Are You Desensitized To The Homeless Now?

Today I saw a homeless woman in the city of Kirkland in a wheel chair. She was crying, had an umbrella to protect her from the heavy wind and rain and honestly, looked like a sweet grandmother holding a sign up at a light.

Watching her I wondered, what are people thinking of her right now? A drug/alcohol abuser? a narcissist that imploded her circumstances? a criminal?

-or- I thought to myself, what if she had terrible incidents that brought her to those circumstances? What if she lost her husband and lost everything subsequently and couldn’t cope with the emotional and financial stresses of life thus bringing her to a place of utter hopelessness and shame (would you be able withstand the shame of holding a sign out there?)

Are people thinking of her at all? that is a scarier thought.

This day in age, we are so bombarded with terrible news (shootings, bombings, diseases) that we’ve become desensitized to it all. This is a scary place to be… to lose empathy for people in dire circumstances. To ignore, the hopeless as you walk the streets of Seattle and to get GOOD at ignoring as you see more and more of them. I do not claim I a devoid of guilt in this area.

Question is, are you desensitized?

Peter