So said Aristotle.
"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven," says whoever wrote Ecclesiastes.
George Harrison said it better. "All things must pass. None of life's strings can last. So, I must be on my way and face another day."
Over the past several days The Savannah Morning News has reported on the crumbling of the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless of which I helped conceive and found spending a decade of my life helping to build it into the nations most effective and prestigious community response to homelessness.
Then it started slipping and has now dissolved into a dysfunctional mess.
I spent the better part of twenty-five years helping build Union Mission into the nation's most effective organization. By attacking the root causes in a compassionate yet firm way, people overcame their homelessness. We were the first to embark on such an approach and were emulated throughout the world. When all was said and done we had solved more than half the problem, more than anybody else has accomplished.
Union Mission is now a shell of what it used to be.
It runs in my life I suppose. When I left the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in Louisville where I was the "Professional Christian" in charge, the Southern Baptist kicked the church out literally onto the street.
Throw in my failed marriages and I'm really looking good.
You know what?
I wouldn't change it. I've been blessed to be part of incredible things. I've been to mountain tops and, though I was either kicked off or fell, I got to see it all. I've touched heaven a few times and wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. I've also seen hell ... it's not all that.
On one hand it's sad to watch glorious things you were part of crumble. I suppose its because the right people are no longer in the right place nor is it the right time.Yet I've been blessed because on multiple occasions to have been with the right people doing the right things in the right place at the right time.
It's a lot like sex ... you want it again.
These days I stand with a tiny group of friends on a beach and look at the burning cities and the ominous clouds throwing lightening on the mountain tops. The sea is calm, the Palm Trees smile, choirs of mussels sing and things still bloom. After years of battling in the darkness it's nice to be quiet in the light.
But I'll tell you one more thing.
There's another mountain or two for me to climb.
And you can bet your ass I'm touching heaven again.
