I’ve been somewhat torn today as I sit down to make yet another entry in the blog. This afternoon is very unsettled weather-wise, and I could write about that. I saw a hen wild turkey out back just standing there in the rain…I could write about that. We had a great church service today, spending much of the time talking about serving others and meeting the needs of the community. We have an outreach of food and clothing that we call Simple House. I could write about that.
Our Bible class today was talking about discouragement and how we can combat that in our lives…a sorely needed lesson…I could write about that. I watched the tail end of a PBS program on religion and ethics where they told of a Catholic priest who made it his mission to bring out into the public arena a little-known facet of the holocaust of the Jews in WWII. I could write about that. We’re having our small group over to our place this evening…I could write about that.
However, an oft repeated line seems to pop out in my mind today. Many people have said “I have more years behind me than I have in front of me.” I too am in that boat (unless I live to be 120, which is rather unlikely). I was thinking today about my life as it has been and is, wondering if it has turned out at all like I thought it might many years ago.
Actually, I don’t know whether or not it has turned out the way I planned. I don’t really remember doing a lot of planning in the past. I don’t think I ever got a job with the idea that this would be the job I would retire from at age 66. I don’t think I ever moved into a home with the idea that this would be the place where I would retire. The only long term planning I think I ever did was to say that the woman I married would be my partner for the rest of my days (or her days).
Everything else has been, I think, a step in the adventure of life and a realization that nothing is ever permanent or unchanging. Much as I would like to have continued to hold some job or live in a certain house for the remainder of my days, I think I knew that it probably wasn’t going to happen that way and that I was to be ready for whatever came our way.
Even post-retirement isn’t all that permanent. Things change and life changes. We become more feeble and frail. Friends die. Children and grandchildren grow up. People move. The world changes. Nothing is static.
Although Archie Bunker’s statement that he “like(s) change better when everything stays the same,” is one that we all look upon with some fondness, we also know that it just isn’t that way. Even if we don’t embrace change, we’d do better to at least flow with change and understand that it is part of this existence. Much as we like our ruts, we can’t stay in them forever.
And that’s probably a good thing. (By the way, this is blog #500).
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Dads and Kids
Last evening I helped our church serve hot dogs with the trimmings at the public school that we have partnered with for many years. The school had a spring program, outdoors in the parking lot. There were several hundred people there, kids, parents, grandparents, etc. Following the program they came inside and we served the dogs.
I stepped outside while the program was going on. I didn’t pay so much attention to the performances as I did the people in the audience. I sort of walked around the perimeter and just observed for awhile.
I was heartened to see so many dads and father figures at the event. Many came to the program directly from work or at least didn’t have time to change. The school is in a poorer neighborhood, and there were many ethnic groups represented. The dads who were there also interacted quite well, it seemed, with their families and some really got into the program, clapping and pointing (presumably at their child’s performance).
I also observed the children a little. I wondered as I saw the kindergarten and first grades perform what the world would be like when they were old. They have a good chance, some of them, to see well into the last quarter of this century, and some may even see the twenty-second century.
What legacies will we leave to them? Will there be a United States of America? If so, what will it look like? What will the world be like then? How will travel have changed? Will people be living on Mars (or some other celestial body)? What will a dollar buy in 2070? How will morals have changed? How will life have changed?
There’s no way we can answer these questions now. We just don’t know enough to have any kind of understanding of the way things might be even 10 or 20 years down the road, let alone 50 or 70 years.
The kids didn’t seem to care, though, and I doubt that any of them have even thought of these questions. Maybe that’s one of the good things about childhood…the problems of life many times come at just about the time when we can begin to grasp and grapple with them. Now, I know that’s not always true; many kids are thrust into adult or caregiver roles through no fault of their own well before they are ready. Sometimes that works out…sometimes not.
Bravo for the dads that came to the event and enjoyed the evening with their families. I’m glad we could be a small part of that.
I stepped outside while the program was going on. I didn’t pay so much attention to the performances as I did the people in the audience. I sort of walked around the perimeter and just observed for awhile.
I was heartened to see so many dads and father figures at the event. Many came to the program directly from work or at least didn’t have time to change. The school is in a poorer neighborhood, and there were many ethnic groups represented. The dads who were there also interacted quite well, it seemed, with their families and some really got into the program, clapping and pointing (presumably at their child’s performance).
I also observed the children a little. I wondered as I saw the kindergarten and first grades perform what the world would be like when they were old. They have a good chance, some of them, to see well into the last quarter of this century, and some may even see the twenty-second century.
What legacies will we leave to them? Will there be a United States of America? If so, what will it look like? What will the world be like then? How will travel have changed? Will people be living on Mars (or some other celestial body)? What will a dollar buy in 2070? How will morals have changed? How will life have changed?
There’s no way we can answer these questions now. We just don’t know enough to have any kind of understanding of the way things might be even 10 or 20 years down the road, let alone 50 or 70 years.
The kids didn’t seem to care, though, and I doubt that any of them have even thought of these questions. Maybe that’s one of the good things about childhood…the problems of life many times come at just about the time when we can begin to grasp and grapple with them. Now, I know that’s not always true; many kids are thrust into adult or caregiver roles through no fault of their own well before they are ready. Sometimes that works out…sometimes not.
Bravo for the dads that came to the event and enjoyed the evening with their families. I’m glad we could be a small part of that.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
First Steps
I was going down the hallway at our church this morning toward the auditorium after getting a cup of coffee in the kitchen. I was following a young mother and her daughter. She had her daughter’s hand and they were walking up the hall. It was obvious that her daughter was just beginning to learn to walk, as she was rather awkward, even though her mom was holding her hand. As they got to the foyer, mom stopped and pointed out someone in the area (I think Grandpa) to the little girl.
As Grandpa knelt down and beckoned, Mom encouraged her daughter to walk toward him without her help. The girl got down on all fours and started over toward him. Mom corrected her by standing her upright. Taking the cue, the toddler walked over. I didn’t think too much about it for just a second, but as the toddler made it about ½ way to Grandpa, Mom started clapping and jumping up and down in obvious delight.
I went on by, but as I went, I heard her exclaim that her girl had just started taking tentative steps this week, and that this was by far the longest distance she had walked. As I walked to my seat in the auditorium, I thought about Mom’s display of joy and the toddler’s learning of a new thing.
There are a lot of lessons here. Yes, I know. I like to find life lessons in the seemingly everyday things that happen. Maybe I stretch a bit. Maybe I should have just enjoyed the moment and not thought about greater truths. But I’m seldom like that. I enjoy innocent and sweet times such as this, and like to work through them.
I think the first thing that came to mind as I thought about what I had seen was the fact that I was in church. I thought of God possibly exhibiting a similar kind of delight as we, his children, take the tentative first steps toward whatever it is that He has in store for us, whatever that may be. We stumble, we are awkward, and we don’t do it very well. But because our efforts show that we are growing into maturity, the Father is delighted with our progress and encourages us to continue.
I also thought of Grandpa. I doubt that the girl would have come to me. She didn’t know me, nor did I know her. We had no relationship. But Grandpa did. His encouragement to her as she stepped toward him, knowing she would receive a welcoming hug and assurance of personhood from someone she knew, made all the difference. Just as God was in Mom, God was also in Grandpa, encouraging, giving assurance, loving, validating. Her going to him was an exercise in immutable trust and childlike faith.
The next time you take the first tentative steps in a direction you believe God would have you go, think of this girl, the Mom, and Grandpa. It may make your journey just a bit easier.
As Grandpa knelt down and beckoned, Mom encouraged her daughter to walk toward him without her help. The girl got down on all fours and started over toward him. Mom corrected her by standing her upright. Taking the cue, the toddler walked over. I didn’t think too much about it for just a second, but as the toddler made it about ½ way to Grandpa, Mom started clapping and jumping up and down in obvious delight.
I went on by, but as I went, I heard her exclaim that her girl had just started taking tentative steps this week, and that this was by far the longest distance she had walked. As I walked to my seat in the auditorium, I thought about Mom’s display of joy and the toddler’s learning of a new thing.
There are a lot of lessons here. Yes, I know. I like to find life lessons in the seemingly everyday things that happen. Maybe I stretch a bit. Maybe I should have just enjoyed the moment and not thought about greater truths. But I’m seldom like that. I enjoy innocent and sweet times such as this, and like to work through them.
I think the first thing that came to mind as I thought about what I had seen was the fact that I was in church. I thought of God possibly exhibiting a similar kind of delight as we, his children, take the tentative first steps toward whatever it is that He has in store for us, whatever that may be. We stumble, we are awkward, and we don’t do it very well. But because our efforts show that we are growing into maturity, the Father is delighted with our progress and encourages us to continue.
I also thought of Grandpa. I doubt that the girl would have come to me. She didn’t know me, nor did I know her. We had no relationship. But Grandpa did. His encouragement to her as she stepped toward him, knowing she would receive a welcoming hug and assurance of personhood from someone she knew, made all the difference. Just as God was in Mom, God was also in Grandpa, encouraging, giving assurance, loving, validating. Her going to him was an exercise in immutable trust and childlike faith.
