I was helping prepare a lunch at a soup kitchen one time. On this particular day, a group from an organization renown for its support of the work the soup was doing to serve the homeless was also on the property working on a construction of a new building..
This organization was involved with all sorts of projects with the shelter from construction of facilities to programs.
When it came time to serve lunch, an interesting thing happened.
The workers who took a break to eat their lunch dined alone and not with the homeless folks we were serving.
It got my mind to thinking that it's possible to care about homelessness without really having to become involved with the homeless.
I asked my two daughters about this and sensing the perhaps disdain in my voice as I asked their opinion, they simultaneously responded that "Not everyone is like you. People serve in different ways and that is OK."
I have mentioned the phenomenon to other people. One said, well when you really analyze it, we really don't do the service work at the shelter for the homeless, we do it for us.
There is no doubt a difference between caring about homelessness and caring about the homeless.
Maybe we prefer to be able to control our involvement and how and when we care about things.
And that's OK, but can we, together, have the courage to serve in a such a way that we can't necessarily control and with the homeless instead of just for the homeless?
Would anything change if we served out of faith?
