Today, while crossing 6th Avenue, I was accosted by a man holding out a plastic cup with a few coins in it.

“Can you spare some change? I’m tryin’ to get to Poughkeepsie.”

“My friend,” I said gesturing at the sidewalk full of people and street full of cars, “we are all trying to get to Poughkeepsie.”

And we are. We are all beggars in the streets, lost and trying to scrounge up enough dough and find our way back home. We are all saying that we are attempting to get to Poughkeepsie, we are all trying to go home…yet we never seem to arrive.

And many are not making any progress on the road home, but are lying to ourselves and others while using what little we find to buy a bottle of whiskey to forget our ourselves and our longing.

That is why I implore you not to delude yourself that you are on the way to Poughkeepsie.
Stop pretending to be a beggar in the streets.
Seek your true home.
Enter it this very moment