A COLD AND BRUTAL NIGHT

by John P. Flannery

More and more older men are found out in the cold homeless (sketch by J. Flannery)

We are having evenings that are ice cold and winds that require us to push back, lean into the cold, to make our way to the warmth of our car or home.

We are also well aware that, though Loudoun County is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, there are people that have no place to go to escape the biting freezing temperatures.

I was taking a turn off Route 7 this past week, a terribly cold day, and a thin woman by the side of the road, on the shoulder, looked dismayed, studying the passing cars, seeming not to focus on any vehicle.

She was half-twisting in the wind, pulled around by the black plastic garbage bags that may have contained her earthly belongings, her head encircled in cloth, a pained look, beneath the hint of her matted hair.

Did she emerge from those nearby woods? No way to know. She must have been cold — terribly cold — at the very least — wherever she spent the night.

Some say they can only imagine what it would have been like this past weekend to have slept outside with freezing temperatures.

Others ask how could there be homeless and hungry in Loudoun County and the surrounding region?

Well, they are here.

It is a fact.

Some live in the woods, quite exposed, looking like the sketch above, and can be seen in the morning collecting themselves, with a backpack, or with black garbage bags, containing their few possessions, holding a coffee in hand, for warmth and drink.

There are reports that we are not doing enough to reduce the homeless.

Of course, it’s not that nothing is being done.

But the numbers tell us that more needs to be done.

Some asked why heated government buildings are not available on the coldest of days for the homeless.

As for private charity, a fair seasonal thought experiment today is how many people would open their door after dark to a young pregnant woman and her husband, and give them shelter and sustenance for the night?

This though the Christmas story, and the instruction of the season, is about a young couple finding it hard to find lodging for a young mother named Mary.

Chanukah is the festival of lights, a miracle, born from the victory of Judah the Maccabee over the oppressive Greeks, celebrated in a succession of eight nights, culminating with eight lights on a candelabra, using a shamash (an “extra” light) to light and celebrate each calendar for the 8 evenings.

It’s an over-simplification but the meditation is focused on the delivery of “the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few … the wicked into the hands of the righteous.” You might say these feast days instruct a devotion to help the weak and righteous.

In any case, this magical season challenges us to make a difference for the less fortunate this Chanukah and Christmas Season.

There are several outlets you might visit with a son or daughter to teach them what they might have to do when they are older, and the less fortunate still need our help.

If you want to help the homeless find shelter and the hungry to find food to eat, think about “Mobile Hope” in Leesburg as some Lovettsville folk have done in the past and are doing again this year — https://www.mobilehopeloudoun.org/