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Here is what is pushing me to blog....(sorry it's long - I'll work on that)

So I had something pop in my heart and head today that I am still trying to get a clear perspective on. I spoken about twice with different people and it is not much clearer than when I began. So here it is – for you to read and digest and ___________ (you fill in the blank).

A few weeks ago: I went to the Portland Homeless Connect at the Convention Center – incredible opportunity to receive assistance and tangible help (everything from dental and vision to identification cards and clothing, even temporary housing). I left and went to grab a slice at my bro-in-law’s NE Broadway and 15th Schmizza. I passed a homeless guy – hoping he wouldn’t ask me for anything – but then I was drawn back to him to tell what was happening at the convention center. I did, he smiled, and we went our separate ways.
Today: I am stopping by NE Broadway and 15th Peet’s for a beverage and maybe a new insulated cup – one that will fit in the cup holders of my ‘new-to-me’ car. As I find a place to park, there is the same homeless dude – right there where I am parking. I contemplate ‘making a phone call’ and looking the other way, but choose to get moving instead. As I get out of my car, the homeless dude looks, recognizes me and says “hey, man” in a friendly I-remember-you manner.
I say hello and ask him if ever went to get some help that day we talked. He said he got some food, and could I get him some orange juice. At that moment I was suspended among a few things: he smelled worse than any other human I have ever encountered; do I do this when I know he gets cash thrown his way constantly (he buys pizza from my bro-in-law); how does this help?
So I get him OJ and he says thanks. I encourage him to watch for the next Portland Homeless Connect…”unless you want to be out here (on the street)” – he smiles, laughs a little, looks me in the eye and honestly says he likes being out here. I ask him his name, “Lawrence of Arabia” and he opens the drenched sleeping bag he is wrapped in – letting out the combined smell of dirt, urine, feces – and extends a hand to me. What do I do? He is without a doubt the worst smelling human I have ever been around, his fingernails are surrounded in black sick crud, he is covered in filth – so I take his hand, shake, look in his eye and tell him that I’m ‘Randy of Portland’ – he smiles and says see ya around.
I go wash my hand, get my beverage and try to not walk to close to him as I head back to my car – which I still don’t have a good coffee cup for (perspective).
I am perplexed, but I have to get to the office – there are things to get done, phone calls to make, schedules to prepare, needs to be met, etc…. As I reflect on the experience I am drawn towards the loud rockin’ music whose singer is saying ‘he wished the world would be destroyed, we’re all idiots and deserve to drown and that God is stupid.’ = He probably wrote those lyrics in a sweet hotel room or a killer house, or maybe he wrote it when he crashed his $500,000 car into a wall because he was drunk – you get the picture.
What a perspective.
I just talked with, and then still tried to avoid, a homeless dude that likes where he is at (remember his smell and clothes), while I drove my nice car to a good job while the band sang about how lame God and the world are.
How does this all fit together? I don’t really know.
But it has impacted my perspective.
This really needs to be more a conversation than a reading. Both conversations I have had have been much clearer than this attempt to write a ‘short’ e-mail.

Trying to not be busy,
Randy