It is Tuesday morning. When "I" went outside. She didn't chase and bark at the dark invisible shadows as she usually does. She did her business and came back inside. Her large ears cold. She is like me with my nose. Being one of the biggest things about us. They get cold very quickly.

I wake up with a start. Something or someone has hit the top of the dumpster I'm lying behind. fear makes my heart race. I peer out of the box I have crawled into. I see nobody one or nothing. I try to crawl out of my cardboard home but my legs have drawn up from the cold. I am stiff and every bone in my body aches with pain. The bitter wind slaps my face and I gasp as my breath is sucked from me. My eyes sting with tears from the cold. Dawn is starting to break. Its only about five degrees but I have survived another night of being homeless.

I wake again. Thank God it was only a dream. The truth is when I awoke at four this morning and hit the floor. My legs did ache but it was only my older bones that caused the stiffness. The house was cooled down so I made my way to the dining room and turned up the heat. Creaking on I went to the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. By the time I finish in the bathroom the coffee will be done. I am starting my day. I am not homeless.

When we go to the Dollar Store," I see them, the men with the drawn faces and desperate look that sits permnantly in their eyes. I ache for them. I wish I could open the car window and say get in, come home with us. The house is warm, we have food. I can't do that, I don't do that., I only think it. Myself like all the others talk how terrible to be homeless in this weather. Sometimes when I burrow into the warm bed at night I have to force myself not to let the image of those tragic figures standing in a doorway. Praying for the dawn or maybe sometimes just for the end. Something to happpen to lift the misery.

There are many reasons for the homeless. There are many more now because of our poor economics. people who live from paycheck top paycheck and lose their jobs. They live in their cars, the car breaks down. No money to fix it. Someone comes and tows it away. Their only protection from the bitter cold is gone.

There are addicts on the streets. So caught up with their addiction they drift from fix to fix. With no hope in sight. Then there is the mentaly ill. People who have slipped through our system and are left in their confusion and fear to try and fend for themsleves on the street. It actually matters not why there are there. What brought them to this frightening place. What matters is they are there. Homeless.

I feel that somehow I have failed as a human when I have not at least in some small way have tried to change this situation. I have not. I moan about my problems as I sit in my chair. Somewhere as I sit there, someone is dying from the cold. There is no pillow to hold their head. No warm blanket to shield them from the freezing wind. "I feel so bad," I say with pity. But I sit there in apathy, doing nothing. "Do unto others," Jesus said. But still I sit. Doing nothing. Is apathy one of the biggest sins?

The words that I toss into the dark, cold December skies are not tight nor tidy this morning. They do not as it sometimes goes make very much sense. But I toss them still. I pull my coat tighter around me, its cold here too. I look around. Is there homeless in Blogland? They seem to be everywhere these days. I head for home. The guilt that I have a home to go too tugs at my heart. Will it tug enough I will try to make a difference? I turn up my collar. Walking faster, I'm outta here.