16-Dec-2006: Where are the poor?
When the kids were young I used to tell them my version of the Christmas story. It is about the poor
and marginalized of the time. I would stress the stench and discomfort of the barn where Jesus was born and I would
remind them that the first people to recognize Jesus were shepherds—the despised vagabonds of the day who would
never be accepted in "polite" society. Jesus' parents also were marked, because Mary had become pregnant before her
marriage. Throughout his ministry Jesus focused on the outsiders and disenfranchised of his
time—the lepers, the blind, the prostitutes, and even the despised tax collectors; he rarely had a good word to say about the rich and comfortable.
Sometimes I sit in church and wonder where our marginal people are. I'm talking about the drug addicts, the street prostitutes, the desperate and ill.
Would they be openly welcomed in our church? Imagine a filthy, blood-smeared young man with wild eyes and hair, barely coherent in his speech. Would the
church usher quietly lead him to a pew and show him the hymnals and prayer books? Could the priest or minister address the congregation without
pointing out this stranger among them in a self-congratulary way? Would polite people move as far away from the man as possible?
I don't, because that is what the church taught me:
Remember the poor.
I hope I don't sound smug when I say that, because that's not how I feel. I feel a deep sadness. I am posting the lyrics of a Christmas carol I
wrote two years ago on this page and
here's a link to the full score. Lots of people have congratulated me
and told me how moving the lyrics are. But, how many have sung it?
I have lived in poverty for large chunks of my life. At the age of 14 I stayed in a Salvation Army Hostel on Sherbourne Street in Toronto
for about six weeks. There were a lot of men there filled with anger or overcome with defeat; people who drank straight alcohol; thieves; manipulators;
and the mentally ill. But despite all that—despite whatever had brought them to this place—they were good men. Some cried to me
about the failures in their lives, but not one of them—ever—tried to molest, harass, take advantage of, or steal from me. Now I am
not trying to romanticize them, but, I can only tell you about my own experiences.
During my adolescence in Toronto, and later during my university life in Montreal, I lived in the worst slums in those cities. I came into contact
daily with drunks, angry people railing against the system, the marginally functional, the ex-cons, and the ones who should have been in prison.
In all that time I never once feared for my safety. I was polite, listened to people, and went on about my business.
I get so impatient with better-off people who are afraid of the poor; tell me how they don't go to certain parts of the city; or how "young people"
have taken over sections of the town and now decent people cannot go there. I wish these judgemental people could sit in the tax
office with me when these very people who are being shunned by "decent" people sit across from me and tell me their stories. Maybe it's a young woman who looks
ten years older than her age telling me about her five children that that she's raising on her own. Maybe it's a young
man, bitter and angry with the world, recently released from prison and can't find a job. Maybe it's a family, sideswiped by bad luck. Maybe it's a old woman filled with a life of disappointments
trying to get by on a very small pension. Maybe it's a older man broken by alcohol. They all have stories; they all want to share them. They
need
someone from the "establishment"—even a lowly tax preparer—to validate their existence. They are polite with me, and apologize when they
express anger or impatience. They know who they are and how most people regard them. None of them deliberately chose the life they lead.
Now you might say that of course they are polite with me: to them I'm a representative of the world of laws and order; and, most importantly,
I'm the one who tells them whether or not they are going to have enough money for Christmas through tax credits and refunds. And I better get it right, because a
mistake on my part can have a devastating effect on their lives.
I ask Christians in all sincerity: if Jesus were here among us today, where would we find him? In our comfortable heated churches? Or, walking in the slums that
so many are afraid of?
I think you know the answer and that cataloguing the list of good works that your church has done is not going to change it.
I started this with the intention of describing the effect of poverty on me. I'll have to save that for another day.
For now, remember the children who are sleeping under the bridges in our cities.
Children Sleeping Under Bridges
Children sleeping under bridges
dark December rain
Woman begging at the curbside
coughing deep in pain.
Hopeless, fearing, desperate, daring
headlights shining through the darkness:
They hear a baby cry.
Baby in the chaffing straw
crying just for them;
Wrapped in rags, he knows their pain
crying just for them.
Young girl standing under streetlight
waiting for a ride.
Suffocating in a fever,
never had much pride.
Bruised, abandoned, no one caring;
she cries her father's name:
And hears a baby cry.
Baby in the darkest night
crying just for her;
Baby takes her pain and calls her
calling only her.
Old man, cardboard house collapsing,
this his only home;
Gasps and struggles, snow encrusted,
dying all alone.
Searching, needing, defeated, groping
curses his life and all he's known:
He hears a baby cry.
Baby in a cold dark cave
crying just for him;
Brought into this world to die
crying just for him.
Rich man inside glass and steel,
sees the scene below.
There are barriers, layers, shadows
he has never known.
Emptiness is his only guidance;
he lives inside a void:
Yet hears a baby cry.
Baby calling out his name
through all time and space;
reaching for him, reaching for us,
calling you and me.