A Recipe for Hope.A RECIPE FOR HOPE By Karen Karen Any member of a variety of tribal peoples of southern Myanmar (Burma). Constituting the second largest minority in Myanmar, the Karen are not a unitary group in any ethnic sense, as they differ among themselves linguistically, religiously, and economically. M. Skalitzky (ACTA 2007) The late Wayne Teasdale Wayne Robert Teasdale ( 1945 - 20 October 2004) was a monk, an author and teacher from the U.S.A.. He became known primarily as a creative proponent of the mutual understanding between the world's religions; he was also an advocate for social justice issues. considered the homeless an opportunity for grace, and he knew many of those in his neighborhood by name. Yet the closest most of us get to a homeless person An individual who lacks housing, including one whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility that provides temporary living accommodations; an individual who is a resident in transitional housing; or an individual who has as a primary residence a is driving by them on the exit ramp exit ramp n (US) (AUT) → vía de acceso exit ramp exit n (US) (Aut) → bretelle f d'accès exit ramp or dropping a few coins into their hand on the street. Few of us have actually heard the stories of people who are homeless. But Karen M. Skalitzky has. A volunteer at two programs for the homeless in Chicago, she set out to record the stories of the men and women she met through the Inspiration Cafe and Living Room Cafe, which help the homeless back to self-sufficiency through food service training. A Recipe for Hope contains sad stories, to be sure--tales of depression, addiction addiction: see drug addiction and drug abuse. , dysfunctional families dysfunctional family Psychology A family with multiple 'internal'–eg sibling rivalries, parent-child– conflicts, domestic violence, mental illness, single parenthood, or 'external'–eg alcohol or drug abuse, extramarital affairs, gambling, of origin, domestic and sexual abuse, lost jobs. One woman recounts her childhood with two alcoholic alcoholic /al·co·hol·ic/ (al?kah-hol´ik) 1. pertaining to or containing alcohol. 2. a person suffering from alcoholism. al·co·hol·ic adj. 1. parents: "So basically from the beginning of my life, I never ever, ever, felt love. I just felt like a ... a big mistake" But, as the title promises, there are also stories of success and of hope. One man is working to start his own florist business, thanks to recently secured housing. "If you have a comfortable place to live," he says, "you're capable of creating remarkable things." Skalitzky lets the stories tell themselves, with minimal editing (though a few have been transformed into poetry). Some readers might have appreciated more trimming and some cleanup of grammar. But I suspect the author wanted to give these voices the dignity of standing on their own. Through these stories, Skalitzky tries to show that the real cause of homelessness is not mental illness, as many believe, but "poverty at its worst." Almost a quarter of all homeless people have jobs. Many have children, and all have dreams. But they live so close to the edge that any misfortune pushes them over it and into homelessness. There are many solutions, but the first must be to see homelessness as a "condition, not an identity." As one volunteer points out, "Once you know somebody's story it becomes a whole different thing." |
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