The next time you take the first tentative steps in a direction you believe God would have you go, think of this girl, the Mom, and Grandpa. It may make your journey just a bit easier.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Last Word
I am gratified that my blog is read in such a way so as to elicit conversation and comment from those who read it. Although that is not why I write (I write because it satisfies me to do so), I understand and encourage respectful conversation with differing points of view or additional ways of looking at an issue.
Almost no issue is exclusively black or white. Almost no issue has unanimous agreement. And almost no issue has a single solution component. It matters not to me, for the most part, how we choose to approach a problem that needs a solution as long as that approach is made in such a way that it is not illegal, immoral, or unethical and that it at least honestly tries to get the job done. I know that’s a big generalization, and someone could surely pick it apart…give me a little license with it, please. Anyone honestly reading this knows what I mean.
My mind has wandered these last few days, and although my basic tenets are intact, I think I am better able to articulate my concerns through alternate words and phrases. I’ve done my best to lay them out here. In all of this, my points seem to boil down to these:
1. Somehow, some way, we must celebrate and respect the dignity and personhood of everyone, recognizing the existence and value of sub-cultures which may work with values different from our own.
2. Government is not the one and only (or even main) answer; government is not the ogre, either.
3. God has, I believe, a special affinity for the poor, the children and the helpless. It behooves us to recognize that and work accordingly.
4. In sharp agreement with the writer immediately below, I believe the church working corporately and through individuals has the primary responsibility to care for those in our society who have need. Much is being done already. Much is NOT being done that could be done.
5. I believe many people within the church haven’t a clue of their responsibility to the poor, the helpless, and the children, and that many more outside of the church not only don’t have a clue regarding the plight of the poor among us, but don’t want to have a clue, let alone be part of the solution (albeit from outside of the church).
I commend the following to you, written by a reader. Please read and consider.
As we discussed your post last night. I wanted to respond. You can feel free to post this or not as you want. I am cc'ing it to others at the discussion last night.
1. We will always have poverty-even Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us. Society and government will never, ever, cure poverty. Never. When the widow dropped her two mites in the offering plate, which was all she had, and a mite was 1/100th of a cent, did Jesus, who was an eyewitness to her giving, and even commented about it to his disciples, hand her a 100.00 bill or its equivalent? In His earthly ministry, did Jesus magically produce money, health insurance, or a home for people? The record seemingly oes not support that-but a caveat here- I think we don't know all the ways He worked and ministered to people. However, it is curious that He, our Ultimate Example, with compassion unending for children, for us, and dare I say it, even for those such as "the rich young ruler", did not address how these needs should be met. Paul, in his writings, places the responsibility directly upon the church, and charges them to "qualify" who they help.
2. Having worked in a neighborhood center for many years ministering directly to those who could not meet basic needs for food and shelter, I firmly believe that this is the responsibility of the church. And I hold fast to one of the basic tenents of our ministry at the Good Neighbor Center-that we help folks with what we've been blessed with, and always with redemption of the heart as our motive for our service. Jesus did not come to this earth as a cure for financial sickness, He came as the only Cure for a sickness of the heart. Always, we should meet people's needs because of the grace that's been shown us, because of the mercy God gave us at the cross, and because we want to be an instrument to meet spiritual needs.
Once we understand that Mr. Obama will not cure the world's ills, that financial bailouts won't bring eternal life, that government spending won't give peace of mind, and that everything, absolutely everything in this world is temporary, and is fit for the rubbish heap, then we can focus on truly what is important and what we the church have been called to do.
Many people, conservative and liberal alike are spun up in the latest antics of our leaders in Washington, and postulating what COULD be, what SHOULD be, what the ideal government should do-all the way from, "Get out of my backyard and let me mind my own business", to "Government needs a bigger role in providing for people who are unable to provide for themselves." My question-what does is matter? God continues to work through His people no matter who sits in the Oval Office. God continues to move His church and get her ready for a home with Him. He continues to minister to the world through us-no matter what. Our role in all the chaos is to let the politicians - Republican, Democrat, or in between, fight it out with words, angry rhetoric and bail out money, and we then, must continue to be busy meeting needs whenever God brings someone in to our lives to do so. Our job is to say "Yes", to Him. To be available to Him. To do His work.
I say this as I wrap up my 3rd year at an elementary school in Wichita with far more poverty than I ever saw in all my years at the Good Neighbor Center. If you know me, you know that it hurts me, but if you know the church, then you would be delighted to see the ministry occuring there, all the way from a staff member purchasing brand new underwear for a little girl who had never had any new ones right out of the package, to several people making home visits, to community people coming in once a week to read to kids, to our mentoring program which pairs kids and adults in an academic setting, to a church down the street hosting a Bible club every Tuesday with 50-60 kids in attendance, to the countless times we've collected food and Dillons cards for families, to the recent episode of someone affiliated with the school receiving some much needed dental care-the list is endless.
My challenge to you and all others who read this blog is this: We can either sit around on our hineys and wait for the government to usurp the place of the church in ministry, and wail and gnash our teeth because of what we see (and truly, what we see is horrendous), OR, we can get on our knees and say to God, "What can I do? Where can I minister? Show me how to act in Your love!" Hello Church? Your call to action is clear, your mandate is set before you. I can state unequivocally, because I've seen it first hand, ministry IS being accomplished - some is being done corporately, some is being done privately-we won't know until we get to heaven how many people with two mites to their name have ministered to others in need. But the need remains and is great. The responsibility is ours. We move as He directs.
In all this, we have to be cautious. I hate generalizing, but am going to do so here. Middle class people who want to help often view those in poverty through middle class rose-colored glasses, and in doing so, try to force middle class values upon those they minister to. It doesn't work, folks. Ruby Payne, a well-known expert in this area says that those in poverty have their own set of values, and in meeting needs, we need to understand that they place importance on different things than we do. God's ministry transcends class values. It transcends racial barriers. It cuts to the heart of what's important and that is, that God so loved YOU, that He gave His Son for YOU, that YOU might have a forever relationship with Him in His family.
The following is from World Magazine, March 14, 2009 I am printing it all here, even though it is lengthy. Maybe we can learn from what has already happened.
Giving that worked
Christians want to be generous, and that's as it should be. But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step. If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that gives ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.
We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657. The Society from its start resolved to "open the bowells of our compassion" but to make sure that "no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein." They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God's image and were willing to live and work accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.
Boston pastor Cotton Mather three centuries ago asked his church members to be charitable but also careful not to "abuse your charity by misapplying it." A half-century later prominent pastor Charles Chauncey instructed leaders of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to be careful in "the Distribution of Charity" so they would not "dispense it promiscuously" and "bestow upon those the Bread of Charity, who might earn and eat their own Bread, if they did not shamefully idle away their Time."
We tend to think of generosity in a linear way as the opposite of selfishness, but there's actually a spectrum: Generosity is in the middle, the selfishness of not giving at one end, and the selfishness of giving that warms the giver's heart but hurts the recipient, on the other. Jesus' parable in Matthew 25 emphasizes that "as much as you did to the least of these, you did to Me." That cuts both ways: A person who offers help is helping Jesus, but a person who gives money that goes for drugs is shooting heroin into Jesus' veins.
Two centuries ago Americans did not subsidize others in self-destruction. Some 23 Boston charity societies declared in 1835 that recipients should believe it "disgraceful to depend upon alms-giving, as long as a capacity of self-support is retained . . . [To] give to one who begs . . . or in any way to supersede the necessity of industry, of forethought, and of proper self-restraint and self-denial, is at once to do wrong, and to encourage the receivers of our alms to wrong doing." The groups declared that "Christian alms-giving" means that relief should be given only after a "personal examination of each case," and "not in money, but in the necessaries required in the case."
Similarly, the Boston Provident Association (established in 1851) gave food, clothes, and coal to those willing to work but in temporary need. The association refused requests from drunkards and asked supporters to give beggars not money but cards proposing a visit to the Association's offices, where volunteers would examine needs, make job referrals, and provide food and temporary shelter. It also developed a list that in 1853 contained 201 names of "impostors"—able-bodied persons who refused to work.
If these groups had developed such rules as a way to hold onto their funds tight-fistedly, we would be right to scorn them today. But the records indicate a generosity that flowed more regularly when contributors felt assured that their donations would help rather than hurt those in need. Pastors regularly exhorted listeners to give both with generosity and discernment. Leaving out either one or the other was wrong.
Later in the century, charities emphasized jobs for adults "able and willing" to work, or "able and willing to do more." Help in finding work also went to "the improvident or intemperate" who "are not yet hopelessly so." The "shiftless and intemperate" who repeatedly refused work gained classification as "Unworthy, Not Entitled to Relief." In this group were "those who prefer to live on alms," those with "confirmed intemperance," and the "vicious who seem permanently so."
