What Gives?

Sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football away from Lucy. Remember how that turned out? Every time I think I can nail that 42-yard game winning field goal, the ball is retracted and I go flying and end up on my back. The disappointment permeates the air and I feel duped.

This morning I woke up and it was 2013. As a certifiable child of Generation X, I am very angry at the current condition of the world in which I live. Things are supposed to be different by this point in human history and we should not be wrestling with the same problems our parents and grandparents struggled with. We've all seen Bladerunner and Back To The Future Part 2. Where are all the cool gadgets and the hovering skateboards? Instead of living in a Stanley Kubrick movie, I feel like I'm stuck in Groundhog Day.

What's the deal? Am I the only one upset that I don't have a personal robot to do all my shopping? Or a hologram sports complex that allows me to bat .700 against CC Sabathia? Our lives should be much easier by now, but instead we are still facing so many of the same issues. What will it take to change things? As soon as we figure out how to make coffee even easier and more convenient than those little Kuerig machines, we can start working on other solutions. The ones that really matter.

Albert Einstein once noted that the best example of insanity was when a person kept doing the same thing, in the same way, but expected different outcomes. Maybe this applies to how we tackle issues related to homelessness and poverty.

If we no longer want 1 in 5 children to go to bed hungry, what can we do differently?

If we are truly repulsed by the fact that victims of domestic violence lose 8 million days of paid work each year because of the violence they experience, what can be done?

If it really bothers us that 3 out of every 200 hundred children are homeless, then I suggest we can no longer rely on the solutions of 2012.

At Samaritan House, we are always trying to be progressive in our dealings with homelessness. Over the next year it will be our honor and privilege to challenge the community to stand with us as we not only present the case and causes of homelessness, but as we also look toward new solutions to remedy these issues. Forget about flying cars and space travel.

... We're ready to kick the ball.