I liked myself better without a conscience

So I worked with this guy, had recently gotten out of prison... was a decent worker, a good worker. He actually was one of the best that i had in a long while. He worked there for maybe 3 months. Then he called me up frantic..."They fired me for suspicion of theft..." What? I played it off because i didn't really know him that well, and i wasn't sure what it was he was exactly accused of stealing. The thing is he works with just me, and one other guy. I thought maybe someone saw him lifting someone Else's  I Pod or wallet. After I went to work people one of the other guys that work during the day said, yeah, he was stealing wire. Now this wasn't little spools of wire, it was large spools of copper that probably weighed a few hundred pounds each.
What?
But he doesn't have a car...
and i see him leaving every morning with nothing but a thermos...
wait, he was my employee, and the company didn't question myself or the other guy who works with me...
and he would need a forklift
and have to drive right by me
and he didn't drive... at all.
after thinking about it and writing several letters explaining all this I started thinking maybe the company did catch him or see him when i wasn't there, I wasn't there all the time after all, and maybe...
I found myself rationalizing the companies viewpoint. I found myself finding excuses for the company.

but one thing keeps coming back. I cant believe there was any way he did it. And why if there are only 2 other people who work with him, ( me being his supervisor ) why didn't they ask us one question about the alleged theft?

What bothers me the most is that if the company I work for, the people who I have to trust, would actively pursue and or set this man up, what keeps it from being me next time?

Time to act...time to speak up,
time to
time to...
sit down and shut up.
 Because I cant afford to lose my job. Because i cant feed my family with integrity or pay the bills with a sudden new found sense of ethics. Because I cant sacrifice my family for one innocent man.
Because I am a coward.

We helped feed 5000 people today. Some of the things which humbled (and amazed)  me. 

  having a man ask me for a orange today to eat that was part of a display.  ( I gave it to him. ) 

Children who acted like i just gave them a X box when I handed them a small plate of curly fries... before we even opened the doors.

watching children who had never seen a x box before. 

Working with a soldier who had just returned from Afghanistan who i found out later, had no family to come home to.

watching my wife serve tables, talk , laugh, and hug total strangers, and treat each one she met with respect and love, like they were all old friends...

...for hours... 

...and she did not sit down nor eat, until all 5000 had eaten first. 

seeing a literal sea of men, women and children waiting patiently to get a coat. 

seeing that many coats handed out in 4 hours. 

being treated better by people I had worked with for 5 hours, than by people I have worked for 5 years. 

So many different small yet important things which I witnessed that both made me both unconditionally love, yet  despise and hate mankind.

As we settled in for the evening and watched the news cover all the people amassed in front of department stores ready to spend millions and millions of dollars on material items, My wife turned to me and said, Imagine if all these people took 10% of what they are about to spend... not all of it, just 10%, and gave it to a charity, how many people would that feed... how many could we house...

Imagine. 

As we were walking out today a homeless man turned to us, smiled and said, 

Don't just preach peace, practice peace. 

I think I'm going to try and preach a lot less. 

BIRDMAN IN LISBON, PORTUGAL - Claudio Montuori

Shepard Fairey, Northside and Downtown

Changing the style of my blog

OK i'm bored with this back round. time for a change.

This is beautiful

How we fail

"The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do."

Deuteronomy 14:29

I have this friend, well at least she considers me a friend, and I'm not sure why. Actually , she considers quite a few people friends, quite a few people family, and yet, we all fall way short of what a friend should be, how a friend should be... I fall way short of what i should be. When she calls me with a problem, I tell myself she will be OK, when she has no electricity, or is driving around lost I say, ill see what i can do and then hope she finds help... but wait, she was calling me for help... Not to say I don't mind at all when people call me for help, as long as it is something that a parable from this or that over the phone can take care of, or some cryptic rhetoric to make one think I'm smarter than I actually am. Perhaps its moving a couch or mowing a yard, that isn't too hard... but when she calls, its always something , you know, inconvenient. The thing is, I have known her for years, and she has always been the first one to drop everything to help out anyone however she could, selflessly, not needing recognition, just maybe a little acceptance, but yet we all cant quite accept her because she is, well, different. She looks just like any other attractive 20 something year old you might see on any college campus, or at a local watering hole, but when she wears certain clothing you cant help but notice the scars she wears from a lifetime of abuse... But that was a long time ago and she should just get on with her life, right? She can be short tempered at times and tends to cry for no reason, and we have all thought, "not this shit again." I mean there is only so much we can do, right? right?

I cannot look at myself in the mirror thinking about her. I cannot look at her in the eye when I know i can offer her more help than I do, but it is to inconvenient for me or the lifestyle I have grown accustomed to. I NEED this smartphone that could buy her and her child groceries for a few months, I NEED the phone plan that could pay the rent in a comfortable place... I need the internet, and imported beer...

why is it so damn hard to look at myself in the mirror?