At our last staff meeting, the three co-pastors asked our
spiritual advisor how one deals with the despair and sense of hopelessness that
can overwhelm all of us out on the street. Some weeks seem like all we’re doing is rearranging the deck
chairs on the Titanic and not really helping anyone in any significant
way. After all, there’s nothing we
can do about the drugs, the violence and the thefts; we can’t pull apartments
out of our sock-filled backpacks, nor can we fix ruined teeth or manage chronic
pain. We can try and run with
folks as they circle the drain, but eventually we have to let them go and watch
them swirl into the abyss.
And now we’re trying to manage the angry questions about why
the recently arrived asylum seekers are receiving such an outpouring of love
and concern from across the local area while they are being consigned to a
future shelter as far from the city center as possible. At the core of that question and that
angst is the unanswerable question:
why, as Americans, do we believe that there are two classes of those who
need help — the deserving and the undeserving poor? Why are asylum seekers seen as worth of our care, but the
homeless only receive our disdain? Why is there a hand up for some, and grumpy
grumblings about bootstraps for others?
As people or faith, we know that Jesus made no distinction
between the deserving and the undeserving poor. He loved all the people who
struggled on the margins, no matter the circumstances that led them to their dark
place. And it’s this love for all
that he taught us that is the answer to our despair, because no matter now dark
things get, no matter how many icebergs sit in our collective path, there is
always the light of love that illuminates the horizon with each new day. And with this realization, we can see
past the darkness and the hopelessness and the despair and we can see the light
the lurks on the edges of things — the generosity of friend to friend when they
share what little they have; the love of couples who may have had a screaming
argument 10 minutes ago, but now are sitting quietly and holding hands; the
miracle of people passed out in the courtyard one week, and then anchoring an
art opening in Portland the next; the remarkable journey of a writer who is
honing his craft in adult education classes with new Americans just learning
English, and finding, with them, that we all have stories to tell.
There is always light, if you just look in the right
direction. And for those of us who
attempt, as best we can, to walk in the sandals of that Galilean peasant, we
have a special compass that can lead us to the horizon of a new dawn. Close the drain and tack far from the
icebergs, we have places to go.