Dean Martin and the Homeless

The old song croons, "Everybody loves somebody, sometime."

But, what if the phrasing was a little different and a space wedged itself between 'some' and 'body'? The whole idea would be wrecked because the concept changes as somebody becomes some body. And what looks like an autocorrect incident actually redefines the entire concept, forcing us to examine how we look at people who make us uncomfortable. Context is everything when we decide whether to treat people as bodies, just occupying space, or if we can remember they have a past, present, and future.

The single mom in the grocery store.

The the older gentleman in the public library.

The middle-aged woman behind the register taking your order.

Do we view the homeless in our area as mere bodies that melt into the scenery and background? Sometimes it is difficult to adjust our vision and allow ourselves to see others as 'somebodies' instead of some bodies. I don't think we intentionally try to be calloused or mean-spirited but we become so accustomed to the homeless around us, we don't recognize them as people as much as we think of them as being props in the community. We lose sight to the idea of context; each person having their own story and deserving the recognition and dignity we give to others who aren't holding signs at intersections.

And I don't write this from a heightened sense of awareness or judgement. I would love to say this is something I don't struggle with, but that would not be entirely true. No matter who we are, stereotypes and predispositions often cloud our perspectives and we rarely realize it. We become inoculated with the conditions surrounding as we forget others are not statistics, but living, breathing individuals who have their own stories. Society conditions us to place worth on a person's accomplishments and not usually their innate value. We see people as bodies. But how many times have others been gracious to us in times when grace is the last thing we deserve? We are treated as somebody.

We can learn a lot from autocorrect and Dean Martin.