Recently it came to my attention that the local homeless population here in Abbotsford has seriously exploded. A friend of mine works quite closely with the homeless via his work at the Salvation Army, and he mentioned to me that they were going to be significantly short of blankets this winter.
"Well!" I thought to myself, "I'll see if some of the folks at my church can bring some blankets one Sunday, and we can give a whack of blankets away to some people who need'em."
Simple enough idea and I'm happy to say it went well. However, I encountered that old familiar attitude as well from a few people (not from my church, but elsewhere) that basically says the following: "You shouldn't help the homeless because it only encourages them to remain in their poor situation." In other words, by wanting to give some cold people blankets to help keep them warm I am guilty of enabling their homelessness. My response is: I should do nothing? And invariably the answer comes back that something should be done but it needs to be a real solution.
Ah, the real solution... so many of us want a social solution, politically driven that will deal with homelessness. That would be great. I'd love to see a large scale solution worked out and implemented. But I have no confidence whatsoever that this will happen any time soon. What I do know will happen soon (as in tonight) is that there will be far too many people who are cold because winter is setting in and they don't have a warm place to be.
Allow me to rant for a moment: It doesn't matter to me why someone is living on the streets. There are as many reasons as there are people. Some may be tragic, others not so much...I don't feel the need or the right to judge such things. I am a Christian who takes the teachings of Jesus as seriously as I can possibly muster. Jesus said that the two greatest commandments, the two that sum up everything, were that we should love God and love our neighbours. He tells the story of a man, beaten by bandits and left at the side of the road for dead, who is passed by a couple of ‘religious fellas’ before a compassionate man stopped to help him. It was this man who did the right thing. In the Old Testament God repeatedly admonishes His people, Israel, for not taking care of the poor. Jesus tells us that if someone asks for your jacket then give them your fleece too (paraphrase).
Help now or help later? That is the question...or is it? If a fellow human being has an obvious need that can easily be met now shouldn't we help? Just because there is this 'idea' out there of some nebulous 'real solution' does not give me an excuse to not help someone in need now. I will choose immediate and present action when I have the means to help others over ideas, politics, and theorizing about how to perhaps solve the homelessness issue. I would be happy to know that there were actually people out there, somewhere, doing that. People who could make some real things happen and make some real changes...but I admit I don't feel much optimism that there are. The opposition to a 'real solution' is just too strong.
Help now that is the answer.
Eric H Janzen
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