Charitable organizations did not pretend to know from momentary observation the categories into which applicants fell: Instead, they offered "work tests." Agencies gave an able-bodied man an ax and asked him to chop wood for an hour or to whitewash a building. A needy woman generally took a seat in the "sewing room" (a child-care room often was nearby) and sewed garments that would be donated to the helpless poor or sent through the Red Cross to families suffering from the effects of hurricanes or tornadoes.
In 1890 woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common as liquor stores are in 2009, and the impact was sobering: Work tests allowed charity managers to see whether applicants who held out signs asking for work were serious. Work tests also allowed applicants to earn their keep and to realize that they could help others: The wood went to widows or others among the helpless poor.
Groups kept records to show their donors that poor individuals were earning most of their meals through labor. The New Orleans Charity Organization Society described its woodyard as a place "where heads of families can earn household supplies, and the homeless food and lodging," with assistance given "in a way that does not pauperize." At the Friendly Inn in Baltimore, the count was 24,901 meals worked for in 1890 and 6,084 given without work.
Other Baltimore groups emphasized self-help for the poor and material transfer only to those unable to work. In 1890, the Thomas Wilson Fuel-Saving Society helped 1,500 families save on the purchase of 3,000 tons of coal. The Memorial Union for the Rescue of Homeless and Friendless Girls offered free rooms in private homes for teenagers and young women until long-term housing and jobs could be found. The Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital offered free beds and Bible readings to the poor and illiterate.
Terms such as "worthy" and "unworthy poor" tend to be used today only with scorn, but organizations during the 1890s were careful to indicate that they were evaluating only willingness to work, not spiritual standing. For example, at Boston's Associated Charities in one typical year, 41 percent of all applicants were considered worthy of relief because of old age, incurable illness, orphan status, accidents, illness, or short-term trouble. Another 33 percent were to be helped to find jobs, and the remaining 26 percent were "unworthy" of support largely because work tests and investigation had indicated that they were without "desire to change."
Annual reports from Associated Charities in the stacks of the Library of Congress show that in a typical year 817 clients found and accepted jobs that year and 278 refused them ("98 refusals with good reason, 170 without"). In addition, the Associated Charities gave loans to 81 persons (the repayment rate was 75 percent), legal aid to 62 persons, and medical help to 304. Volunteers helped 185 families to save money, influenced 53 relatives to offer aid, and pushed 144 alcoholic breadwinners to make progress in temperance. Volunteers worked with 600 children and found adoptive families or guardians for orphans, influenced truants to attend school more often, and placed other children in private day nurseries or industrial schools.
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society also emphasized "personal investigation of every case, not alone to prevent imposture, but to learn the necessities of every case and how to meet them." Some 1,328 investigations in a typical year there led to the classification of 926 individuals as worthy of help, 276 as "unworthy," and 126 as doubtful. In the "worthy" category were 271 individuals found unemployed but willing to work, 252 who had jobs but wanted additional work, 205 who were ill, and 64 who were aged; 48 women had been abandoned by their husbands. Among the "unworthy" were 41 drunkards and professional beggars uninterested in changing their conduct, 143 who were "shiftless" and unwilling to work, and 72 found not to be in need.
Generosity and discernment were to go together like sodium and chloride to produce salt. Baltimore charity manager Mary Richmond wrote that it was hard to teach volunteers "whose kindly but condescending attitude has quite blinded them to the everyday facts of neighborhood life." Volunteers had to learn that "well-meant interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the circumstances, often does more harm than good and becomes a temptation rather than a help."
Discernment by volunteers, and organizational barriers against fraud, were important not only to prevent waste but to preserve morale among those working hard to remain independent. One charity worker noted, "Nothing is more demoralizing to the struggling poor than successes of the indolent or vicious." St. Louis volunteers were "to give relief only after personal investigation of each case. . . . To give what is least susceptible of abuse. . . . To give assistance at the right moment; not to prolong it beyond duration of the necessity which calls for it. . . . To require of each beneficiary abstinence from intoxicating liquors. . . . To discontinue relieving all who manifest a purpose to depend on alms rather than their own exertions for support."
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society tried to impress on its volunteers maxims of discernment by printing on the back cover of its annual reports statements such as, "Intelligent giving and intelligent withholding are alike true charity," and "If drink has made a man poor, money will feed not him, but his drunkenness." One official emphasized that "the question which we try through investigation to answer [is,] Are these applicants of ours ready to work out with us . . . some plan which will result in their rescue from dependency? If such elements are entirely lacking—no basis of good character, no probability of final success—then we do not assume the responsibility of asking societies or churches or private persons to help."
Discernment was also important among individuals approached by beggars—and teaching that proved to be a very difficult task! Charities Review once asked the designer of an innovative program whether its success satisfied "the 'gusher' who desires to give every evening beggar 25 cents." S.O. Preston responded, "No, nothing satisfies the 'gusher'; he will persist in giving his (or someone else's) money to the plausible beggar as often as he appears." The magazine was filled with criticism of "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving."
Our late-19th-century predecessors saw as unethical what many today see as humane. Charity leader Humphreys Gurteen called giving money to alcoholics "positively immoral" and argued that if givers could "foresee all the misery which their so called charity is entailing in the future," they would "forgo the flutter of satisfaction which always follows a well intentioned deed." New Haven minister H.L. Wayland criticized the "well-meaning, tender-hearted, sweet-voiced criminals who insist upon indulging in indiscriminate charity."
Similarly, Charities Review criticized "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving," and proposed that individuals and groups restrict "material relief to those cases in which such relief would be given by the true friend." True friendship was not encouraging "lazy imposture . . . such mercy is not mercy: it is pure selfishness." Instead, true friendship meant helping to deliver a person from slavery to a bottle, a needle, or his own laziness.
Charity leaders frequently checked their own assumptions about the availability of work; they were not so foolish as to insist on employment when none was available. In 1892 charity experts from several major cities, asked whether honest and sober men would spend more than a short time out of work, all said such a situation was "rare" or "very exceptional." Most of the able-bodied poor accepted the work obligation, partly because of biblical teaching and partly because they had little choice. A New Haven mission manager reported that fewer than one out of a hundred refused to work in the woodyard or sewing room, perhaps because "there is no other institution in this city where lodging can be secured except by cash payments for same."
Hang tough, charity leaders demanded, or else problems would worsen: New York charity leader Josephine Lowell wrote that "the problem before those who would be charitable, is not how to deal with a given number of poor; it is how to help those who are poor, without adding to their numbers and constantly increasing the evils they seek to cure."
The typical 19th-century approach—generosity plus discernment—garnered strong support from many Christians but criticism from others. Some called for governmental welfare, but late-19th-century pastors typically opposed governmental welfare because, as Amos G. Warner wrote in American Charities, "It is necessarily more impersonal and mechanical than private charity or individual action. . . . There is some tendency to claim public relief as a right, and for the indolent and incapable to throw themselves flat upon it."
Minister Joseph Crooker noted that "it is very easy to make our well-meant charity a curse to our fellow-men." Social worker Frederic Almy argued that "alms are like drugs, and are as dangerous," for often "they create an appetite which is more harmful than the pain which they relieve." Governmental welfare was "the least desirable form of relief," according to Mary Richmond, because it "comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part."
Perhaps the most credible observer of the entire era was liberal reformer Jacob Riis, author in 1890 of How the Other Half Lives. Riis, who had been a penniless immigrant himself, lived his concern for the New York poor by hauling heavy cameras up dozens of flights of tenement stairs day after day to provide striking photographs of dull-eyed families in crowded flats. Riis documented great misery, but he also saw movement out of poverty and concluded that "New York is, I firmly believe, the most charitable city in the world. Nowhere is there so eager a readiness to help, when it is known that help is worthily wanted; nowhere are such armies of devoted workers."
Riis wrote of how one charity group over eight years raised "4,500 families out of the rut of pauperism into proud, if modest, independence, without alms." He noted that another "handful of noble women . . . accomplished what no machinery of government availed to do. Sixty thousand children have been rescued by them from the streets." He compared such success with material distribution to the able-bodied that led to "degrading and pauperizing" rather than "self-respect and self-dependence."
With the understanding that anti-poverty progress was incremental and tied to economic growth, Riis pointed to problems but declared, "The thousand and one charities that in one way or another reach the homes and the lives of the poor with sweetening touch, are proof that if much is yet to be done . . . hearts and hands will be found to do it in ever-increasing measure."
Riis and his contemporaries were not arguing that the war on poverty a century ago was won, or was even winnable in any final sense: Riis wrote that "the metropolis is to lots of people like a lighted candle to the moth." Those who climbed out of urban destitution were replaced quickly by others awaiting trial by fire. But dreams then were alive: The poverty-fighting optimism among Americans then contrasts sharply with the demoralization among the poor and the cynicism among the better-off that are so common now.
