A Profound Pervasive and Persistent Grief Observed on the Sabbath Sunday before Commemoration of the Birth of Jesus “the” Christ, son of “the” Living God.

THINKING ON THESE THINGS DECEMBER 2023

Dateline: Skid Row neighborhood, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. At THE END OF WHAT A TIME, FAR FROM simply having a wonder-filled Christmas time.

This past Sunday, December 18, 2023, as the friendly neighborhood teacher A and between two to eight of his new neighbors stood outside reflecting on news of the day, we witnessed a ninth neighbor I take their own life. LAPD responded swiftly, respectfully and cleared the remains. Conversation paused for a brief moment of silence, then the potential object of grief was gone, forever.

One neighbor, part of a trio from Mainland Chinese immigrants, was learning English and teaching us ASL for numbers as a way of learning our ages: A= 64, B=37, C= 54. We were all three “ MALE HOMO SAPIENS OF A CERTAIN age and stage. Later we were joined by D, a Latin American immigrant brought over to our group by C, our middle brother from China’s mainland. After a tense and classic “BATTLE FOR CONTROL” between so-called “guests” and three of their “hostel staff administrative personnel who wanted a “military straight line” to be formed by 60 other random tired, poor, and hungry of the wretched refuse of our teaming shores ( to borrow from Emma Lazarus poetry) as seen on The Statue of Liberty at the gateway to the Experiment that was always was and always will be America. Theirs was an outrageously candid and hopeful conversation centered on current…