You Have Everything to Live For

#58, December 27, 2002

Let me share with you a poem given to me by the people of COTS (www.cots-homeless.org) , who serve the needs of our community's homeless. It's by Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund (www.childrensdefense.org.)

A PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

We pray for children who sneak popsicles before supper, / who erase holes in math workbooks, / who can never find their shoes. // And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, / who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, / who never "counted potatoes", / who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead, / who never go to the circus, / who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, / who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. And we pray for those who never get dessert, / who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, / who watch their parents watch them die, / who can't find any bread to steal, / who don't have any rooms to clean up, / whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, / whose monsters are real.

We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, / who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, / who like ghost stories, / who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub, / who get visits from the tooth fairy, / who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,

who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone, / whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, / who will eat anything, / who have never seen a dentist, / who aren't spoiled by anybody, / who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, / for those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother ... and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

My friend John Records, Executive Director of COTS, writes: "This poem, to me, isn't just about children, but also is about the adults we become. It's easy to love and to care about and want to help the darling child of our own, or the homeless child in the shelter--their pain matters to us, and we'll do almost anything to protect them.

"But what about the sometimes grizzled and even frightening adults? The people pushing shopping carts, or mumbling to themselves on the streets...the folks who can't seem to fit in....who can't keep a job...who turn to alcohol and drugs...

"These adults once were the children this prayer is about. Most often they entered life fresh and bright and beautiful. They too once were charming toddlers full of wonder and hope. Then something--or many things--happened to them. Like the prayer says, their monsters were real, and their nightmares came in the daytime. And battered, beaten and sometimes broken, they struggle through life as adults.

"I pray for the children, and sometimes I weep for them. And I look at the adults, and I see the children they were. I pray and weep for them too. We need to help both the children and the adults. And COTS does. As we enter 2001, may your prayers and good wishes be with the battered and beaten people, may we continue to work together to help them to rebuild their lives, and may you and yours have a wonderful New Year."

And this year's last words, from the rock group Split Enz: "Give! If you have anything at all to give…(Give!) you have everything to live for, / and when you've given all you can, give again, give again, give again…