Edward T. Devine perhaps put it best in an article in an issue of The Charities Review published in that turning-point year, 1900. The goal, he insisted, was not "that poor families should suffer, but that charity should accomplish its purpose." Thoughtless generosity was akin to selfishness if it made charity misfire. Generosity plus discernment was key.
(Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the parable quoted is from Matthew 25.)
Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
March 14, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 5
Almost no issue is exclusively black or white. Almost no issue has unanimous agreement. And almost no issue has a single solution component. It matters not to me, for the most part, how we choose to approach a problem that needs a solution as long as that approach is made in such a way that it is not illegal, immoral, or unethical and that it at least honestly tries to get the job done. I know that’s a big generalization, and someone could surely pick it apart…give me a little license with it, please. Anyone honestly reading this knows what I mean.
My mind has wandered these last few days, and although my basic tenets are intact, I think I am better able to articulate my concerns through alternate words and phrases. I’ve done my best to lay them out here. In all of this, my points seem to boil down to these:
1. Somehow, some way, we must celebrate and respect the dignity and personhood of everyone, recognizing the existence and value of sub-cultures which may work with values different from our own.
2. Government is not the one and only (or even main) answer; government is not the ogre, either.
3. God has, I believe, a special affinity for the poor, the children and the helpless. It behooves us to recognize that and work accordingly.
4. In sharp agreement with the writer immediately below, I believe the church working corporately and through individuals has the primary responsibility to care for those in our society who have need. Much is being done already. Much is NOT being done that could be done.
5. I believe many people within the church haven’t a clue of their responsibility to the poor, the helpless, and the children, and that many more outside of the church not only don’t have a clue regarding the plight of the poor among us, but don’t want to have a clue, let alone be part of the solution (albeit from outside of the church).
I commend the following to you, written by a reader. Please read and consider.
As we discussed your post last night. I wanted to respond. You can feel free to post this or not as you want. I am cc'ing it to others at the discussion last night.
1. We will always have poverty-even Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us. Society and government will never, ever, cure poverty. Never. When the widow dropped her two mites in the offering plate, which was all she had, and a mite was 1/100th of a cent, did Jesus, who was an eyewitness to her giving, and even commented about it to his disciples, hand her a 100.00 bill or its equivalent? In His earthly ministry, did Jesus magically produce money, health insurance, or a home for people? The record seemingly oes not support that-but a caveat here- I think we don't know all the ways He worked and ministered to people. However, it is curious that He, our Ultimate Example, with compassion unending for children, for us, and dare I say it, even for those such as "the rich young ruler", did not address how these needs should be met. Paul, in his writings, places the responsibility directly upon the church, and charges them to "qualify" who they help.
2. Having worked in a neighborhood center for many years ministering directly to those who could not meet basic needs for food and shelter, I firmly believe that this is the responsibility of the church. And I hold fast to one of the basic tenents of our ministry at the Good Neighbor Center-that we help folks with what we've been blessed with, and always with redemption of the heart as our motive for our service. Jesus did not come to this earth as a cure for financial sickness, He came as the only Cure for a sickness of the heart. Always, we should meet people's needs because of the grace that's been shown us, because of the mercy God gave us at the cross, and because we want to be an instrument to meet spiritual needs.
Once we understand that Mr. Obama will not cure the world's ills, that financial bailouts won't bring eternal life, that government spending won't give peace of mind, and that everything, absolutely everything in this world is temporary, and is fit for the rubbish heap, then we can focus on truly what is important and what we the church have been called to do.
Many people, conservative and liberal alike are spun up in the latest antics of our leaders in Washington, and postulating what COULD be, what SHOULD be, what the ideal government should do-all the way from, "Get out of my backyard and let me mind my own business", to "Government needs a bigger role in providing for people who are unable to provide for themselves." My question-what does is matter? God continues to work through His people no matter who sits in the Oval Office. God continues to move His church and get her ready for a home with Him. He continues to minister to the world through us-no matter what. Our role in all the chaos is to let the politicians - Republican, Democrat, or in between, fight it out with words, angry rhetoric and bail out money, and we then, must continue to be busy meeting needs whenever God brings someone in to our lives to do so. Our job is to say "Yes", to Him. To be available to Him. To do His work.
I say this as I wrap up my 3rd year at an elementary school in Wichita with far more poverty than I ever saw in all my years at the Good Neighbor Center. If you know me, you know that it hurts me, but if you know the church, then you would be delighted to see the ministry occuring there, all the way from a staff member purchasing brand new underwear for a little girl who had never had any new ones right out of the package, to several people making home visits, to community people coming in once a week to read to kids, to our mentoring program which pairs kids and adults in an academic setting, to a church down the street hosting a Bible club every Tuesday with 50-60 kids in attendance, to the countless times we've collected food and Dillons cards for families, to the recent episode of someone affiliated with the school receiving some much needed dental care-the list is endless.
My challenge to you and all others who read this blog is this: We can either sit around on our hineys and wait for the government to usurp the place of the church in ministry, and wail and gnash our teeth because of what we see (and truly, what we see is horrendous), OR, we can get on our knees and say to God, "What can I do? Where can I minister? Show me how to act in Your love!" Hello Church? Your call to action is clear, your mandate is set before you. I can state unequivocally, because I've seen it first hand, ministry IS being accomplished - some is being done corporately, some is being done privately-we won't know until we get to heaven how many people with two mites to their name have ministered to others in need. But the need remains and is great. The responsibility is ours. We move as He directs.
In all this, we have to be cautious. I hate generalizing, but am going to do so here. Middle class people who want to help often view those in poverty through middle class rose-colored glasses, and in doing so, try to force middle class values upon those they minister to. It doesn't work, folks. Ruby Payne, a well-known expert in this area says that those in poverty have their own set of values, and in meeting needs, we need to understand that they place importance on different things than we do. God's ministry transcends class values. It transcends racial barriers. It cuts to the heart of what's important and that is, that God so loved YOU, that He gave His Son for YOU, that YOU might have a forever relationship with Him in His family.
The following is from World Magazine, March 14, 2009 I am printing it all here, even though it is lengthy. Maybe we can learn from what has already happened.
Giving that worked
Christians want to be generous, and that's as it should be. But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step. If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that gives ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.
We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657. The Society from its start resolved to "open the bowells of our compassion" but to make sure that "no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein." They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God's image and were willing to live and work accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.
Boston pastor Cotton Mather three centuries ago asked his church members to be charitable but also careful not to "abuse your charity by misapplying it." A half-century later prominent pastor Charles Chauncey instructed leaders of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to be careful in "the Distribution of Charity" so they would not "dispense it promiscuously" and "bestow upon those the Bread of Charity, who might earn and eat their own Bread, if they did not shamefully idle away their Time."
We tend to think of generosity in a linear way as the opposite of selfishness, but there's actually a spectrum: Generosity is in the middle, the selfishness of not giving at one end, and the selfishness of giving that warms the giver's heart but hurts the recipient, on the other. Jesus' parable in Matthew 25 emphasizes that "as much as you did to the least of these, you did to Me." That cuts both ways: A person who offers help is helping Jesus, but a person who gives money that goes for drugs is shooting heroin into Jesus' veins.
Two centuries ago Americans did not subsidize others in self-destruction. Some 23 Boston charity societies declared in 1835 that recipients should believe it "disgraceful to depend upon alms-giving, as long as a capacity of self-support is retained . . . [To] give to one who begs . . . or in any way to supersede the necessity of industry, of forethought, and of proper self-restraint and self-denial, is at once to do wrong, and to encourage the receivers of our alms to wrong doing." The groups declared that "Christian alms-giving" means that relief should be given only after a "personal examination of each case," and "not in money, but in the necessaries required in the case."
Similarly, the Boston Provident Association (established in 1851) gave food, clothes, and coal to those willing to work but in temporary need. The association refused requests from drunkards and asked supporters to give beggars not money but cards proposing a visit to the Association's offices, where volunteers would examine needs, make job referrals, and provide food and temporary shelter. It also developed a list that in 1853 contained 201 names of "impostors"—able-bodied persons who refused to work.
If these groups had developed such rules as a way to hold onto their funds tight-fistedly, we would be right to scorn them today. But the records indicate a generosity that flowed more regularly when contributors felt assured that their donations would help rather than hurt those in need. Pastors regularly exhorted listeners to give both with generosity and discernment. Leaving out either one or the other was wrong.
Later in the century, charities emphasized jobs for adults "able and willing" to work, or "able and willing to do more." Help in finding work also went to "the improvident or intemperate" who "are not yet hopelessly so." The "shiftless and intemperate" who repeatedly refused work gained classification as "Unworthy, Not Entitled to Relief." In this group were "those who prefer to live on alms," those with "confirmed intemperance," and the "vicious who seem permanently so."
Charitable organizations did not pretend to know from momentary observation the categories into which applicants fell: Instead, they offered "work tests." Agencies gave an able-bodied man an ax and asked him to chop wood for an hour or to whitewash a building. A needy woman generally took a seat in the "sewing room" (a child-care room often was nearby) and sewed garments that would be donated to the helpless poor or sent through the Red Cross to families suffering from the effects of hurricanes or tornadoes.
