"I wanna hand Daddy the cans!!!!” Gresham, age five, screamed yesterday. (Though, to be fair to the kid, it’s hard to tell when he’s screaming and when he’s just talking. He’s got a voice amplification issue of some sort.)
“No, Gresham,” Gabriella, age seven, (aka Mini Mom) insisted. ”I’M handing Daddy the cans. You give me the cans and Penelope gives you the cans like we planned.” (Her sentences are always a bit italics heavy.)
On Wednesdays I’m taking the kids to The Well, a food pantry in our area. Stores and individuals donate food. Our church buys what’s lacking. Volunteers (and their kids) stock the shelves and staff the place. Meals On Wheels and others help distribute beyond the pantry’s property. It’s a collaborative effort. Generosity that soothes the hurts of entire cities, states and nations has to be.
FINDSHELTER.ORG
A few years ago a couple of hurricanes named Rita and Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast. Ben, who didn’t work for me back then, helped a merciful entrepreneur named Carsie get in touch with me after a concert in North Carolina. Carsie, in the 24 hours after the first hurricane hit, built FindShelter.org. And he asked for my help getting the word out about it. (This was the beginning of the Compassion Bloggers idea, by the way) The site allowed churches willing to board and employ hurricane refugees for one year to enter their contact information. At the same time, Carsie and his team had volunteers in shelters taking down the contact info of refugees looking for a place to relocate. FindShelter.org simply existed to connect the two lists: the families in need with generous churches.
There was a problem though. The biggest list of refugees was not compiled by Carsie’s volunteers but by Mormons. That’s right, a group of Mormons had a list of families in need but no list of churches willing to care for them. The Mormon group wanted to give Carsie and his churches their list - no strings attached.
Problem: Carsie was leaning on the Baptist mission something-or-other for help building the list of churches (Baptist churches) willing to help refugees. And when the boss of that Baptist mission something-or-other found out that some of the refugees (a lot of the refugees) were signed up by a bunch of Mormons? Well, the Baptist guy said if Carsie took that list then he couldn’t have the Baptists list of churches.
The refugees on the list weren’t Mormons - not that that should matter either - but they had been disqualified from receiving assistance by simply having their names written down by Mormon fingers. Lots of Baptist churches willing to help a very small list of families. We were able to help a few people but unable to make the impact we’d hoped for - the kind that was possible.
The result? Today, the Gulf Coast is once again under water. Once again, there are thousands of people trying to find shelter. But this time FindShelter.org isn’t there to match the needy with the generous. FindShelter.org was pretty much undone by one man arguing about who gets to hand Daddy the cans.
IDEAL VERSUS REALITY
The other day I blogged about Obama’s lists and we discussed what things we can and cannot do for ourselves. I didn’t write those words because I disagree or agree with Senator Obama but because his lists have left me torn. I’ve got some thinking to do. I’m torn between my ideals and the reality Obama and that Baptist guy remind me exists today.
Ideally, the church/Church would collaborate across denominational, racial, economic, state and national lines, pool resources and expertise and meet the needs of people in holistic ministry, leaving those in government with a much smaller job description. But realistically, there are too many people shunning cooperation for empire building to believe unity and generosity will ever be the rule in the church/Church and not the exception.
So where do we invest our hope? Who do we demand change and kindness from? I’m not sure anymore.
But I’m not standing still either. I’m thinking things through but that’s no reason to settle into cynicism or apathy. Thankfully I don’t have to have the church-and-state problem figured out entirely in order to give myself entirely to loving the people I’ll meet today. I can stack cans in a food pantry. I can sponsor a child. I can play with the kids in my neighborhood, be a generous friend and neighbor, adopt, recycle, listen, be patient, teach my kids how to stack cans...without fighting...so that someone gets the help they need today.
While some argue in the pantry, what am I doing today to love people?
I’ll be in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma on Sunday September 28 (in AM church services and doing an evening concert)
But we’re looking for a Saturday PM concert in that area for Sept. 27th. “That area” means within two or three hours.
Any takers? It’s free. Just e-mail Ben if you’re interested.
Thanks.
