A couple of weeks ago, the police called after hours to tell me they found family sleeping in their car. Small children were involved. “I’ll be right in,” I said. After getting buzzed into the police station, I got the skinny from the officer who found them.
“Can we put them in a hotel?” he asked.
“We have to,” I said. “The problem is none of the hotels around here want my people.”
“Why not?”
“Remember that guy we put in the Acme Motel last year? The one who OD’d? We had to break the door down.”
“Oh yeah, I remember him.”
“He also crapped and threw up all over the place and I had to pay five hundred bucks in damages. No wonder the owner stopped taking my people.”
“Guys like that ruin it for everyone. So, what do you want to do?”
“Take the money out of the petty cash,” I said. “I’ll authorize it. Then take them to a hotel. The staff are more likely to want to help you than me. Maybe so you’ll help them with a troublesome guest in the future.”
“Got it.”
Walking into the parking lot, the cop introduced me to the young family. It was a fairly typical situation; the father was working but couldn’t come up with enough scratch for a to stay in his apartment, blew what he had on a hotel, and now they were living in their car. Looking at the two kids in the backseat, I knew if my wife and daughter were in that situation, I’d lose my mind.
“Let’s go up to my office,” I told the father. “We’ve got food and baby supplies up there and your wife will know what you need.” So, we all marched into the municipal building and rode the elevator up to the food pantry.
“What grade are you in?” I asked the little boy as the floor of the lift pressed against our feet.
“Second,” he said.
“Wow. And you’re a big brother too. That’s an important job. How old’s your sister?”
“One.” Looking at the little girl in her mother’s arms, I felt a spurt of anger. No child should have to go through this.
“Okay,” I said, after opening up my office. “The first thing I do with everyone is give them a stuffed animal.” Hauling a basket filled with teddy bears, stuffed dogs, cats, elephants, and lord knows what else, I set the plushie menagerie on the floor and let the kids have at it. They were very happy.
“A kitty and a bear,” I said. Excellent choices.” Then, as they kids played on the floor, I got down to the hard work of interviewing the parents.
“The county won’t help us,” the mother, said. “They say they have nothing.” No surprise there. With Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, SNAP, and other programs all on the chopping block, charities public and private are struggling. My food pantry sees new people unable to feed their families every day.
“We’ll try and figure something out,” I said. “But tonight, let’s just focus on your immediate needs.” So, I let the parents take what they wanted from my pantry and gave them gift cards to buy diapers, food and, because the dad had a long drive to work, gas. “And we have all sorts of personal care stuff in here,” I said, opening a cabinet. “Soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, razors, and feminine hygiene products.” When I mentioned the last item, I heard the mom draw a deep breath. She was about to cry.
“Hang in there,” I said. “It’ll work out. Take what you need.”
As the parents loaded a shopping cart with supplies, I looked at the one year old babbling as she played peek-a-boo with her new toy. “I like your earrings,” I said. “Very pretty.” Pulled out of her reverie by my voice, she looked up, fixed her innocent eyes on me, and smiled. Thinking of another family who once found no room at the inn, I was reminded why I do what I do.
America is an ostensibly “Christian Nation” but, with all this “America First” stuff many churchgoers seem to be buying into, it’s amazing how many followers of Christ have hardened their hearts towards the poor and distressed with a sadism bordering on the diabolical. Even having empathy for other people is suspect for them. How did Catholic convert J.D. Vance put it? “There is a Christian concept,” he said, mangling the concept of ordo amoris, “That you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” No wonder Pope Francis stroked out a couple of hours after meeting him.
Jesus didn’t look at love as a finite resource to be parsimoniously doled out in expanding circles with you as the prioritized center. He said, “Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That was his Great Commandment, which last I checked, supersedes JD’s half-baked opinions about church teaching. (Converts, in their zeal, can often be like a kid with one karate lesson.) Jesus sought out the poor and despised and loved them with a love the world could not give but, when coming up against people like J.D. who opine, “Take care of what’s yours first,” how do you explain the “why” of that love to them?