In 1890 woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common as liquor stores are in 2009, and the impact was sobering: Work tests allowed charity managers to see whether applicants who held out signs asking for work were serious. Work tests also allowed applicants to earn their keep and to realize that they could help others: The wood went to widows or others among the helpless poor.
Groups kept records to show their donors that poor individuals were earning most of their meals through labor. The New Orleans Charity Organization Society described its woodyard as a place "where heads of families can earn household supplies, and the homeless food and lodging," with assistance given "in a way that does not pauperize." At the Friendly Inn in Baltimore, the count was 24,901 meals worked for in 1890 and 6,084 given without work.
Other Baltimore groups emphasized self-help for the poor and material transfer only to those unable to work. In 1890, the Thomas Wilson Fuel-Saving Society helped 1,500 families save on the purchase of 3,000 tons of coal. The Memorial Union for the Rescue of Homeless and Friendless Girls offered free rooms in private homes for teenagers and young women until long-term housing and jobs could be found. The Presbyterian Eye, Ear and Throat Charity Hospital offered free beds and Bible readings to the poor and illiterate.
Terms such as "worthy" and "unworthy poor" tend to be used today only with scorn, but organizations during the 1890s were careful to indicate that they were evaluating only willingness to work, not spiritual standing. For example, at Boston's Associated Charities in one typical year, 41 percent of all applicants were considered worthy of relief because of old age, incurable illness, orphan status, accidents, illness, or short-term trouble. Another 33 percent were to be helped to find jobs, and the remaining 26 percent were "unworthy" of support largely because work tests and investigation had indicated that they were without "desire to change."
Annual reports from Associated Charities in the stacks of the Library of Congress show that in a typical year 817 clients found and accepted jobs that year and 278 refused them ("98 refusals with good reason, 170 without"). In addition, the Associated Charities gave loans to 81 persons (the repayment rate was 75 percent), legal aid to 62 persons, and medical help to 304. Volunteers helped 185 families to save money, influenced 53 relatives to offer aid, and pushed 144 alcoholic breadwinners to make progress in temperance. Volunteers worked with 600 children and found adoptive families or guardians for orphans, influenced truants to attend school more often, and placed other children in private day nurseries or industrial schools.
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society also emphasized "personal investigation of every case, not alone to prevent imposture, but to learn the necessities of every case and how to meet them." Some 1,328 investigations in a typical year there led to the classification of 926 individuals as worthy of help, 276 as "unworthy," and 126 as doubtful. In the "worthy" category were 271 individuals found unemployed but willing to work, 252 who had jobs but wanted additional work, 205 who were ill, and 64 who were aged; 48 women had been abandoned by their husbands. Among the "unworthy" were 41 drunkards and professional beggars uninterested in changing their conduct, 143 who were "shiftless" and unwilling to work, and 72 found not to be in need.
Generosity and discernment were to go together like sodium and chloride to produce salt. Baltimore charity manager Mary Richmond wrote that it was hard to teach volunteers "whose kindly but condescending attitude has quite blinded them to the everyday facts of neighborhood life." Volunteers had to learn that "well-meant interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the circumstances, often does more harm than good and becomes a temptation rather than a help."
Discernment by volunteers, and organizational barriers against fraud, were important not only to prevent waste but to preserve morale among those working hard to remain independent. One charity worker noted, "Nothing is more demoralizing to the struggling poor than successes of the indolent or vicious." St. Louis volunteers were "to give relief only after personal investigation of each case. . . . To give what is least susceptible of abuse. . . . To give assistance at the right moment; not to prolong it beyond duration of the necessity which calls for it. . . . To require of each beneficiary abstinence from intoxicating liquors. . . . To discontinue relieving all who manifest a purpose to depend on alms rather than their own exertions for support."
The New Orleans Charity Organization Society tried to impress on its volunteers maxims of discernment by printing on the back cover of its annual reports statements such as, "Intelligent giving and intelligent withholding are alike true charity," and "If drink has made a man poor, money will feed not him, but his drunkenness." One official emphasized that "the question which we try through investigation to answer [is,] Are these applicants of ours ready to work out with us . . . some plan which will result in their rescue from dependency? If such elements are entirely lacking—no basis of good character, no probability of final success—then we do not assume the responsibility of asking societies or churches or private persons to help."
Discernment was also important among individuals approached by beggars—and teaching that proved to be a very difficult task! Charities Review once asked the designer of an innovative program whether its success satisfied "the 'gusher' who desires to give every evening beggar 25 cents." S.O. Preston responded, "No, nothing satisfies the 'gusher'; he will persist in giving his (or someone else's) money to the plausible beggar as often as he appears." The magazine was filled with criticism of "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving."
Our late-19th-century predecessors saw as unethical what many today see as humane. Charity leader Humphreys Gurteen called giving money to alcoholics "positively immoral" and argued that if givers could "foresee all the misery which their so called charity is entailing in the future," they would "forgo the flutter of satisfaction which always follows a well intentioned deed." New Haven minister H.L. Wayland criticized the "well-meaning, tender-hearted, sweet-voiced criminals who insist upon indulging in indiscriminate charity."
Similarly, Charities Review criticized "that miscalled charity which soothes its conscience with indiscriminate giving," and proposed that individuals and groups restrict "material relief to those cases in which such relief would be given by the true friend." True friendship was not encouraging "lazy imposture . . . such mercy is not mercy: it is pure selfishness." Instead, true friendship meant helping to deliver a person from slavery to a bottle, a needle, or his own laziness.
Charity leaders frequently checked their own assumptions about the availability of work; they were not so foolish as to insist on employment when none was available. In 1892 charity experts from several major cities, asked whether honest and sober men would spend more than a short time out of work, all said such a situation was "rare" or "very exceptional." Most of the able-bodied poor accepted the work obligation, partly because of biblical teaching and partly because they had little choice. A New Haven mission manager reported that fewer than one out of a hundred refused to work in the woodyard or sewing room, perhaps because "there is no other institution in this city where lodging can be secured except by cash payments for same."
Hang tough, charity leaders demanded, or else problems would worsen: New York charity leader Josephine Lowell wrote that "the problem before those who would be charitable, is not how to deal with a given number of poor; it is how to help those who are poor, without adding to their numbers and constantly increasing the evils they seek to cure."
The typical 19th-century approach—generosity plus discernment—garnered strong support from many Christians but criticism from others. Some called for governmental welfare, but late-19th-century pastors typically opposed governmental welfare because, as Amos G. Warner wrote in American Charities, "It is necessarily more impersonal and mechanical than private charity or individual action. . . . There is some tendency to claim public relief as a right, and for the indolent and incapable to throw themselves flat upon it."
Minister Joseph Crooker noted that "it is very easy to make our well-meant charity a curse to our fellow-men." Social worker Frederic Almy argued that "alms are like drugs, and are as dangerous," for often "they create an appetite which is more harmful than the pain which they relieve." Governmental welfare was "the least desirable form of relief," according to Mary Richmond, because it "comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part."
Perhaps the most credible observer of the entire era was liberal reformer Jacob Riis, author in 1890 of How the Other Half Lives. Riis, who had been a penniless immigrant himself, lived his concern for the New York poor by hauling heavy cameras up dozens of flights of tenement stairs day after day to provide striking photographs of dull-eyed families in crowded flats. Riis documented great misery, but he also saw movement out of poverty and concluded that "New York is, I firmly believe, the most charitable city in the world. Nowhere is there so eager a readiness to help, when it is known that help is worthily wanted; nowhere are such armies of devoted workers."
Riis wrote of how one charity group over eight years raised "4,500 families out of the rut of pauperism into proud, if modest, independence, without alms." He noted that another "handful of noble women . . . accomplished what no machinery of government availed to do. Sixty thousand children have been rescued by them from the streets." He compared such success with material distribution to the able-bodied that led to "degrading and pauperizing" rather than "self-respect and self-dependence."
With the understanding that anti-poverty progress was incremental and tied to economic growth, Riis pointed to problems but declared, "The thousand and one charities that in one way or another reach the homes and the lives of the poor with sweetening touch, are proof that if much is yet to be done . . . hearts and hands will be found to do it in ever-increasing measure."
Riis and his contemporaries were not arguing that the war on poverty a century ago was won, or was even winnable in any final sense: Riis wrote that "the metropolis is to lots of people like a lighted candle to the moth." Those who climbed out of urban destitution were replaced quickly by others awaiting trial by fire. But dreams then were alive: The poverty-fighting optimism among Americans then contrasts sharply with the demoralization among the poor and the cynicism among the better-off that are so common now.
Edward T. Devine perhaps put it best in an article in an issue of The Charities Review published in that turning-point year, 1900. The goal, he insisted, was not "that poor families should suffer, but that charity should accomplish its purpose." Thoughtless generosity was akin to selfishness if it made charity misfire. Generosity plus discernment was key.
(Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that the parable quoted is from Matthew 25.)
Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
March 14, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 5
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Judgment
What follows is my response to a private reply from a good friend and reader of my blogs. I have her permission to post my reply to her. She agreed with my blog, but said that the ideal would be for less government help and more help from individuals and groups. I have no quarrel with that, and posted the following to her.
Text of response: I agree that by far the best way for this woman (see prior blog) to receive the help she needs is through the generosity of individuals, churches, and businesses. I am an individual, and I helped the woman with the bad tooth...she's one of my employees...receive the opportunity for dental care, medications, and housing. I continue, through our church, to work with her. That's far better than any government bureaucracy.
You are also correct that your concept of private, individual help for all in need is very near utopia. What do we do in the meanwhile? Will the woman with the kids raise them on the streets until we get there? I've seen strong evidence that where government once was the primary opportunity-maker, when private interests stepped in, government left.
In the aftermath of the Hesston, KS tornado in 1990, government set up offices to help those in need, but no one came. It seems the Mennonites in that area and from all over had been out helping their neighbors from the first moments after the twister struck, and there was little need of government and their disaster programs, by and large. They folded up operations and left town earlier than they had planned.
I think that notion also works in situations such as this. Can government step in to help this woman until private interests find her and work with her? I think that's emphatically yes, if that's the only place she can receive help. And we need to see that the public programs are in place and funded such that she and her kids can receive the opportunities they need until private interests take over.
Now, I may have caused some misunderstanding on the blog. It was not my intent to say that government is the cure for our social ills. The tea party struck a nerve in me (we had one not two miles from our home here in Wichita). I don't like taxes and the way they are being used (in some instances) any more than anyone else. Government is bloated, inefficient, and wasteful. I don't like the idea that we're buying cheap products from China, shipping them boatloads of cash, then borrowing that cash back to finance a deficit that is off of the charts. That seems to me to be just a notch or two short of lunacy.
However, although I dare not paint each participant in the tea parties with the same brush, it is my opinion that most of those who were protesting were anglo middle class people upset at government spending, wanting to keep more for themselves, to use on themselves, to benefit themselves. One homeless man said in an interview regarding the tea party, "Don't make no difference to me. I don't pay taxes anyhow." I suspect the homeless and poor were not well-represented at those events. They wouldn't have had the transportation available to get them there in any event.
My real thrust is the kids. Regardless of the dumb decisions of the adults in their lives, the kids are the future of this society. The kids are the innocent victims. And the kids, I think, are the ones Jesus is especially concerned about...and it terrifies me to think that we're (whether individually or collectively through government) throwing them away in the interest of greed and self-indulgence. It matters not if that is manifested in our individual unwillingness to give to those without, or whether we rally for low taxes so we can maintain our lavish (yes, compared to the rest of the world that's a good word to use) lifestyle. The result and the judgment of the Almighty are the same.
Text of response: I agree that by far the best way for this woman (see prior blog) to receive the help she needs is through the generosity of individuals, churches, and businesses. I am an individual, and I helped the woman with the bad tooth...she's one of my employees...receive the opportunity for dental care, medications, and housing. I continue, through our church, to work with her. That's far better than any government bureaucracy.
You are also correct that your concept of private, individual help for all in need is very near utopia. What do we do in the meanwhile? Will the woman with the kids raise them on the streets until we get there? I've seen strong evidence that where government once was the primary opportunity-maker, when private interests stepped in, government left.
In the aftermath of the Hesston, KS tornado in 1990, government set up offices to help those in need, but no one came. It seems the Mennonites in that area and from all over had been out helping their neighbors from the first moments after the twister struck, and there was little need of government and their disaster programs, by and large. They folded up operations and left town earlier than they had planned.
I think that notion also works in situations such as this. Can government step in to help this woman until private interests find her and work with her? I think that's emphatically yes, if that's the only place she can receive help. And we need to see that the public programs are in place and funded such that she and her kids can receive the opportunities they need until private interests take over.
Now, I may have caused some misunderstanding on the blog. It was not my intent to say that government is the cure for our social ills. The tea party struck a nerve in me (we had one not two miles from our home here in Wichita). I don't like taxes and the way they are being used (in some instances) any more than anyone else. Government is bloated, inefficient, and wasteful. I don't like the idea that we're buying cheap products from China, shipping them boatloads of cash, then borrowing that cash back to finance a deficit that is off of the charts. That seems to me to be just a notch or two short of lunacy.
However, although I dare not paint each participant in the tea parties with the same brush, it is my opinion that most of those who were protesting were anglo middle class people upset at government spending, wanting to keep more for themselves, to use on themselves, to benefit themselves. One homeless man said in an interview regarding the tea party, "Don't make no difference to me. I don't pay taxes anyhow." I suspect the homeless and poor were not well-represented at those events. They wouldn't have had the transportation available to get them there in any event.
My real thrust is the kids. Regardless of the dumb decisions of the adults in their lives, the kids are the future of this society. The kids are the innocent victims. And the kids, I think, are the ones Jesus is especially concerned about...and it terrifies me to think that we're (whether individually or collectively through government) throwing them away in the interest of greed and self-indulgence. It matters not if that is manifested in our individual unwillingness to give to those without, or whether we rally for low taxes so we can maintain our lavish (yes, compared to the rest of the world that's a good word to use) lifestyle. The result and the judgment of the Almighty are the same.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Their Reward
I am sick to death of hearing yet more stories of people who just don’t have the means or the opportunity to make their way in this world. Today on NPR the story was told of a woman who was 21 years old, had a 3 year old and a 1 year old, was pregnant with her third child, and was homeless. Her boyfriend/spouse left her some time ago and she is now living on the streets with her kids.
Conservatives love to say “equal opportunity, not equal wealth.” Pray tell me just where is the equal opportunity for this woman? Where is her opportunity to get off of the streets, find a home for her family, turn on the utilities, get a job, find child care, and get back to being a productive citizen? Give me a break. How is this woman going to keep her one year old clean (he’s in diapers, if she has any to put on him)? Who will she leave her children with while she looks for work or goes to school to learn a trade? What will she do with her kids when it’s time to deliver her third? After the third one is born, assuming it’s healthy, how will she have time to do anything toward a job or schooling? Where will she go to clean up so she can apply for a job? How will she afford deodorant, toothpaste, and other necessities? Where will she find clean water? How will she cook for her kids? I could go on and on. This woman and her children are well into the point of no return in the whirlpool of absolute hopelessness and utter helplessness.
Tell me that the woman has made poor choices. I agree. But have her kids made those same choices? Where is their opportunity? Where is their hope? Are they human beings? Or are they being punished for the sins of the adults in their lives? In order for the kids to have opportunity, the adults in their lives have to have opportunity. And much of the time, that’s something that has to be given in some way. There aren’t that many situations where someone can make his own opportunity. How could this woman possibly do that? Give me specifics of what she could reasonably do given her situation that involves only "pulling herself up by her bootstraps" and making her opportunity without help from anyone else.
Where is the opportunity for the children of illegal immigrants? These kids are citizens of the United States…they were born here. Will we deny them basic needs because the adults in their lives are here illegally? The children aren’t here illegally. They have just the same rights and privileges as you and I have. Yet they many times don’t benefit from their citizenship because of misinformation, discrimination, or even hatred.
Where is the opportunity for the woman on the edge of poverty, working at a low-paying job, living in a cheap motel with her husband who also works at a low-paying job? She has dental problems that cause her pain and suffers from infections. She earns too much to have a medical card, yet can’t afford to see a dentist. Sometimes the pain is so bad she can’t work. But if she doesn’t work, the family falls even farther behind. Even if she sees a dentist at no cost, she can’t afford to buy the prescriptions for antibiotics and pain that he prescribes.
How do they make it when the place where the husband works doesn’t issue payroll for a time because the owner is laid up in the hospital and doesn’t have a backup plan for payroll? Where do they go? What do they do? Where is their opportunity?
And here I am, sitting in a house that many people can only dream about, with a full gut and much, much more than I could ever possibly need. I am blessed beyond measure. I have a decent job, gas in the vehicle, payments up to date, money in the bank, and food in the cabinet. I can’t fix everything. I can’t help everyone. But I can do what I can do as I have the opportunity to do it. Bring it on.
There were about 700 “tea parties” across the nation today. People were telling government that they were being taxed to death, and they wanted no more of it. Give me another break. These are people who drove to the tea parties in vehicles less than three years old, live in homes and neighborhoods similar to ours (upper middle class), have money in the bank, bills paid up, gas in the vehicle, decent jobs, and food in the cabinet. They don’t, for the most part, have a clue. They’ve never been up close and personal with abject poverty and utter hopelessness. They know the catch phrases, but don’t know anyone without hope. Their voices are shrill, clanging gongs, dripping with the selfishness and smugness of “Me first, last, and always.”
Verily, they already have their reward.
