Half A Century.

I know that I said that this blog was about the adventures of Reach but allow me to wallow a little.
There is a connection here...honestly!
I've reached, (pardon the pun), half a century today. the third of December, 1960, born in Cresswell Maternity Horpital, Dumfries, Scotland.
Fifty years of creating chaos and mayhem, or so I would like to think hehehe.
So you reflect, right?
You reflect on what has happened to you. What have you really done. What is left.
I am totally blessed. Really.
I don't mean that in some arrogant, egotistical way. I mean that I have been blessed to find what I am truly supposed to be. What I really want to do. What I should be doing. My purpose.
I have travelled, been to many strange places, met many strange people.
I have done amazing things and also very very stupid things.
I have been right and also wrong.
I have been shamed and shameful.
I have had really only two jobs in my life and I adored doing both. I was a totally committed Policeman. I am now totally committed to my career in Security.
But there was something missing.
Protecting those that pay you for the work is excellent. That's business. That's life.
But helping, (perhaps also protecting in some way), those that can't pay, and doing it for the reasons of love and care....well that's a different ball game.
That's what I found in Reach.
I am also blessed to work in Reach with the most incredible human beings. Those that volunteer on the street, those that work in the education programme, those that pack the food, those that sponsor, those that offer their support without question. The friends that we work with from other organisations. Now that is what I should be doing.
And I can!
Reach gives each of us something we can not measure. It has no physical form. Is it spiritual? Maybe in some way.
But everyone of us is touched by what we do.
And Reach has been the conduit, the medium, to allow the energy and dynamic of caring people to form, grow and deliver.
I look back and I see what I have done in my life, some good, some things not so good.
Always evaluated and judged by society and what they consider 'the norm'.
But Reach forgives us our 'abnormal traits' if we work with real compassion. It drives us. It inspires us.
It ain't easy what we do. But who said if its good it was to be easy?
So in the last few years I have been able to do what I am suppose to do.
I am incredibly lucky, (yes blessed) to have found this at this time in my life.
In fact, to have found this at all.
To all those in Reach Out, thank you. Thank you for your support, your kindness and your care.
Most of all for your friendship.
Thank you to all of our street friends who allow us to do this work in helping them.
So here's to the next 50 years, (which I am really, really looking forward to).