1:20 a.m. - Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003
An Unrealistic Idea.
Today....
Chris and I didn't have much bread from the O'Briens Supermarket, so we made little bags with one or two bread items and a dessert. We went down to the Shiva and the Budget motels. What a thoroughly horrible area of town. It's just so darn ugly there. Were it not for the birds in the sky and a couple of flower beds at the Shiva, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything of beauty on South Ninth Street.
Last night we watched a film called Koyannisqatsi. It's a documentary without words, and the title is a Hopi Indian word which means "life out of balance" or "a way of life that demands another way of life." Seeing the situation on Ninth Street, I see that the way of life in this town is calling out for a better way of life. With that in mind, I'd like to imagine a better way of life in Modesto.
What if slum-lords didn't own the hotels? What if they didn't force the women out of their rooms and only let them in to perform oral sex on a client in order to get rent money? What if these motels were owned by a caring person? Or what if they were owned co-operatively by the tenants? What if a person who has little to no money could have a viable place to live? What if this community of the poor kept a community garden? What if there were a network that could connect poor people looking for work with small business owners from local churches? What if families raised their children in an environment that did not include drug dealers, forced prostitution and violence? What if there was a safe place to go?
What if.
As long as there is an idea, there is hope. There is a better way to live, because the idea tells us so.
Every good thing begins with an unrealistic idea.