Last week was Trinty Sunday, when the church celebrates the oft misunderstood doctrine of the Holy Trinty – The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the face of it, saying God is three distinct “persons” yet still one God sounds awfully confusing and, for the sake of brevity, I won’t unpack the doctrine of the Trinty in detail here – mostly because some deep thinkers have explained it better than I ever could. But, usually to avoid the heresy of polytheism, I think there’s been an overemphasis on the “Oneness” of the Trinity at the expense of the “Three.” According to the doctrine, The Father, Son, and Sprit are distinct; different from each other. That’s important because it shows God contains difference within Himself in harmony and peace. So, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, it should come as no surprise that we are all different, analogous and diverse reflections of his splendor.
Sadly, we humans have a hard time with the harmony and peace part. We view differences with suspicion, leading to the all too human impulse to take care of our own, to associate only with people who look, think, believe, and love like we do. That kind of thinking hardens hearts, destroys empathy, and makes charity almost impossible. But the love Jesus talked about is communal because God himself is communal, three in one, always different yet indivisibly one. Explaining that oneness, Ignatius of Loyola said it was like a harmonic chord, when three separate notes are played simultaneously to produce one sound. I, however, prefer to think of the Trinty as a dance, the loving flow of movement and touch between two dancers and the interplay of love and joy between them – and the Gospel is God’s invitation to dance with Him.
As my wife can attest, I hate to dance – probably because I think it makes me look stupid – which is a shame because I’ve missed many opportunities for connection as a result. When it comes to loving others, charity, connection, that dance of the Lord, how many of us also worry about looking stupid? What will those in our “bubble” think if we reach out to those who are “different?” What will happen if, as is often the case with love, our efforts are rebuffed, our gift ignored, or took advantage of? Get burned a couple of times and you don’t want to get on that dance floor at all which, in the end, makes for a lonely life. But that invitation to partake in the Trinity’s dance is always there, always calling to us in differing ways. Every human being is a dance partner because, since God sanctified difference within Himself, each one of us, because of our differences, is a revelation of who God is. That’s why you have to love your neighbor – even when we think it sometimes makes us look weak, stupid, or foolish – because that dance of love is what makes us all one. As Jesus said, “Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us.” That’s not some “leftist inversion.” That’s the very life of God.
Sitting in my office, I knew that little girl’s smile was my invitation to the dance. Today I was leading, and her family was following, but I knew others would be spinning me about too, round and round, all of us going back and forth, for the rest of my life. Sometimes you have to have the courage to hold out your hand and, on other days, the humility to take another’s I think that’s a reflection of the Trinity too.
Shopping finished, I helped the family load their supplies into their car and gave them directions to the hotel I’d secured for them. “Thank you again,” the mother said, holding her squirming daughter in her arms.
“My pleasure,” I said.
Then, when the mom began to walk away the baby, looking at over her mom’s shoulder, started crying, stretching her arms towards me, as if saying, “Don’t go! Don’t go!” Was that because I’d given her a toy? Because she somehow sensed I was nice to her parents? Or was it because a stranger had loved her, even if just for a moment? Listening to her cries, I wondered if some trace of that memory might follow her into adulthood and, when the time came, give her an unconscious push to help someone else. Who knows? Perhaps that’s all part of the dance too.
Back in my office, I suddenly felt the desire to play Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring on my computer. Gazing out the window, I listened as the movement featuring the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” poured from my speakers. When I was a kid, one of my favorite church hymns was set to that tune. Maybe you remember singing it.
Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.
Smiling to myself, I thought about all the people who’d donated the food and money that made it possible for me to help that family. I often describe my job as being a “generosity coordinator” bringing donors together with needs and midwifing their generosity forth into the world. But today I realized, in a very small way, I’d also played a small part in that Divine Choreography, that beautiful dance of difference and unity, which is the very love which brought everything that is into being.
Not bad work if you can get it.
