A Chance Designed Encounter
I like football. I really do. Until the day I die, I will probably be a Kansas City Chiefs fan, not matter how many Sundays are spent yelling at the television. Football is just simply great entertainment. I remember watching the big game with some friends from The Village Church. We had a good time eating together, making fun of the halftime show, and rooting for the Green Bay Packers. And we laughed at the commercials, each second costing millions of dollars, and soon forgot them. It was a good night.
A week after the game, I met someone who had a very different experience of that night. It was Valentine's Day, oddly enough, the first day I began volunteering in the ER of a major Dallas hospital. There was a man there, probably homeless. I never caught his name. I had to pass by him multiple times as I worked. Each time I passed by, I was careful not to bump his feet in the narrow hallway. They looked to be burned - mostly black with a few specks of pink. I didn't think much of it as I worked (there is some CRAZY stuff there). But later I overheard his conversation:
"So, it looks like you have some frostbite here. How long have you had this?"
"A week or so. Since the day of the Super Bowl."
"Why didn't you have shoes on?"
"Don't have none."
And that was all I caught, but it was enough.
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So, What's the Right Action?
I'd love to analyze the irony of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the Super Bowl while a guy like this froze in the street. But it doesn't do him justice. The tough reality is that with all our technology and financial wizardry, even in 2011, this still happens. People freeze, even in Dallas.
I am aware that there are many intricacies and points of view on homelessness. Some people choose homelessness, while others abuse the system and use all their donations for alcohol. I have met and talked with both types of people in Houston. But there is one thing we must get straight - read this:
"Is not this the [way] I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from you own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'
If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail." {Isaiah 58:6-11}
Whatever our views, if we want to be obedient to God's words, we must help them. And I hope and pray we can continue to have compassion towards them, especially when others do not.
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Oppression is always oppression / No matter the reasons or means / For skin or for sex / By stares or by fists it's the same / There are blinders on everyone ~ Derek Webb, American Flag Umbrella
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