The Ivory Towers We Build
It started with an argument about a cold weather shelter. A luxury home developer stood before me, his words dripping with the kind of certainty that comes from a lifetime of privilege. He wielded data points like weapons, speaking of crime statistics and property values, his voice carrying the weight of someone who believed they had earned their place in the world through sheer force of will.
"These people choose to be homeless," he declared, each word a brick in the wall he'd built between himself and basic human empathy. "It's easier for them to beg than work." His confidence never wavered as he explained how the middle and upper-class families in his developments had earned their right to safety, their right to distance themselves from society's struggling masses.
The conversation haunted me, not just for its lack of compassion but for how it crystallized a deeper sickness in our society. We've constructed elaborate mythologies about our success, convincing ourselves that our comfortable lives are purely the product of our superior work ethic, our better choices, our stronger moral fiber. We sit in our protected hamlets, these modern-day fortresses, and tell ourselves stories about how we climbed the corporate ladder through nothing but grit and determination.
It's all an illusion, of course. We stand on the shoulders of giants, beneficiaries of countless advantages and helping hands, yet we take all the credit. We've transformed our luck into a virtue and others' misfortune into a moral failing. The system that lifted us up becomes invisible in our telling, while those it failed become cautionary tales of personal responsibility.
The most bitter irony lies in how this mentality has wrapped itself in the cloak of Christian values while betraying their very essence. In communities across America, the same voices that loudly proclaim their faith are the first to turn their backs on those in need, their actions a stark betrayal of the teachings they claim to follow.
But nature, God, or the universe has a way of shattering these illusions. Most of us are just a few misfortunes away from losing everything we've built. Our towers aren't nearly as sturdy as we pretend, our foundations not nearly as solid as we believe. Yet we can't – or won't – see it, because acknowledging this truth would mean confronting our own vulnerability, our own potential to fall.
The question isn't whether we'll learn empathy, but when. Will it come through quiet reflection and honest self-examination or will it take a humbling fall from our self-constructed pedestals? The answer lies in whether we can find the courage to see ourselves in the faces of those we've been so quick to judge, to recognize that the line between giving help and needing it is thinner than we care to admit.
The cold weather shelter still needs a home and so do its future residents. Our response to this simple truth reveals more about our character than any sermon or Sunday service ever could.
