I was going to write about fasting today, but now my covenant group has a new assignment. (OK, full disclosure: I wasn't going to write today at all, but here I find myself with a quiet house and a few minutes before I have to start dinner and the floor already mopped. Yeah, some days I feel more like writing than others.) I actually do feel like writing about something Jen brought up: the idea of ministering to your own neighbors.
It's been bugging me that I am, as someone trying to follow Jesus, supposed to be visiting, feeding, and clothing the poor. I participate in Third Tuesday suppers to the extent possible given my other obligations. I donated my cucumbers. I've baked desserts. On the rare non-band third Tuesday, I have really enjoyed volunteering. I donate clothes to rummage sale twice a year. (Hmm. Somehow, I never run out of clothes.) But the truth is (ugh, how stupid and immature this sounds) I don't know any truly poor people. The truth also is that I don't do much to remedy that, so shame on me for that. Leaving aside the fact that I ought to make it my business to associate with the poor, let's consider how I should minister to the rich, who happen to be my actual physical neighbors, not in the sense of the "Good Samaritan" parable, but in the sense of the people who I see and talk to on a regular basis. Because here's something important: Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. God has some miracles to work amongst us, and since I'm hanging around here not doing much ministering to the poor, I might as well give him a hand.
But how? Is it harder to minister to a rich person than a poor one? The rich people do not need me. I have nothing that they do not have bigger and better and more stylish already.
I wonder if ministering to the rich can be accomplished by showing them life otherwise. To use a secular example, I walk or bike my daughter to and from preschool. When, a few years ago, I started doing this with my son, I was the only one. I walked him to school when I was nine months pregnant. I walked him to school two days before giving birth, and the only reason I didn't wallk him to school the day I gave birth was that there was no school. And people looked at me funny. I enjoyed the walks, but I did not enjoy being a spectacle. I was that one who.... Then I walked my son to school with my newborn in a stroller, days after giving birth. I had to switch to driving when the weather conditions were not suitable for a stroller or infant, but otherwise, we walked to and from every day. Most days, I was the only one. But I did have a few conversations with a few moms who said, "Hmm. I should...." And a couple of moms did a couple of times. Often they were too rushed and the car was easier. One woman, though, several times drove to her mom's house, which was between my house and the preschool and joined me, walking her daughter, her baby, and her dog. It was quite a parade. Yes, it was a hassle, but I think everyone liked it anyway. And who knows but that we didn't make a little difference? Three years later, here I am walking my daughter to preschool every day and biking to pick her up. And, wondrously, most days, I'm not the only one. Granted, the day we walked to school in the drizzle (it was not very cold and we really wanted to use the rarely-enjoyed umbrella anyway,) we were the only ones walking. But I wonder: did some moms look out their car windows and think, "Oh, I could have...." I suspect most were not tempted, but I also suspect that most, had they tried it, would have had a good time, as my daughter and I did.
It's a silly example, but cannot anything we do mindfully become a witness to the Teacher who shapes our hearts? If someone were to ask me why I walk my daughter to school in the rain or (I hope) snow, I could say, "I enjoy it," and that would be true. But I could also say, "It's my way of enjoying the gift of the weather," or "It's one little way I take care of creation," or "I remember as I walk the people for whom walking is the only option."
I do this with being vegetarian. Yes, I do believe that vegetarianism, done well, is a healthy lifestyle. But that lifestyle probably doesn't include cookies. Lean meat is probably more healthy, really, than some of the desserts I allow myself daily. And so, when people ask about being vegetarian, which they always do, I try to explain that I do it as an acknowledgement that the way meat is produced and consumed in our society is just not fair. It hurts the planet, it hurts the animals (which is worse than killing and eating them, in my opinion,) and most importantly, it distributes our resources in such a way that someone must starve for me to enjoy a barbecue. If I were eating meat, I would be using grain that could feed people to feed my food and letting the people go hungry. Does one person not eating meat solve that problem? I'll admit that it probably does not. But it's how I make a little difference in my own kitchen, which is where I spend a lot of my time. And, I hope, it ministers to the rich just a little bit. Or at least witnesses. Yes, we may be fortunate, but remember, all you meat-eating, SUV-driving, smartphone-addicted rich people, that most of the world does not (because they cannot) live as you do.
These are things I do and things which take up a fair amount of my time, both in execution and in planning and preparation. And yet they are small. I am thinking, however, that there are more such things that could be done, or at least named.
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