Hard times, Come again no more...

Late afternoon on Sunday. Sitting in my car...chatting on the phone to my friend...beautiful Perth winter afternoon, bright as bright could be...blue as blue could be...and warm in the sun.
I'm parked outside Nandos, Subway, Wok in a Box, Pasta Cup and Liquorland. Hungry Jack's is about 100 metres away. I'm joking with my friend about whether or not I could eat a meatball sub while driving and not get it all over my front and give the game away.
My window is down.  A man sees me and comes right up to the window and tells me that he's trying to get some food...could I help him? My Rick will tell you that I'm like the Queen in as much as neither of us carry cash. But today I have a $10 note and so I give it to him...he kisses my hand and God Blesses me and I tell him to never mind that, just go and eat. And that's exactly what he did. 

I don't want to make a drama out of it but I have to say that he and his situation has stayed with me. 

A comfortable suburb in the richest state in the Lucky Country. 

And a man finds himself in the situation where he has to rely on a stranger in order to eat. 

Before I jump to conclusions about how he lived I think it's likely that he didn't ever have enough cash to do what he needed to do in the first place. And I have to confess that I watched carefully to see that he did buy food with the $10 ($10!!! The princely sum...). The story I was telling myself about him was all about drink and drugs.

And he was hungry. 

To be honest with you, I'm not really that fussed about what the circumstances were that brought him to that point...I don't really care if he drinks or uses drugs or just squanders his cash. But I am bothered that, in the midst of all our excess, someone is hungry. And I'm troubled that the solution he finds for his hunger only serves to stigmatise him.

I hear my friends and family in the UK talk about how things are there. How tight it is with families relying on food banks for basic provisions. I hear all the stuff that's been said here about how we all have to share the pain that will result from the last Budget. But I know that we won't all share that pain...it will be the people on the edges who'll feel it most...the people who are already feeling pretty stretched and threadbare. That makes me angry and sad.

You won't be surprised to know that I don't have any answers, but here's a song that expresses my thoughts and concerns. Those of us not yet suffering might think on...

http://youtu.be/OKRYMZFwuzY

Where DO all the B'stards work? - R.I.P. Rik Mayall

A few thoughts that seem to have a connection for me...what anyone who reads this will make of them...well, that's for them to decide...

Last week I was doing some training. The group were lovely. Really lovely people, all of them working in services. All of them committed to doing the best job they can to support the people they work with. At the end of the 3 days, one of the participants remarked on what a great group of people they were. He went on to say that he keeps meeting really nice people who work in the disability sector AND he keeps hearing all these stories of bad things that happen in services. 
He asked the question, 'Where do all the bastards work?'

Today I watched one of the videos that regularly appear on my Facebook page  from Upworthy. This particular video had been shared by my friend Heather Anderson, a good woman upon whose instincts and judgements I would stake my life. I was thinking that if she was recommending this video it was definitely worth having a look. Although the talk is given by an actress playing a marketing consultant to the food industry, the facts about the produce and the marketing are 100% real. She talks about the tricks of the marketing trade and then lets us in to the great big secret weapon that marketers rely upon. Turns out that their greatest secret is us and our propensity to simply ignore what we won't or can't face. We just don't think about it. She calls it 'wilful ignorance'
The video articulates our unwillingness to confront the horror of factory farming and to change our behaviours in the face of unspeakable cruelty to the animals who end up on our supermarket shelves.  It ends with a damning quote, describing what occurs as 'systemised cruelty on a massive scale, and we only get away with it because we're prepared to look  the other way.'

If you changed the context and thought people and not pigs or chickens... and instead of factory farms thought institutions and group homes and day centres...and then asked yourself what you're prepared to turn from and look the other way...

And then later today my friend and colleague Margy Meath shares a post on Facebook...a quote by Jane Addams

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life'

Jane Addams

I think there's a thread runs through these ideas. At least, there is for me. Knowing what I know...what will I do differently?