Odd thoughts.

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The last time I went to the V.A., as I was checking out a woman came to a counter to get change. There was a long line. Seeing that her request would only take moments while the rest of us were going to take five minutes or more, I suggested she cut ahead of me. The other guys in line were not going to offer this, it was immediately clear, so I did. There were some grumbles behind me and I really did not care. It ended up, though, that she merely needed a few quarters for a dollar. I had that in pocket and just gave her change without any fuss.

She was a rough looking woman. She had never been beautiful, though perhaps she was or could have been pretty at some time. Between, probably, drugs, alcohol, and bad men, her thirty to forty year age seemed a harsh age. Who knows, she might have really been in her late twenties. I knew bits about her immediately. I have seen her in a thousand faces. I know the world uses and abuses her, and her kind, at a whim. She knew me too. She knew I do not. She probably also noticed I was not a mark, not an easy target. She also knew that I would neither target her nor try to help her, other than being simply compassionate when that was reasonable.

So many people live in such small worlds. The men in line were either so into getting what they wanted and to hell with everyone else, or did notice her and her simple request but saw who she was and considered her below consideration. She usually keeps to herself and continues on her way in darkness hoping light will somehow get in. Whether her addiction to abuse, drugs, alcohol, or some mix of those is all she feels she has, or if she knows nothing else at this point, I do not know. But I do know I see into those worlds, not always willingly. I do have compassion. I also know there is nothing I could do. Entering such a life, other than with honest kindness on a very limited basis, would either end up with my throat slit or becoming one of her abusers.

What is a human to do? I suppose what I did is about all I can do. And perhaps to pray for her. So many women, women who want to make it on their own and take one too many shortcuts, end up right where she is. I honestly do not see much difference between her and thirty five year old never married women, even if they happen to remain secular virgins. Her vices and actions considered less clean by some, she has at least looked for love... and found some forms of it. Still, what to do in a world that is dying, looking at the living symptoms of it? Me, you say? Well, I can still probably find a wife, should I be willing and while knowing I would most likely lose the marriage and my children and home. Further, I have been and am crippled. So the comparison does not work. But I still live in the world and am able to see the horrors of secular humanism. Praying, I suppose, is all that is available to me. But, I will add myself in, as one of the symptoms of sin. I just wish I was the worst of it. I wish those few like me were the majority, as the numbers would be quite small. But I am seeing a tidal wave. The other men in that line were the rest of it, there and then.