Once a month I have the opportunity to staff a soup kitchen in a nearby church. I will go there in the morning and make two large cauldrons of beef stew, which at noontime are ladled out to the (mostly) homeless people who come there for lunch. There used to be a hundred or so at lunch; nowadays there are about twice that number, and more all the time.
I always wonder about myself if I expect a change in the behavior of these people as a kind of recompense for the effort we are all putting in to feed them. For those of you who haven’t seen the play or movie of the Shaw work, “Major Barbara,” there is a lot of discussion of what the Salvation Army or do-gooders generally expect in return when they ladle out the stew.
In reflecting on this question, I began to realize that the real opportunity for transformation does not apply to the relationship between the dispenser of sustenance and the person standing there with an empty plate. The real change came for me when I looked to one side or another of myself, standing there at the long table, and I realized that I had entered into a new kind of bond with the other people that were trying to do good work.
Aaminah’s recent article in the Crescent Times presents a simple and varied template for actions that we might take to help people in need. If people from different faith backgrounds can stand side by side, obeying the more comprehensive imperative to feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the lonely, comfort the afflicted, perhaps the apparent distinctions between the religions will blur, and evaporate like a mist. I certainly hope so.
One of the most distressing things to me about the conflict in Gaza is the way that all the power appears to be in one set of hands. The owners of these hands say: “We have the right to build walls. You may not leave the enclosure of these walls without our permission. Now that some of your number have lobbed weapons over the walls at us, we will lob more weapons (a lot more) back. We know some bystanders will be hit. So be it. When the time comes we will stop with the lobbing and let some relief agencies come to you. We are so compassionate, we will allow our own relief agencies to come and relieve you. We are compassionately conservative.”
In their assertion of control over who, and what, and when the relief will be extended, they harm their own souls, and prevent themselves from standing side by side with others who obey the higher imperative, the imperative of mercy.
