Linas Phillips directed a documentary in which he familiarized, and in some cases befriended twelve homeless people in my hometown of Seattle, Washington.  While he remained objective in portraying their personal stories, he was willing to inject his emotional and soulful responses while observing the suffering, the triumphs and the monotony of challenges this type of lifestyle brings.  He was objective while remaining human...a real breakthrough in documentary filmmaking.

I initially felt discomfort for fear I was heading into a spiral of depressing narrative; however, after about five minutes of film it quickly shifted.  Space was created to allow the people he was filming to simply be - no more or less.  There was a connection between them and I, one fellow human to another.  The screen melted.

Extreme poverty, addiction, mental illness, societal neglect and system breakdowns are all frequent characters in the film.  Yet they are quickly upstaged by the gumption existing in their efforts to survive.  Stories began to fold into the background while individual's spirit of survival and their desires for connection, both within themselves and to humanity, became the foreground.  They have stayed with me - their stories, mistakes, celebrations, and most of all, benevolence.   I have reflected on how interconnected we truly are and how we can each offer the other compassionate spaciousness, without the knee jerk, canned responses we are fed through every outlet imaginable.   Mr. Phillips brought this message to life - this is art at its grandest.

A creative touch, which added poignancy to each individual's journey as the film transitioned from person to person, was the recitation of a famous speech to which the person related.  They ranged from Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" to Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be".   These individuals are not speechmakers...they are truth servants.  I was particularly touched by an African-American female who is wheelchair bound and addicted to crack.  She recited Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?".   The last line of that speech reads,

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again.  And now that they are asking to do it, the men better let them."

It had personal meaning that I think I'll keep personal.   What I can say is that woman, my sister, looked right into my soul and there was no difference between her and I.   I will be forever grateful to her for being willing, brave, and humble enough to share her story.

Thank you for listening to something which touched my mind, my heart and my soul, and has had the effect of percolating some new ways I can take action on some items which have meaning in my life.

Two of the men from this film were at the Northwest Film Forum's showing of this film and have since elevated themselves from living on the streets through public assistance options.  One of them was very grateful, sober, and feeling indebted to God for his new opportunities.  The other felt very tenuous about his new circumstances.  He actually felt constricted by walls and found the streets to be safer in many ways, although he couldn't quite articulate why that was.   They were both gracious and forthcoming.   I had a cup of coffee with the gentleman who felt relief from his recent fortune.  My only regret is not finding a way to stay in touch.