Look way up!

I am walking to a meeting downtown when I spy the nest. Tucked up in the higher branches of a tree that pokes its head up from a circle of earth in the concrete of the sidewalk, the nest is empty. The mama bird has flown the coop and so have her chicks.

I think about hope. Faith. About holding onto a dream and a belief that if you do the right things, take the right steps, build your nest in a tree above the earth to keep your chicks away from predators, all will be well.

And I think about life.

About the fierce instinct to survive that comes into play the moment the umbilical cord is severed and we must breathe on our own. How our lungs fill up with that first gasp of freedom and we cry out. In fear. Shock. Relief. Joy.

And I think about growing up.

About our desire to fit in. To fill in the gaps behind that first breath. Our need to find our place, where ever it may be and stay the course. Take the journey. Be on the path of life, no matter how dark, narrow or deep it may be.

For the almost six years I worked at a homeless shelter, I told the crowded room where I was speaking on behalf of the United Way of Calgary and Area yesterday, I never met anyone who said, “When I grew up I had a dream. I just knew. I wanted to be homeless, or an addict or an abuser and every step of my life, from birth to now was taken with that goal in mind.”

Homelessness. Addictions. Abuse. Violence. All those things that tear our homes and hearts apart are not a dream. They are our worst nightmare come to life. We don’t take steps to end up in homelessness, or to become an addict or to abuse our children. We take steps to hide our pain, confusion, anger. We take steps to keep going away from what we don’t want to feel or see or know. We take steps to keep moving forward and as our options narrow, as we find ourselves without resources or mired in an addiction we never meant to hold onto, we find ourselves lost.

Which is why, I told the group of people gathered together to kick-off their corporate United Way Campaign, we must create a net to catch people. We must work together to ensure that when people fall, and fall they will, there is someone, something there to catch them, to hold them up, to give them hope. To lift them off the street.

I saw a nest on a busy downtown street yesterday and I wondered about the mother who built it. I wondered if she knew the dangers of the city. I wondered if she realized that the fall from the branches wasn’t far, but it could be deadly.

And I wondered if anyone was there to catch her babies when they left the nest in the hopes of flying free.

As you go about your day today, look around you. Check out the potholes, the crumbled bits of sidewalk, the obstacles that could trip up unwary travellers. Look into the eyes of the panhandler, the woman pushing her cart laden with belongings. Look deep into their eyes and ask yourself, “Are you just like me? Did you once dream of flying free?”

No one dreams of homelessness or addictions. No one dreams of sleeping under a bridge or in a cardboard box. No one wants to walk away from their home, their belongings, their life because it’s a fun and exciting. They do it because they have no other option. They do it because they believe leaving the past behind is the only direction they can go to find themselves somewhere else.

And when that somewhere else is the street, hope dies, dreams crumble and they are lost to the numbing truth that all their best efforts lead them here.

We cannot change the path someone took to get to the street. We can change what we do to support the work of those committed to helping people lost to the street find their way home.

If you’ve never shared a dime to help someone on the streets, try it. It might set you free to making a difference in ways you never before imagined.

This year’s United Way Campaign is in full swing. Let’s give what we can. Let’s do what we will and let’s make a difference because… we can. Make a difference. Together.

Give. Act. Volunteer.