Trust

 Every major social problem in America is complex and nuanced and boils down to the experiences of a single person—addiction, homelessness, poverty, incarceration, all of it. To be a critic of possible solutions is different from being an informed critic of possible solutions. And here is where the hard work must be done to find individuals to trust.

Trust is a rare commodity in these times of spin, marketing, social media and biased news. Before we can support the organizations and institutions that are given the task of solving social problems, we have to believe we can trust them. Before we believe we can trust them, we have to believe there is even such a things as trust.

Back to the single individual. Perhaps if we put ourselves in a place where we find one human being whose problems have been understood, who’s been treated as a human being and given the support to be healed, we could begin to trust.