night life

It's morning now, and I get the streets almost to myself. The street sweeper's broom mechanically gathers the incredible amount of refuse humans can create in darkness. Fresh graffiti, empty glue cans, snapped needles, broken bottles, and joint stubs form a collaged update on last night's agenda. Earlier several women staggered home, drunk, talking with streetlights. In those wee hours little else was abroad but the grief they sought to numb, and the shadows that pursued them. The netherworld that holds them has a strong grip that few challenge. What mindset places women side by side on a street, waiting for customers? What memories have been erased, what feelings crushed, what power holds them there? What snaps there in that body/mind/spirit when they are "broken in" with group rape, or chained to a bed and left to starve until they accept their kismet and take their first customer? Where is the little girl that squealed with delight on the swing, the lisping child that picked dandelions, the girl who skipped rope and learned to buckle her shoes? What abysmal spirit roams our planet that transforms her to chattel and leaves her alone in that crowd on the darkened street?

I know that spirit not, thank God. But I do know the Spirit of God which sets free. And this One is truly amazing. When you offer that street woman a way out, she has hurdles. I visit Rose often, and she still has not been willing to take the step over from darkness to light. She lies to herself. I believe that one day she will see that my love is consistent. But most of the women respond like a dry plant to water. They want out. They never wanted in from the onset. And the marvelous thing is, God heals. He makes whole, He brings back the laughter, the dandelions, and the dance. Amazing. After night comes the morning. If we only let Him in.