A few years ago, in a nearby college town, I saw police hassling a homeless person who was also probably a little emotionally sick. He’d been sitting on a bench with his gear outside some businesses in the campus area. Apparently someone had decided he was talking to himself too loudly and called 911.”I didn’t do anything,” he said. One of the officers replied, “Do you want us to find something to arrest you for?” Yes, they offered to just make something up – to falsely accuse the man, something I’ve seen more than once.
Tonight on our local city channel is a piece about a new ordinance aimed at panhandlers. The police spokesman said it’s only aimed at “aggressive panhandling” not at the free speech protections accorded panhandlers. It became clear quickly that the opposite was true, when he described twelve definitions of “aggressive pandhandling”. These include asking for charity too close to a phone booth, or too close to sundown, or to anyone waiting in line for a show or any other kind of line, or asking more than once, or ‘following’ a person so you can ask them for charity. Between the twelve ways to mess it up, there’s really no place to stand and no way to ask. What’s worse, it’s designed so the accuser is presumed truthful. We’re told, we “have the right to write out a citation, and have the individual arrested.” In short, they’ve made it impossible for the poor (and these are the poor among us) to survive.
Looking on these things, I am reminded that the only people who will not go into everlasting fire – not Hell, mind you, but the eternal torment – are those who care for the poor:
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.”
The rod of iron cometh. “Do we not now reck his rod?” Each knee begins to bow, and each tongue confess. Despite the pride. Despite the greed and self-worship. Can you feel the Judgment coming soon? And the answer that must be given?
“And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
Lord have mercy. And beyond this, it is difficult to say anything. We each know what we have done or have not done. We know where our treasure is, or where it has not been. Who can really answer for anyone but himself? I only know this; the Judgment is coming. It hastens. It is closer now, and closer, every day. And I am an unrighteous man.
At the Dazzling Stone Orphanage in India, little children send up their prayers for people who bring them soap or toothpaste, or rice, or nutrient drinks. Can you imagine this? Those little voices, going forth to God… “Have mercy on Mr. Smith, who gave us a meal. On Mrs. Jones, who gave us some clean towels. On … ” Who will cry out for me, I wonder? Will any voice be heard?
How much I crave now the prayers of those ones, those few small voices, so very few, for whom I have given so much less than a tithe, so much less than alms, less even than I spend on cups of coffee. How I want the riches of their prayers for my salvation, so that someone will bear witness on my behalf in the Judgment. And I can barely imagine the voices of those who will cry out that I could have helped them and did not. I haven’t learned their voices, and I haven’t asked their prayers. They are unknown to me, and cry from the ground.
Click photos for source. Fair use.
This is a little off-topic, but I was struck by a single sentence in your post:
“Looking on these things, I am reminded that the only people who will not go into everlasting fire – not Hell, mind you, but the eternal torment – are those who care for the poor.”
Because my own thoughts lately have been on the nature of eternity, I find your distinction between Hell and eternal torment/everlasting fire to be an intriguing one. Please clarify. What do you mean by this?
…
As the post itself, I am reminded of my own confusion and concern regarding the poor and the homeless. I do not know how best to help the poor, and so all-too-frequently I do not help at all.
– V.
[Somehow I doubt that lack of action due to the paralysis of indecision is a virtue. Somehow I doubt that Christ will commend me for it. – V.]
Hell is temporal. Hell will be poured into the lake of fire. Remember, Christ descended into Hell to preach deliverance to the captives, and led captive a host of captives into Heaven. The lake of fire was not created for man, but for the enemy, but it is the limit of where the direction away from God can take any of us. All will be either poured into the lake of fire, or else taken into God and deified.
On indecision, yes, I know exactly what you mean:
This year I built stray cat shelters for winter, but I built them too late. Some cats are using them, and that is good. But other cats may have died in the first freeze, because I couldn’t think of the right way to do it, the correct way, the best way. In previous Winters, for the same reasons, I did nothing. And that was more about my needs than the cats. I had it in the power of my hands with things lying around the garage or the house to prevent slow, agonizing deaths, and I am, supposedly a Christian.
