Connecting the Dots

 I am torn, in this Thursday Thought, between two topics (if you will) that have been in my mind these past few days.  One was my witnessing a simple act of kindness on a public street in Wichita toward a homeless wheelchair-bound woman.  The other was the monthly blog post by my friend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kendra Broekhuis, as she described something that happened in her immediate neighborhood.

I think that somehow, these two stories come together in some way…I just can’t seem to make them do so yet.  Hopefully, as I write this thought today, some of the pieces will fall into place.

The act of kindness came as I was walking along West Douglas a few days ago getting some exercise in the afternoon warmth.  As I walked toward a woman in a wheelchair coming toward me, I noticed the classic signs of homelessness in her as well as her inability to walk.  She had stopped, and was conversing with a couple of women outside an office building, asking them for directions to some place…I didn’t hear where.  The women, who I believe were on their break, assured her that she was on the right path.  As I passed the wheelchair, one of the office women asked if the lady would like her to push her across the next street, which was Waco.  The woman in the wheelchair readily and thankfully agreed.  As I continued on my way, I looked back a couple of times and noticed both women with the wheelchair lady, one of whom was pushing her.  I noticed they got her across the street ahead of them…then I lost sight of them.  Truly a random and simple act of kindness that crossed the socio-economic and class barriers.

The other event came through Kendra’s monthly blog where she described some goings-on in her immediate neighborhood that were both illegal and immoral.  She and her husband had contacted their city representatives and tried other ways to mitigate the situation with no results.  They had also contacted social service agencies and faith-based non-profits and received much the same response, or lack thereof.  It seemed there was no easy solution to the problem.

Kendra learned a hard lesson…that there often is no quick and straightforward answer to many of the societal ills of the day.  One of the faith-based ministries they had contacted for help with the issue responded to her in this email regarding helping women who are caught up in homelessness and human trafficking.

 

So that I don’t get your hopes up about immediate resolution, I want to give you a sense of the process of change: once a woman engages with our services, we begin working on her housing challenges if that is a reason she is on the street.  Because of the extreme lack of housing resources in our community, it can take 3-5 months to help a client access permanent housing.  If a client is open to shelter, that can usually be achieved in days to a couple of weeks.

There is a similar challenge with substance use treatment – the waiting lists for inpatient/residential treatment run 2-3 months out.  Thus, a person struggling with addiction and no safe housing often has very few immediate options.  However, we are assisting women every day to take the steps necessary to move into housing and treatment.  It just takes more time than any of us would wish due to the systemic scarcity of needed resources.

 

As Kendra thinks about what she has seen in her neighborhood and the incredible difficulty in finding and providing appropriate services, she has, she says, many more questions than she has answers.  Here are just some of those questions.  I’ve edited some of them so you can better understand them since I didn’t tell the entire story for you in this post.

 

·         If we never see the fruit of our work in the Kingdom, how do we know we’re even planting the right seeds?

·         What does it look like to care?

·         What does it look like to mistakenly believe we can fix something or someone?

·         What am I supposed to DO?  When do words become empty?  When does silence further the harm instead of help heal it?

·         Why are Christians surprised by mass exits from church?

·         Why are Christians surprised by women, the homeless, the minorities, and the marginalized being tired of the way they’re treated?

·         When do our conversations about grace forget to include accountability?

·         When do our conversations about accountability forget to include grace?

 

I still am not certain where and how these two stories…the one about  the random act of kindness, and the one about the goings-on in Kendra’s neighborhood…connect.  I’m thinking that one way they may connect is to recall that old statement attributed to Edward Everett Hale.  “I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

Sometimes those of us who work with parts of society who present with some kind of profound need become overwhelmed at the magnitude of both the problem and the proposed solution.  We come to the point that we say, “What IS the point?  Why am I paddling against the current?  What am I accomplishing here besides busy work?  I can’t fix this, and can barely put a band aid on, so to speak, enough to cover the need for a day or two.”

We can bring that idea down to these two events.  What did pushing the wheelchair lady a few hundred feet really accomplish?  Did it fix her homelessness or inability to walk?  Were those two women paddling against the current, so to speak, when they offered to help her?  Should they have done more?

And what about Kendra?  She and her husband have tried many different avenues to remedy a situation with no results.  And the prospects for real resolution apparently are slim to none, given the response of the one faith-based agency.  Have they been wasting their time?  Should they even be involved in the situation since what is going on in the neighborhood alleyway is said by some to be a “victimless” crime?

As Christians, we are told to plant the seeds of the Kingdom.  Some of us are also told to water those seeds and seedlings.  But that’s it as far as I can determine.  We’re not told to be concerned with how to assure results or even that we will know, or deserve to know, if our seed-planting and watering are having the desired effect.  We are just told to plant and water.  And leave the rest to God, who will give the increase.  And I think that applies well in both of these situations.

We can do something.  We can plant the seeds of the kingdom.  We can water them.  We may or may not ever see the increase God has assured will happen.  And we will have to be content with that.

Blessings.