Conservatives love to say “equal opportunity, not equal wealth.” Pray tell me just where is the equal opportunity for this woman? Where is her opportunity to get off of the streets, find a home for her family, turn on the utilities, get a job, find child care, and get back to being a productive citizen? Give me a break. How is this woman going to keep her one year old clean (he’s in diapers, if she has any to put on him)? Who will she leave her children with while she looks for work or goes to school to learn a trade? What will she do with her kids when it’s time to deliver her third? After the third one is born, assuming it’s healthy, how will she have time to do anything toward a job or schooling? Where will she go to clean up so she can apply for a job? How will she afford deodorant, toothpaste, and other necessities? Where will she find clean water? How will she cook for her kids? I could go on and on. This woman and her children are well into the point of no return in the whirlpool of absolute hopelessness and utter helplessness.
Tell me that the woman has made poor choices. I agree. But have her kids made those same choices? Where is their opportunity? Where is their hope? Are they human beings? Or are they being punished for the sins of the adults in their lives? In order for the kids to have opportunity, the adults in their lives have to have opportunity. And much of the time, that’s something that has to be given in some way. There aren’t that many situations where someone can make his own opportunity. How could this woman possibly do that? Give me specifics of what she could reasonably do given her situation that involves only "pulling herself up by her bootstraps" and making her opportunity without help from anyone else.
Where is the opportunity for the children of illegal immigrants? These kids are citizens of the United States…they were born here. Will we deny them basic needs because the adults in their lives are here illegally? The children aren’t here illegally. They have just the same rights and privileges as you and I have. Yet they many times don’t benefit from their citizenship because of misinformation, discrimination, or even hatred.
Where is the opportunity for the woman on the edge of poverty, working at a low-paying job, living in a cheap motel with her husband who also works at a low-paying job? She has dental problems that cause her pain and suffers from infections. She earns too much to have a medical card, yet can’t afford to see a dentist. Sometimes the pain is so bad she can’t work. But if she doesn’t work, the family falls even farther behind. Even if she sees a dentist at no cost, she can’t afford to buy the prescriptions for antibiotics and pain that he prescribes.
How do they make it when the place where the husband works doesn’t issue payroll for a time because the owner is laid up in the hospital and doesn’t have a backup plan for payroll? Where do they go? What do they do? Where is their opportunity?
And here I am, sitting in a house that many people can only dream about, with a full gut and much, much more than I could ever possibly need. I am blessed beyond measure. I have a decent job, gas in the vehicle, payments up to date, money in the bank, and food in the cabinet. I can’t fix everything. I can’t help everyone. But I can do what I can do as I have the opportunity to do it. Bring it on.
There were about 700 “tea parties” across the nation today. People were telling government that they were being taxed to death, and they wanted no more of it. Give me another break. These are people who drove to the tea parties in vehicles less than three years old, live in homes and neighborhoods similar to ours (upper middle class), have money in the bank, bills paid up, gas in the vehicle, decent jobs, and food in the cabinet. They don’t, for the most part, have a clue. They’ve never been up close and personal with abject poverty and utter hopelessness. They know the catch phrases, but don’t know anyone without hope. Their voices are shrill, clanging gongs, dripping with the selfishness and smugness of “Me first, last, and always.”
Verily, they already have their reward.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A Song For You
We’ve just passed the Easter season for 2009. I don’t know if you celebrate this distinctly Christian special day and time of year or not. Even many who are Christians don’t necessarily celebrate this day or time of the year, not because they don’t believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but for other reasons. Some say that the life, death, and resurrection should be celebrated every day. Some say that religious holidays aren’t appropriate. Others don’t care that much about any holiday, religious or not.
I’m one of those that doesn’t really care that much about holidays. They’re OK, and I take the time off from work. I also buy gifts or whatever so as to not be too much of a stick-in-the-mud. But holidays just don’t do that much for me and I’m usually glad when they’re over.
I do, however, want to leave you with the lyrics of a song that has been sung for generations and is very appropriate for the Easter season. I first heard this song sung at a funeral when my grandfather was laid to rest. The choral group sang it at the cemetery. As a family, we chose to carry on that tradition and sing this song graveside at the funerals of my parents. The words evermore inspire me. The music that goes with these words gives them even more power and inspiration; if you don’t know the song, you’re missing something good.
Lift Your Glad Voices – Henry Ware
Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around Him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave;
He burst from the fetters of darkness that bound Him,
Resplendent in glory to live and to save!
Loud was the chorus of angels on high,
The Savior hath risen, and man shall not die.
Glory to God, in full anthems of joy;
The being He gave us death cannot destroy:
Sad were the life we must part with tomorrow,
If tears were our birthright, and death were our end;
But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow,
And bade us, immortal, to Heaven ascend:
Lift then your voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die.
I’m one of those that doesn’t really care that much about holidays. They’re OK, and I take the time off from work. I also buy gifts or whatever so as to not be too much of a stick-in-the-mud. But holidays just don’t do that much for me and I’m usually glad when they’re over.
I do, however, want to leave you with the lyrics of a song that has been sung for generations and is very appropriate for the Easter season. I first heard this song sung at a funeral when my grandfather was laid to rest. The choral group sang it at the cemetery. As a family, we chose to carry on that tradition and sing this song graveside at the funerals of my parents. The words evermore inspire me. The music that goes with these words gives them even more power and inspiration; if you don’t know the song, you’re missing something good.
Lift Your Glad Voices – Henry Ware
Lift your glad voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die;
Vain were the terrors that gathered around Him,
And short the dominion of death and the grave;
He burst from the fetters of darkness that bound Him,
Resplendent in glory to live and to save!
Loud was the chorus of angels on high,
The Savior hath risen, and man shall not die.
Glory to God, in full anthems of joy;
The being He gave us death cannot destroy:
Sad were the life we must part with tomorrow,
If tears were our birthright, and death were our end;
But Jesus hath cheered the dark valley of sorrow,
And bade us, immortal, to Heaven ascend:
Lift then your voices in triumph on high,
For Jesus hath risen, and man shall not die.
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Robin
Tonight as we were coming out of the Y, I remarked that there was a robin around somewhere because I heard the distinct song not far away. Sure enough, he was perched in one of the young trees in the front area of the building complex, singing away.
Robins have a unique song that they use many times in the early morning as dawn breaks, and also as the sun sets and twilight fades. I don’t really know how to describe it, but I know it (and you will too) when I hear it.
The bird people will probably say that the robin sings this particular song because he is marking territory or he is calling for his mate, or some such other practical thing. And that may be entirely true.
But I suspect that even if that is the case, there may well be more to the robin’s message than just marking territory or finding his mate. The early morning/late twilight song of the robin is one that tells me that he’s glad to be alive and is thankful that he has made it through another day (or that he’s grateful to have another day ahead of him). I imagine him singing to his Creator his thanks for providing his nourishment and strength. And I imagine the Creator looking on, listening to His creation and calling it good.
You say I’m putting more into it than is there. Maybe so. But I suspect we don’t know the half of what we see and hear in the wonderful universe that is God’s workshop.
Robins have a unique song that they use many times in the early morning as dawn breaks, and also as the sun sets and twilight fades. I don’t really know how to describe it, but I know it (and you will too) when I hear it.
The bird people will probably say that the robin sings this particular song because he is marking territory or he is calling for his mate, or some such other practical thing. And that may be entirely true.
But I suspect that even if that is the case, there may well be more to the robin’s message than just marking territory or finding his mate. The early morning/late twilight song of the robin is one that tells me that he’s glad to be alive and is thankful that he has made it through another day (or that he’s grateful to have another day ahead of him). I imagine him singing to his Creator his thanks for providing his nourishment and strength. And I imagine the Creator looking on, listening to His creation and calling it good.
You say I’m putting more into it than is there. Maybe so. But I suspect we don’t know the half of what we see and hear in the wonderful universe that is God’s workshop.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Space Program
I just finished watching the end of “Apollo 13” on the TV. I’ve seen the movie several times, but the end always makes me think about the space program and the moon landings of forty years ago. As we hurtle well into the twenty-first century, we take for granted many things that did not exist in the 1960’s and 1970’s which would have made the moon landing program much safer than it was.
If you have had the chance to see a lunar lander or the capsules that took the astronauts to the moon, you know that those ships were not only engineering marvels of the day, but were also very crude-looking compared with some of what we know today. Their electronic computer and guidance systems were less powerful than a modern calculator. Many of the systems were stressed to the very limits of what they would do, and the technology of the day was pressed into service far beyond normal limits. There were a lot of seat of the pants decisions made on the fly, so to speak, and the astronauts really did take chances and put themselves in danger more than once for the good of the mission.
There will always be people who believe that it all was a hoax and we really didn’t go to the moon. My grandfather was one of them, as I understand. There will also be those who believe that the moon program (and other space programs) was (is) a waste of money. But the overwhelming evidence is that the program paid for itself many times over in new technology and scientific knowledge. And the notion that we didn’t really go to the moon is so laughable (sorry Grandad) as to not be given serious consideration.