This year, I was talking about it with my friend, and she said simply, “Don’t let obsession w. doing it perfectly keep you from doing anything. Do something.” I finally made a box with a towel in it and flaps. And covered it with bubble wrap. A very BAD cat house – even harmful. But I didn’t know any better. I put it out a day after the freeze. Too late.
But then I decided that however long it took, this year, I’d do something, and do it well, even late. So I researched feral cat houses online, and found that towels wick away body heat and get damp and cause hypothermia. And that there’s a right way to build inexpensive cat houses for strays and a whole community of people doing it. My design is made from two plastic tubs (one inside the other, with insulation in between the layers, and lined with straw, which is really cheap at any feed store in nearly any city or town.) – and then there’s the requisite tarp cover, which I made out of a wrecked car hood I had lying around, but a staked out tarp will do. You elevate the house slightly on bricks to keep moisture out. The only warmer place on your property will be actually in your house.
I got righteous, to use a surfer term. And the cats are using them.
There’s a sin the fathers warn us of: “Gluttony of delicacy.” It is the sin of choosing not to pray or approach the holy things because of the dept of my sin, when in fact praying and returning to God is what would save me. It’s a form of despair. Overmuch (gluttony) of delicacy (the need to have it all just right – perfect – before I will act or do anything). It is a grievous sin.
Writ against the world of loving others, how grievous and most grievous. That I would fail to give to the poor because I couldn’t be 100% certain they wouldn’t buy some booze, or because some of it might go to administrative costs, or what have you. I am guilty of that sin, my friend. I spent years not giving, because I couldn’t find the ‘right’ charity, and I was afraid of throwing my money down the toilet.
We must remember that Christ doesn’t need anyone to give to the poor for him. He owns everything. He wants us to give to the poor for our sakes and, when we don’t, we don’t learn how to love, and we don’t remember that all things are his, that He is the Lord our God, and we don’t live in the reality of the Kingdom of his glorious redemption. We are lost men.
Now, I don’t like organizations that exploit the poor, that take 80% or more of the funds I give for new flat panel monitors and high-end stacking trays for the office and top-dollar, new, full-price file cabinets by Hahn. I don’t like it. So, as with the cat boxes, I had to work. I went researching, and I found exactly what I wanted.
GlobalGiving.org
GiveMeaning.org
Oxfam.org
Kiva.org
These are my babies. My adopted projects. The first two are simple: they are online catalogs of charities with a payment system. You select the orphanage or other charity you want to fund, and 100% of the money goes directly to that orphanage, hospital, hospice, school, or what have you. All of it. Since it costs them money to take your credit card, paypal, or check, and give that payment to the charity, they request (it’s optional) that you give them a little bit too. 10% is normal (like a finder’s fee). So maybe you give $50 to the charity, and choose to give $5 to the facilitator. You see? You control how much is given for administrative costs.
Now true, you don’t control what the orphanage spends it on, but they post frequent reports, and you can watch them get funded and see what they’re doing, and decide for yourself.
Personally, two projects I favor in particular are:
The New Futures Orphanage and Khmer School in Cambodia.
The Dazzling Stone School and Orphanage in India
I also like Oxfam, for the following reason:
You see? I don’t want to dump it all into propping up the military-industrial state in the West: when I think I’m giving it to the poor, it’s actually going to their oppressors. Oxfam to me is a good deal. Besides, polite guests don’t go to another town or country and go to the chain-store restaurant (Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, McDonalds); we eat their local food, buy their local products, stay in their local hotels, support their local mom and pop gas station. And for the same reasons. Why should 90% of it go to Olive Garden, and 10% to the employees? I’d rather eat a the local hole in the wall diner and enjoy the unpredictability and inconsistency of real food. It’s only civilized. Same thing w. Oxfam and the above charities.
Lastly there’s kiva. I got so excited when I found kiva that I nearly peed myself. But I found I had to remind myself that I was lending to the poor – something Christ commands, but that I needed the other charities too, so I could give to the poor. But this, this way of assisting the working poor, to pull them out of poverty, is a great compliment to putting food in the mouths of the destitute. I like this – orphanages and hospices with the one set of organizations, addressing mass starvation with Oxfam, and turning desperate families into surviving families with Kiva.
