It has been an extraordinary blessing in my life to now live among those without what we take for granted on a daily basis.
Last Saturday morning when it was 25 degrees outside, and I walked a couple of miles in north Nashville to the local Kroger for groceries. Exercise is good to fight my leukemia from returning and killing me most swiftly.
I also love being among regular people, those without stuffy titles or many possessions. Those characteristics don't define a good person, which should be the designation sought by a people of God in a city such as Nashville with more than 1,000 places of worship.
And so there, amid the cold, I noticed a world few of us take note of or watch on TV and read about in the newspaper.
Maybe it is out of fear. Or maybe it is a way we can avoid responsibility to mommas and daddies with families in need. So on freezing mornings, you'd see:
Working people waiting at the bus stop, patiently freezing for a ride to work or the doctor or to drop children at daycare, with no protection from the elements.
Homeless people trying to keep warm yet knowing they're not allowed to go into any store for simple warmth.
Me, dressed in a black stocking cap and black sweats, resembling a typical homeless or poor person and getting treated with no smiles and no respect. I am automatically a threat to all the "good" people. Or it doesn't help that I have the facial hair of the Frito Bandito or Bill Richardson's uglier brother.
It is this world at 7 a.m. in 25-degree cold that most of the toughest living occurs in Nashville and in any community. And these are the kind of people that they mythical George Bailey cared most about in the movie, "It's A Wonderful Life". He wanted to put these good folks in affordable housing in safe neighborhoods, not the Pottersvilles of present-day Nashville.
So God has placed me closer to His people of the Gospels, and the people that George Baily championed in Bedford Falls.
Blessed be the Lord!
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