyDeletein which Jesus tells his disciples, "as you did it to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me". Schmalz offered the first casts to St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, but both churches declined, officially because they were undergoing restorations, though a spokesperson for St. Michael's also admitted that appreciation "was not unanimous." The cast intended for St. Michael's was, however, placed at Regis College, the Jesuit School of Theology at the University of Toronto. in early 2013. Other casts have since been installed elsewhere, but the first of these was at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina, where the rector, the Rev. David Buck, remarked. "We believe that that's the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person." Some neighbors feel that it's an insulting depiction of the son of God, and that it demeans the neighborhood. Almost immediately after its installation a woman called the police to report a hobo sleeping on a bench at the church, and a neighbor wrote a letter to the editor saying it creeps him out.