Technological benefits range from cordless tools to medications and new metal alloys. Everything in between such as accurate maps, new camera technology, improved communications, new fabrics, pacemakers, engine lubricants, Doppler radar, insulin pumps, fire resistant materials, and on and on ad infinitum came from the space program.
Could it have been done differently? Absolutely. Could we have spent that money on other efforts? Yes, we could have. Did the program have flaws? It was conceived and run by humans. Yes, it had (and has) flaws. But it is a shining moment in history, one that I was privileged to have witnessed.
If you have had the chance to see a lunar lander or the capsules that took the astronauts to the moon, you know that those ships were not only engineering marvels of the day, but were also very crude-looking compared with some of what we know today. Their electronic computer and guidance systems were less powerful than a modern calculator. Many of the systems were stressed to the very limits of what they would do, and the technology of the day was pressed into service far beyond normal limits. There were a lot of seat of the pants decisions made on the fly, so to speak, and the astronauts really did take chances and put themselves in danger more than once for the good of the mission.
There will always be people who believe that it all was a hoax and we really didn’t go to the moon. My grandfather was one of them, as I understand. There will also be those who believe that the moon program (and other space programs) was (is) a waste of money. But the overwhelming evidence is that the program paid for itself many times over in new technology and scientific knowledge. And the notion that we didn’t really go to the moon is so laughable (sorry Grandad) as to not be given serious consideration.
Technological benefits range from cordless tools to medications and new metal alloys. Everything in between such as accurate maps, new camera technology, improved communications, new fabrics, pacemakers, engine lubricants, Doppler radar, insulin pumps, fire resistant materials, and on and on ad infinitum came from the space program.
Could it have been done differently? Absolutely. Could we have spent that money on other efforts? Yes, we could have. Did the program have flaws? It was conceived and run by humans. Yes, it had (and has) flaws. But it is a shining moment in history, one that I was privileged to have witnessed.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Getting Things Done
I must admit that I’ve been negligent in following the blogs I used to follow with Metamucil regularity. One sister is traipsing to Ohio to look for a long-lost great aunt and the other is trying to find herself amidst the many changes of middle age and life. A cousin is relishing her first year of teaching school and other people either haven’t written in a month of Sundays or have closed down their blogs. Is blogging going out of style? Do people not have enough time any more to even blog? I know I don’t do it as often as I’d like…it’s not a question of time for me but rather of inspiration. Many times in the evening I just don’t feel like writing; I’ve already been “consumed” by the events of the day.
Let’s see. Today is a day off for us because the nursing home where I work has this day (Good Friday) as a holiday. I went to the bank, got a haircut, and will take a load of trashy yard waste out to my brother’s place where he can legally burn it. The wife is shopping for stuff and isn’t back yet.
I was going to work on our goldfish pond today, but the wind and cold may prevent that. Tomorrow we will be going to the in-laws so that day is shot for anything productive around the house. Sundays I usually don’t like to do a lot of heavy work, but may have to in order to get things done.
Weekends seem to be more fully occupied than ever. We go here or have this to do there. And it many times is an all-day thing, or at least enough of the day so that we can’t do anything else. Then we get into the work week and before we know it, we’re behind.
My sitting here writing in my blog isn’t getting anything done today, so….
Let’s see. Today is a day off for us because the nursing home where I work has this day (Good Friday) as a holiday. I went to the bank, got a haircut, and will take a load of trashy yard waste out to my brother’s place where he can legally burn it. The wife is shopping for stuff and isn’t back yet.
I was going to work on our goldfish pond today, but the wind and cold may prevent that. Tomorrow we will be going to the in-laws so that day is shot for anything productive around the house. Sundays I usually don’t like to do a lot of heavy work, but may have to in order to get things done.
Weekends seem to be more fully occupied than ever. We go here or have this to do there. And it many times is an all-day thing, or at least enough of the day so that we can’t do anything else. Then we get into the work week and before we know it, we’re behind.
My sitting here writing in my blog isn’t getting anything done today, so….
Sunday, April 05, 2009
An Eclectic Group
It was 78 degrees yesterday; 38 degrees today. Such is the weather this time of the year. The rapid change in weather conditions is not unique to Kansas or even the Great Plains. Many places in the temperate climates of the world are like this.
For some reason, however, we like to gripe about, or at least talk about the weather, changes in the weather, and how crazy the weather seems to be at times. It’s interesting that something we can do very little to change and something that we spend huge amounts of money avoiding (air conditioning, heating, etc) occupies such a great part of our time and energy.
Those things we can change, however, we don’t often take the time to do. This coming Tuesday we expect about 12 percent of eligible voters to go to the polls and select local leaders for the next several years. That means that 88 percent of eligible voters will not take advantage of something that they can do to effect some real change in local government. Oh, they’ll still gripe about high taxes and what they perceive to be dumb decisions, but won’t vote anyone in or out of office. Maybe it’s just too much trouble to stop at the polls. Maybe it’s too much work to vote in advance. I don’t know.
We humans are an illogical and irrational lot at times. I guess that’s what makes life interesting, though, and may be why many people have a hobby of watching other people. We see so much of ourselves in them…we can only laugh knowingly and remind ourselves that we too are part of that eclectic group of souls called humanity.
For some reason, however, we like to gripe about, or at least talk about the weather, changes in the weather, and how crazy the weather seems to be at times. It’s interesting that something we can do very little to change and something that we spend huge amounts of money avoiding (air conditioning, heating, etc) occupies such a great part of our time and energy.
Those things we can change, however, we don’t often take the time to do. This coming Tuesday we expect about 12 percent of eligible voters to go to the polls and select local leaders for the next several years. That means that 88 percent of eligible voters will not take advantage of something that they can do to effect some real change in local government. Oh, they’ll still gripe about high taxes and what they perceive to be dumb decisions, but won’t vote anyone in or out of office. Maybe it’s just too much trouble to stop at the polls. Maybe it’s too much work to vote in advance. I don’t know.
We humans are an illogical and irrational lot at times. I guess that’s what makes life interesting, though, and may be why many people have a hobby of watching other people. We see so much of ourselves in them…we can only laugh knowingly and remind ourselves that we too are part of that eclectic group of souls called humanity.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Newfound Elegance
Even without the clouds, it was a pretty sunset. I don’t see as much of the setting sun as I used to because other houses to the west of ours blocks the horizon. However, our main living room window is high enough above ground level to afford us a view that is within a hair’s breadth of the horizon, and a full sky.
Most of the time, sunsets that are cloudless are less than a spectacular sight. Especially in summer heat and dust, the sunsets are many times not much more than a gradual darkening of the sky as the sun sometimes is obliterated by the dust and smoke hanging thick in the hot air of summer. The dust comes from farmers working their fields, and the smoke many times is a result of farmers burning off their stubble or last year’s growth of pasture grass. (For some reason, farming and polluting the air in this manner is exempt from EPA regulation, something I haven’t figured out to this day).
But the setting sun tonight, while not in the category of a wowing spectacular view, still left no doubt that sometimes the creation is a beautiful place and that the Master Artist continues to create canvases for his people. Relatively simple, yet elegant was the theme of the Master tonight.
It is indeed true that beauty many times is in the eye of the beholder. Where some may see a slimy, slithering monster, others see the gorgeous markings of a snake. Where some may cringe at the thought of touching a common housefly, others see the awesome organ that is the eye of that fly and marvel at the One who created it. Where some may consider the snow and ice a major inconvenience, others see a renewal and replenishing of the earth.
We all have things in our lives that we don’t appreciate or just plain dislike. And that’s OK. But sometime, in some way, take some time and try to find the good, the beautiful, the artistic, and the elegance in these things. You may see things in a whole different light.
Most of the time, sunsets that are cloudless are less than a spectacular sight. Especially in summer heat and dust, the sunsets are many times not much more than a gradual darkening of the sky as the sun sometimes is obliterated by the dust and smoke hanging thick in the hot air of summer. The dust comes from farmers working their fields, and the smoke many times is a result of farmers burning off their stubble or last year’s growth of pasture grass. (For some reason, farming and polluting the air in this manner is exempt from EPA regulation, something I haven’t figured out to this day).
But the setting sun tonight, while not in the category of a wowing spectacular view, still left no doubt that sometimes the creation is a beautiful place and that the Master Artist continues to create canvases for his people. Relatively simple, yet elegant was the theme of the Master tonight.
It is indeed true that beauty many times is in the eye of the beholder. Where some may see a slimy, slithering monster, others see the gorgeous markings of a snake. Where some may cringe at the thought of touching a common housefly, others see the awesome organ that is the eye of that fly and marvel at the One who created it. Where some may consider the snow and ice a major inconvenience, others see a renewal and replenishing of the earth.
We all have things in our lives that we don’t appreciate or just plain dislike. And that’s OK. But sometime, in some way, take some time and try to find the good, the beautiful, the artistic, and the elegance in these things. You may see things in a whole different light.
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