Here’s the gist: I’m watching a CNBC news piece about kiva.org – this is a microloan charity. You lend a small amount (e.g. $25) to help someone in another country, and kiva.org combines it with other gifts and lends the money, and the lending partner gets the interest, while you get the funds back. The CNBC reporter chose a man off the site who could barely support his family with a bicycle taxi. He wanted to borrow $800 to buy his wife a restaurant. Yes, $800 for the whole thing. The reporter gave $25. Then he waited and flew to Africa to find this man and see how it worked. The man had bought his wife a small restaurant, and they had moved from living in a dark one-room mud/stick shack to a place with electricity, room for their six children, and a locking steel door. They’re still poor – she uses an old water bottle for a rolling pin, an inverted plate for a grill, and a plastic bag for a cash register. She makes flatbread, tea, beans and rice, and has people lined up outside to get it. The place is small, but it has completely changed things for their family. $800 total from a few dozen individuals like us who lent small amounts (e.g. $25) and this happened. Now they’re a two income family, and the kids are growing. He’s making his monthly repayments on time. His children look happy. They repeated this with another small gift, this time to a coop of African women who are supporting their tribe and, again, verified it’s being used exactly as described. kiva.org takes extensive pains to make sure the requests are legitimate and the money is used as indicated. In fact, they depend on it.
If you go this route, be aware of how the interest works first, so you won’t be disappointed: Personally, I select lending partners that have interests rates around or below the average – 22%. I have loans out at 10%, 12%, 14%, 36% (it’s high in Cambodia, but I remember the genocide there, and my country’s role in it, and I can’t look away), and we even helped a man get a more reliable taxi in Togo at 1% interest! I won’t subsidize a 40% interest rate, even if that’s the going rate and the local loan-shark rate is 120%, but that’s just me – some of this, too, is WHO you select to help – you listen to someone explain their situation, and sometimes you just have to. It’s $30 for a movie and dinner, or you can eat ham sandwiches and lend someone $25 who will open a restaurant with it and raise a whole people out of poverty.
Remember: the interest rates are higher than we’re used to: The reason is simple – the microlending partners don’t have major bank backing, the risk of default is higher, and they have to pay the same loan origination fees regardless of loan amount. So if it costs them $50 to set up a $500 loan, and it costs them $50 to set up a $1500 loan, the interest rate has to be higher on the smaller loan to recoup their costs and break even, before they even make anything. Since most loans are typically small loans (“microloans”) the interest is higher than we’re used to.
I’ve got funds out on loan to people that, as they get paid back, will be used (if I’m not starving) to re-fund other enterprises of the working poor. In the case of the lady from Kenya I mentioned on the blog, most of us requested Kiva to have our part of her loan forgiven, due to the burning down of whole areas of small businesses there and the killing of so many people.
I can’t tell you how it has been saving to me to be able to pray for these people. To have their photos and know their situations and be able to help them, and to ask God to save me by their prayers. I wouldn’t trade this for anything. The riches of being able to reach the world, to reach into areas that I couldn’t otherwise go, and to help… I’m in Kenya, Tajikistan, Ecuador… but also to learn more about daily life for the poor in each area (can’t get that from TV), and the situations of ordinary people there:
It has affected my prayers in the litanies. When we pray “for good weather and abundant crops” and “for peaceful times”, we are really praying for the very survival, the very question of whether they will live another day, of these people. By their prayers, cast me not away with the dead wood, but save me.
It changes one’s attitude. It brings peace. It teaches me that God merely allows me to give to these people, that my proper attitude is thanks for allowing me to give to them. It is not the usual “good feeling” thing – it’s a sense that I wasn’t a human being until I began to love the poor – and that I am only now starting to become human. I was shapeless, and void, a shadow and wraith. I was in form like the demons, with no body, but now the poor are my body.
May God save me along with them. Mercy. Mercy.
I hope this helps.