1. Imagine: “The Burning House”
Step I: Imagine a huge, beautiful house ablaze with roaring fire;
Step II: people fleeing – escaping the catastrophe, running, while knocking the flames from their cloths, coughing from the all the smoke;
Step III. Firefighters and EMT, police, and onlookers yelling to the fire-forced escapees, “No, no. Go back inside the house.”
Step IV. The life seekers ignoring them, and keep running away, and stubbornly resisting all attempts to return.
Question: Of these two groups, which one displays clear unequivocal signs of psychological maladies, including a dangerous form of insanity to themselves and others? The “fire forced out” escapees? Or, the aforementioned screaming at them “go back inside”?
Of course, the “screamers” are the unhealthy in mind, even criminal, particularly if they are apprehended by the police and forced back inside for standing around on the sidewalk, also now watching the tragic incidents of the burning house, such as people being devoured by it.
Metaphorical interpretation:
- The “huge burning house” is urban/suburban, “mainstream” society, “ablaze” with the “fire” of astronomical stresses.
- The escapees/survivors fleeing for their lives are “homeless” peoples in various states of existence.
- The “screamers” are the onlookers, law enforcement, and the fire/rescue personnel are the homelessness social services, “rehabilitating” them back into the “mainstream” stresses, i.e., “fire” that forced them onto the sidewalks in first place.
2. The Escaped Slave
Step I. Imagine a slave escaped or inadvertently wondered off the plantation into the swamps, where nobody would want to dwell.
Step II. Imagine, the slave’s master catches him
Step III. Imagine the master offering the slave better accommodations back at the plantation, including a little paying work, if he would cooperatively return, but its refused.
Step IV. The master threatens to whip the slave, if he doesn’t return, but he again refuses.
Step V. The master threatens to lynch the him, but once, and perhaps, the final time, again the slave refuses, being willing to die to this world.
Lesson: “Freedom 101”
The slave would rather spurn the “offers”, i.e., amenities, electing, if necessary endure harsh physical, and perhaps, psychological abuse, even death, than to return to the world of slavery.
The master’s serious problem is that the slave had tasted sweet waters of freedom, and breath of liberty as GOD, his Creator bestowed upon him, thereby teaching the master the true essence of such.
In fact, the “slave” is actually, now, the real freeman, whereas, the master, shackled in the chains of bondage, being enslaved by the stresses of mainstream society, of which the former escaped.
Metaphor interpretation
- The “plantation” is mainstream society
- The “slave” is “homeless” person
- The “swamp” is homelessness
- The “master” is the homelessness social services, the police, i.e., law enforcement