tomorrow morning
saturday
Q, Y and I will be going to the church we are attending
not to worship
we are going for service
and finally i feel like
maybe for a moment
we are in the right place
tomorrow is the first day of a food pantry
this morning listening to the radio as i got dressed for work
(thank god for my job)
a single mother
she had a job that paid well
but that she didn’t like
so that when the plant closed
she went back to school
she graduated
and on graduation day
she had hope
but that hope has faded
many months later
still jobless
her unemployement has run out
how do we, as a society, allow single mother’s become homeless
she has a job – she’s a mom – she needs more time
her child deserves a roof over his or her head
this will be the first week that the pantry is open
no doubt few people will know about it
several people at our church have been working very hard to make the pantry successful. they have planned menus and shopped and taken inventory. today they will shop for some fresh food to add to the canned beans and the macaroni. for a family of one or two they will recieve one pre-packed bag of groceries, for a family of 3-4 they will recieve two pre-packed bag of groceries. it will be enough for three meals a day for three days. cereal and oatmeal, apple sauce, cans of beans and soup.
imagine your meals being picked out by strangers who had no idea of your personal likes or dislikes.
i told liz on her blog that my thoughts this month would turn around the word humility. something i need to think on.
as i’ve said before, i sometimes wonder if we are worshipping at the perfect place for us. after all it is resolutely jesus oriented. and while the same can be said for myself, i, by nature want inclusiveness. would my muslim and jewish friends feel welcome here? i worry about this.
sometimes i worry too much about ‘perfect’
and then yesterday, i read in our little local paper, and article about the church and the food pantry. and for a moment i stopped questioning. we are in the right place. for now. we may be nomads, but for now we have found our resting place. a place to do and be rather than to just sit and follow.
last sunday at the end of service as our minister gave his final prayer and blessing at the back of the church as is his custom, with all of us facing the door we would walk out of, he said something like. ‘go now, worhip is over – let the service begin’
lastly, i leave you with and excerpt from the article in the paper about the pantry;
“Parishners bring food items to church and in early spring St. Andrew’s instituted a second offering at each Sunday service with a view to launching this effort….A dozen parishners participate in various aspects of this service from securing and purchasing food to preparing menus, stocking shelves and meeting and distributing food to guests…St. Andrew’s parish does not believe that it is possible to give bread as a gift to a person who is hungry. Rather, the congregation believes that it can only return to that person what is theirs by a prior right. The parish is committed to distrbuting food in a way that is absolutely respectful of the dignity of its guests. It has been said that the character of any society is manifesst in how it relates to and cares for its most vulnerable members. So too it can be said that the credibility and integrity of any church community is most clearly evidenced in its response to those who live on the socio-economic margins. Jesus clearly identified himself with the poor. St. Andrew’s is ever-mindful that he said, “i was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink” and that it is Christ hmself who is always the guest who comes to the pantry door.”
omg, you blow me out of the water first thing in the morning.
‘go now, worhip is over – let the service begin’
you have found a good place to be.
That line struck me like a ton of bricks as well. I’ve been disenchanted with many ‘Christians’ and their form of Christianity lately.
This is the form that speaks to me.
Wow! I’m glad you’ve found this home for now.
‘go now, worhip is over – let the service begin’
Amen to that!
For Moe’s birthday party, he asked that in lieu of gifts, people bring nonperishable food items for our local pantry. Even though we’re still on the fence about raising him Jewish, he will still be raised knowing/doing tzedakah (charity).
Always good to hear of the church being church. Humility indeed that it takes for anyone who comes to the food pantry.
I loved the line from the paper: “the congregation believes that it can only return to that person what is theirs by a prior right. ” If only our nations could live by that wisdom.
xoxo
Kristine, you already have more humility in your little finger than I will ever manage to have…I confess that I struggle with the idea of “service.” I work in the non-profit world, and find myself getting cynical sometimes about our clients, frustrated by how hard it is sometimes to serve them, and jaded about whether they really “need” that service. Not sure what the answer is, but that is what I’m thinking about after reading this…
i hear you. i have seen people begging on the streets of new york with better clothes on than i have. there are those people. but i’ve also tutored a grown man in a literacy program and he needed way more than i could give. that was hard. finding that i came up short. then i tutored in the fort green projects children who desperately wanted to learn and the school system was failing them, they needed and i did have the skill to help them. before new york i helped out in a shelter for teenage moms. most of them had been foster children who were aging out of the system. they could live for free room and board if they went to school. the babies and toddlers and preschoolers received excellent care. i worked in the nursery holding babies. to this day i think i made more impact there than anywhere. now we’re giving out food. i do believe everyone who shows up probably needs something. they might need to talk. they might need connection. but i do think food stamps don’t go far enough. i think if we give, as hard as it is sometimes, with the understanding some people are going to take us for a ride, then eventually we will find the person who truly needs.
and thanks for the comments about humility! there are people in my ‘real’ life that would laugh at your statement. blogs are so one dimensional! at work, i’m anything but humble!
also – it is hard to help people who don’t even know how close they could be to stepping out of a cycle of poverty. a failure of imagination. unable to imagine themselves in better circumstances. that is true poverty.