Then the staff began shouting orders at people.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love the staff at Trinity. I get along with them all. It's not them I am going to take to task here. It's once again the System (or Administrative Authority) at fault here. Here was their thinking: they would pull the van up in front of the church, on Bancroft Avenue, that way nobody would know and "bum rush" the van. This way there would be no problems. And they kept all this information hush-hush, purposefully, so there would not be an incident of any kind. The problem with the implementation of said idea is: there is no information, period. Even when folks are asking the staff, the staff can't answer, because they were told not to say anything.
The problem: we now know where the new set-up spot is, so we will most likely be standing over there tomorrow morning, awaiting them. Even if we know we aren't going to be able to get a red ticket for the exchange of helping bring in food, there will be those who will stand there, regardless, because they know better or they have a better rap or whatever they believe will put them ahead of someone else; they are exclusive friends with Hugo Chavez and he left in his Will and Final Testament an exemption that would allow this person access to that early food dispensation. Unless the van's occupants get crafty and unload in the old spot, every other day, there will be people there tomorrow morning, gumming up the works, performing their best John McClane.
Another problem: it made the staff "bad guys" by making them raise their voices at people for standing where they shouldn't because there was lack of information to those folks and what was occurring and why it was happening was a result of that non action. All because someone got upset, having to watch desperation playing itself out in the parking lot, and thought their lives were in jeopardy or something equally dumbfounding and stupefying.
Eventually we worked it out and everyone was fine. Everybody got their food and it wasn't an issue.
However, it took time to straighten out and created a tenuous situation that stood brother against brother, sister against sister, in a small space with too many in that small space. Again, this is not an admonishment of Trinity or anyone running anything there. This happens, all the time. I only write this piece to show why we have all these problems, throughout our nation and world. Microcosm was the word I thought while watching it all play itself out. A smaller version of our (human being's) inadequacy and inability to handle small things with grace and cognitive thinking. And now you take this situation and magnify it a million times over and you can begin to see why human beings keep making messes.
And it's a good thing it's still early in the month, too! If they tried this "change" late in the month, someone would have most certainly been killed in some sort of freak serving-spoon impalement "accident" or something. Why was this change needed again? Because too many bums rushed a van and it didn't look nice? Someone was frightened? I bet they will say it was because of "safety," that cars coming through could "potentially harm someone not paying attention"?
[rolling eyes]
Fear of... something, is always the impetus for seizing more control over human beings, patting them on their confused heads, stating, "We know what's best for you." And when instituted, the lack of information leads to confusion, frustration, and furthers the disenfranchisement to those at the bottom who are already tired of being lead down dead-end road after dead-end road. And fearing life and all its folly is foolhardy. You have no control over it. Stop trying. Give up.
"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
-Hunter S. Thompson
-James Richard Armstrong II
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