In the Woods

Quietly, I crunched my way through the woods two evenings ago looking for a young missing girl. I never found the girl, but right there in the middle of all the fast paced, high adrenaline city life, I happened upon a makeshift campsite. There was a tent made of a discarded truck bed-liner with a well-used tarp draped over the top by means of some old half-rotten fence wood, and a fire pit which consisted of bricks and old car parts. A ripped and dirty roll of foam was a bed.


I peered inside the tent and was stunned to see several stacks of books - primarily paperback suspense fiction books - but still there were books...in a homeless guys tent in the middle of a wooded area in the middle of a busy part of the city. Now, this wasn't my first homeless guy, or homeless camp for that matter, to uncover while on duty, but the books were something significantly different. That and a glaringly obvious lack of drained liquor bottles or the various evidences of drug use.


To make a long story short, I went back a few hours later and met the keeper of the books. After introductions were made (and by introductions I mean pointed guns and other unpleasant pleasantries necessary in my line of work), I spent a long time talking with my new acquaintance, David. I learned how he lost his wife to cancer and then in rapid succession lost his job, house, car, motorcycle, relationship with his daughter, and last shred of dignity.


Compassion has never been my strong point and is becoming a less and less familiar trait. So, initially I thought I was feeling an overwhelming sense of compassion for my unfortunate friend. But, as I lay awake both last night and tonight I figured out its not compassion I feel but almost a sense of envy.


I long for his simplicity. His lack of want for trivial things. His focus on the now and attention to things that really matter. He is me with a few minor differences in life's outcomes. And I am well aware I am not too far removed from his condition. Nor do I want to be.


If you pray, pray for David....and us who don't yet live in the woods.