This isn't a Christmas Eve story about the birth of St. Pete Food Not Bombs, at least not entirely. It isn't even really a story about me, although I played a part. This is a story about them...capital "T" them...the street people, the homeless, the people the system has not only failed, but actively oppressed. This is a story that I can only watch, but that others live. And the story doesn't end one way or the other because the problem never gets fixed...

So it's Christmas Eve and it's cold and damp - it isn't a Jacksonville cold, as one of the homeless people explained, and that's good, but it's a lot warmer for those of us who are going home after the picnic than it is for those who have been out in it since the weather turned a few weeks ago. There was a light rain earlier, but it's stopped now. The big, angry orange blob in the Gulf of Mexico that I saw on my computer screen before I left the house tells me there is more on the way, but the folks in the street don't know about that, and what would they do about it if they did? (As an interesting aside, I remember going to lunch with a colleague after the first hurricane this summer. Another storm was on the way and it was getting pretty breezy. We saw a homeless person crossing the road and I commented about how awful it must be for these people, trying to find shelter in the driving wind and rain. My lunch companion pointed out that there were shelters, and yes, that is true, but how would they know that they needed to go to one? And I think that exemplifies the bourgeois attitude toward the homeless - there are shelters...it's someone else's problem.)

We are serving soup. There are 8 of us...we had been cutting vegetables and cooking for two hours in my hot, cramped kitchen, but for us it had been fun. We picked through donated produce, debated over the salt content and spices, discussed politics (always) and chased babies and dogs (and sometimes chased babies who were chasing dogs and vice versa.) And somehow amidst all this chaos, we managed to produce a tasty soup, sort out blankets and jackets to take with us, utter several complete and profound sentences, and avoid setting fire to my kitchen (which is something that I, operating completely alone and not under the influence of any exotic substances, have come very close to doing on numerous occasions).

At first there are just a few people at our table, which we set up in the middle of a public park, (sans permit, thank you very much)...then more people come, and we stand around, eating soup and cookies and red beans and rice...everyone talking and telling their stories, for all the world as if it was a cocktail party at an up-scale hotel. There were veterans and alcoholics and people just in between one shitty job and the next. There were women and there were men. There were people who, in a former life, had children and were charmed by the presence of little ones at their picnic...so unlike people at most adult parties who are only concerned about the stain-potential of those under the age of toilet-usage.

Invariably they asked what church we were with, and they were a little uncertain of how to respond when we said we weren't with a church. I think they were also surprised that we stayed to talk, and that we wanted to hear what they had to say. We wanted to hear where they were from, what they thought and how they came to this place. With our next picnic, I hope we will hear about their needs, their desires and their dreams.

About half an hour into our picnic, a veritable horde of scrubbed looking white people descended on the park with blankets for the homeless. We did not see where they came from or where they went when they left - they moved really, really fast, thrusting blankets at whoever happened to be close by, including, in one instance, me. I was unclear as to whether the thrust-ee actually thought I was homeless, or whether he just wanted to complete his mission - Operation Homeless - as quickly as possible and get back to whatever holiday events he had planned. It was hit-and-run charity at its finest..."For God's sake don't look at them Earl...you'll only encourage them."

Just as the last of the soup was ladled, a light sprinkle of rain began to fall. We assured our new friends that we would be back next Friday and began to pick up scattered utensils, cups and leftover food. We knew where we were going after the picnic - back home to wash dishes, change out of wet clothes and climb in bed. I wonder where all those people in the park went? Behind what buildings? Under what overpasses? I wonder why in the hell the most prosperous country in the world does not try to solve this problem...not the homeless problem, because it is not a homeless problem we have in America. It is a greed problem. It is a lack of time and a lack of interest and a lack of understanding problem.

But it isn't a homeless problem...not by a long shot. It is true, (as others who have worked with the homeless have said), that we will probably see, and feed, many of the same people each week. We will not have found them jobs or turned them into "productive members of society" (whatever that means). Perhaps as we learn and grow, we will be able to provide referrals to organizations who can assist those who aspire to something besides the streets. But that said, there will always be those that are too addled, too addicted, too sick or too set in their ways to work their way up from the sidewalk to a high-rise, and does that really matter?

I don't think so. I think in a society that uses its young as cannon-fodder, uses its poor as production units, uses its helpless to feel good about itself, I don't think it matters at all. And in a society where the American Dream means for so very many, the right to simply eat and sleep indoors (and just forget about the house with the white picket fence), can we really fault people who choose not to work (either consciously or sub-consciously) when the alternative we offer them is to barely scrape by, working for people who demean them, in a society that refuses to respect anyone who does not own two cars, a computer and a big screen TV?

No, the problem we have in America is not a homeless problem - it is a problem of the heart. And if a little warm soup and a listening ear contributes something - even if it is just a little something - towards solving that problem, count me in. As wiser people than myself have said - I can't do everything, but I can do something.