Just part of the background?

     When I moved to Houston, I saw them everywhere.At every stoplight on the frontage roads that run along the hundreds of miles of interstates here. At major intersections. At mall and shopping center parking lots.
      Dirty hand-lettered cardboard placards.

      HOMELESS VETERAN
      NOT ON DRUGS
      CAN'T FIND WORK
      PLEASE HELP

      Legless men slouched in wheelchairs. Women crouched on the concrete sidewalks. Grubby. Grimy. Hopeless.

     CAR BROKE DOWN
     HAVE KIDS TO FEED
     PLEASE HELP
     GOD BLESS YOU

     Sometimes you see family groups, couples with babies and kids out baking in the pitiless Texas sunshine. Even a scroungy dog once or twice. When the light turns red and the four lanes of traffic stop, they look at the drivers, trying to make eye contact, come over with an open hand or a tin soup can held out. I don't know how they decide which cars are the best bet, who to concentrate on, but I have learned the rules for drivers:
    Keep your eyes ahead of you, keep your windows up, don't make eye contact, don't acknowledge what is going on. Wear dark sunglasses to be safe, to make sure you don't have to tell a scraggly beggar "no" straight to his or her face. Better to look busy, study your radio dial like you're trying to tune in a hard-to-find -station.

     After a while, I stop noticing them. Houston is a large city, over 6 million, so it has a huge population of hungry and homeless and destitute, the beggars and the desperately poor. Being confronted with beggars every day, at every redlight, causes "sympathy exhaustion".
   
     How can you give to every hand that is opened to you?
     How can you make a distinction between those who really are in need and those who are working a system?
     How can you give to only those who "deserve" charity?
     How can I be so arrogant to think it is my decision as to who deserves charity and who doesn't?

     There are some "professional" beggars, I know. I've seen them coming in for a day's work, "clocking in" to work the system. Noticing that I often see the same people at the same intersections, that there seems to be a huge group of constant beggars, is a way to tell myself I'm not being uncharitable and hard-hearted to all those grimy ragged people. If I tell myself that some of them are gaming the system, parking their cars out of sight and then gimping pitifully all the way to today's "jobsite", that makes it easier to deny what I see.
    The poor are always with us, past, present, and future. There have always been those who by necessity or by choice or by social class are beggars. Why am I so inclined to callously dismiss as undeserving someone who begs everyday, who makes his or her way in the world by the support of others, and instead favor another who is in a temporary tight spot and just needs minor assistance?
    When I sit and really consider it in the light of faith, I have a hard time feeling good about making judgements and decisions about other people. Salvation by God's grace is offered freely to all who ask for it, regardless of merit, and we are all unworthy of it through our own actions . Since I myself have fallen upon God's heavenly mercy, how can I even consider deciding that I can withhold my own earthly mercy from one who asks for it because he or she just doesn't "deserve" it?
     Can I? How can I turn my eye, roll up my window, keep on going with no response of love at all? How can I take the love with which I have been redeemed and blessed, just keep it all selfishly inside me rather than loosing a mighty torrent of hope and love and charity to touch the lives of everyone I know, all whom I meet?  If I am supposed to be living a transformed life, why can't I even give a dollar or two when asked?

   Of all that is said about charity and generosity and transformation in the Bible, a lot is subject to interpretation. Parables, Psalms, Pauline Epistles, all are prone to be seen in one light or another. But you know who is plainspoken and as clear as day? Jesus.
    Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. (Matthew 5:42). This comes from the Beatitudes, and says nothing about giving only to those who deserve help. A couple of verses later, as a matter of fact, after the uncomfortable command to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Jesus says the reason is  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.( Matthew 5:45-46).
     So just as God makes his sun to rise and his rain to fall on everyone regardless of merit, so are we commanded to give freely to those who beg from us, and love even our enemies.
      In other words, on earth as it is in Heaven.

      On Earth as it is in Heaven. Has a ring about it, doesn't it? Hmmmm, where have I heard that before?

     So every time I pass by one of these beggars with outstretched hands and pleading eyes, I have to treat him or her as another of God's blessings to me, a stark, humbling, and uncomfortable accusation that I am not practicing the radical, uncompromising love and obedience that Christ demands. Every instance is an opportunity for me to repent of my selfishness and willfulness, to break my prideful heart of stone in exchange for a heart of flesh as promised in Ezekiel.
     So I pray that I continue to feel ripped apart when I ignore these whom Christ termed "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine". As long as I feel this raw nerve inside, it means I am still trying and still growing.

   "They also will answer ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’   (Matthew 25 44-45)

Making my mind up

     In this state of suspended animation the last couple of years in Texas, I've been in a holding pattern. Waiting for inspiration to hit me. Looking for answers.

    It made a lot of sense for me to put on the stay-at-home-dad hat when we moved out here. Stacey often works long hours, based around what projects must go out immediately to meet clients' expectations, and with us knowing nobody out here when we moved from Alabama, someone needed to hold down the fort at home. Not just cooking and cleaning, although that is critically important. How about arranging doctor and dentist appointments? Dogs to the vet? Paying bills? Auto maintenance? Planning trips? Travelling back and forth to bring Marley out here in the summer? How about going to North Carolina for a month last summer to hang out with my father-in-law in the hospital so his wife could return to work?

     It's been a busy time.

     But I found there is only so much cooking and cleaning and organizing I can do before I start holding conversations with the dogs.
     And answering myself in what I imagine to be dog voices.
     Yep, that bad.

     So last fall I answered the call for bus drivers, to enable all the routes to have drivers, to make sure all the kids get a ride to school. It has been an interesting year, indeed, of memorizing 150 kids' names and faces and enough information to tell them apart, of reading route maps in the pitch-black 5:45 morning as I rumble from stop to stop, of sweating and burning in 100-degree weather in an un-airconditioned metal tube. Learning to glance hurriedly in the mirror to make sure no one is standing, throwing trash, or bullying someone else, all this while navigating through traffic that darts in front of a bus with little respect for the inertia of a 14-ton vehicle. I can tell you, air brakes can stop a bus quickly.
     What a year! I have been astounded, amused, frustrated, and mystified daily. Charmed, moved, and touched by my students' different perspectives on the world we both see through the same front windows.

      Some people see the hand of God in everything, leading and guiding us to proper decisions and commitments once we learn to open up to inspiration. Maybe I have felt the hand of God guiding me the last year.
     Maybe sometimes I've felt it pushing me. A shove, even.

     I've finally listened, opened my heart to where I am heading. Driving a bus was the final piece of the puzzle, to assure me that I do have a rapport with schoolkids, that I can listen and respond and lead and discipline and relate to them every day.

     So I am returning to school next semester, my goal to become a teacher. Looking back, it seems my most satisfying jobs all contained elements of teaching and coaching and training and directing people. Of learning to find the knack of motivating people different from myself. I like to tell myself it has all been leading me to this.

     At any rate, in this month of giving thanks, I am very thankful for all the kids who ride my bus. Very thankful for the little triumphs. Very thankful for the failures which pushed me to reset my preconceptions and look at things a different way. Most thankful for the times I've been cheered or gobsmacked or had my heart and thoughts wrenched by a sudden epiphany.

      Thanks, kids. I appreciate all those miles with you so far, here's to many more the rest of the year.