I’m doing something different this time around. When I can, I’m ignoring the inflection of their voices and the roar of the crowds, the color of their skin and their age, their suits and posture, their party and the translations offered up every minute by professional pundits on every channel and across the dial. I’m reading the words of their speeches and deciding for myself what politicians are saying. It’s sometimes not the things the blogosphere and the nightly news programs are buzzing about.
Take Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, for example. One sentence demanded my attention, stood out as the real crux of the speech, and has had me pondering. It’s gone unmentioned in the news coverage I’ve read and seen since.
”Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems,” Senator Obama said.
Then he continued, ”but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves.”
I took that sentence to mean that Barack Obama believes there are things American citizens can do for themselves and things they can’t. His government, I understand Senator Obama to have said, will do some of the things which the citizens cannot do for themselves - he implied that this is a limitation his government will be subject to.
I then read the paragraphs that followed carefully as Senator Obama listed those things for us - again, the things government will do because we cannot do them for ourselves. Here they are in order and in his words when possible.
Protect us from harm
Provide every child a decent education
Keep our water clean
Keep our toys safe
Invest in new schools
Invest in new roads
Invest in new science and technology
Ensure a job opportunity for every American willing to work
Provide a tax code that rewards workers and small businesses
Provide tax breaks for businesses that create good jobs in America and not overseas
Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups
Cut taxes for 95% of working families
End dependence on oil from the Middle East
Recruit teachers, pay them higher salaries
Provide affordable college education to everyone who serves their community or country
Provide affordable health care to every citizen
Prevent insurance companies from discriminating against the sick
Ensure more sick days and better family leave for workers
Change bankruptcy laws to protect pensions
Ensure equal pay for men and women
Eliminate government programs that don’t work
Make government programs that do work more efficient
Then Senator Obama specified three things we individual Americans must do because government cannot do them for us.
Make our homes and businesses more efficient (when it comes to energy use)
Turn the television off and make our children do their homework
Fathers must love and guide their children
Instead of debating economic strategy and oil policy and budgets and blah blah blah, I’d rather focus more narrowly and think about three foundational questions Obama’s speech raises for me.
1) What is it government must do because we cannot do it for ourselves?
2) Which things on Senator Obama’s list belong and which don’t?
3) Which things would you add to Obama’s list?
Answering these leads me to three more questiosn we’ll call “bonus.”
1) Is everything we aren’t doing for ourselves stuff we can’t and shouldn’t do for ourselves?
2) Should government do the things we aren’t doing but should be doing or stick to the things we truly can’t do?
3) Is the only alternative to our individual ability the government’s collective ability? Are my only choices me and them?
Unlike Christmas and Easter, holidays founded by Jesus, Labor Day was started by labor unions, which means Democrats were likely involved. And Democrats don’t love Jesus.
Also, Labor Day is anti-bible. The bible clearly states in both the Genesis account of creation and in the ten commandments that we’re to take a day off every week. One day off every week. That day is Sunday. But the Democrats urge us to disobey God and take Monday off to celebrate their union friends. This means that some will take both Sunday and Monday off, making them guilty of sloth, and others will take only Monday off, making them guilty of working on the true sabbath day. That’s anti-bible. That’s probably anti-creationism and anti-ten commandments too.
Furthermore, Jesus, a carpenter by trade, and Paul, a tent maker by trade, were not in unions. If they were, they weren’t proud enough of that fact to actually write it down. If they were in unions, they were the good kind, like teachers, and not the bad kind, like auto workers and studio musicians. And they certainly wouldn’t have participated in a Democratic bible-hating holiday like Labor Day. No good Christian would.
So, this Labor Day I’m taking a stand for the bible and Jesus and Paul, who were against unions enough to not be in one or not write about being in one. I’m taking a stand for the uniqueness of Sunday, the sanctity of the sabbath. I’m taking a stand against sloth and the anti-bible Democrats. I’m taking a stand against secular holidays. I’m working hard like a real Christian does on Mondays. Who’s with me?
That my wife wants me is proof of a benevolent and miraculous God.
That another woman wants me is proof of an active and persuasive devil.
That some would disagree is proof that they do not know me.
