Homeless and Hospitality

Last night I did Street Pastors. In all honesty, I didn't want to go out. Staying at home or going to MOSH both seemed far more appealing. Yet, as always, I came away feeling both refreshed and challenged, thankful, yet sad, contemplative of my own actions, and others.

I had a conversation with S, a man whose homeless. J went and get him a cup of coffee while I sat with him chatting. It opened my eyes immensely to what it was like to be homeless. He was bitter cold, hungry, and had nowhere to go. This is all fairly obvious stuff, but the things you kind of forget about are the insults they receive, the fact that people just walk past without saying a word to them, looking in the opposite direction, or avoiding all eye contact with them pretending they've not seen them.

Now, I'm guilty of the above. I frequently walk on by and ignore them or look in the opposite direction, and having talked to S last night I felt genuinely awful about it. He said that he felt some people were just so ignorant towards him, that they just walked on by and didn't say a word to him. He'd say things like 'have a good night' to passers by and get no response. Again, I'm guilty of the above. So the question I raise is what is better, acknowledging them, but not giving money, feeling obliged to give money/buy them a coffee, or just ignore them? After last night, I've realised I can't go on ignoring them. It's hurtful, and no matter how many times homeless people get ignored I can't imagine it hurts any less. It's rejection. No one likes the feeling of rejection do they?

My problem is, what do you do? One could give to a homeless charity and then walk by and greet the people, but then there's guilt and obligation to give to them as an individual. You could buy them a coffee or a big issue...Now I've been guilty of buying more than one of the same big issue before now off different vendors because I feel so awful that I've already brought one off the guy down the road that I have to buy another one... so we could end up spending money we just cant really afford to spend... so I'm stuck... anyone got any suggestions?

I guess, I was stuck on this one till today, and it's been something I've been reflecting on a lot throughout the day. I went to a relatively local Cathedral to see what youth provisions they have there, and the guy I was supposed to be meeting didn't turn up. I've got to say I was pretty annoyed. I'd spent an hour on the bus getting there, spent money to get there, given up my only day off this week to get there, just to be told he wasn't there and they couldn't get hold of him. Honestly? I wasn't at all impressed. I was less impressed by the fact the people who I spoke to were so unhelpful and unapologetic. Yes, there's only so much they can do, and no, it wasn't their fault, but they could have welcomed me there, instead of sent me packing knowing I'd just had an hour long journey to be told the person wasn't there. Anyway, I was sat down just getting myself ready to leave and a local URC minister asked me if I wanted to join their shared lunch. A group of people from a URC church down south somewhere had come to visit the Cathedral for the day, and this minister who was from a local URC Church had come to the Cathedral to welcome them, and share lunch with them. He welcomed me, talked to me, and shared his lunch with me. A small gesture, yes? But you know what, it meant the absolute world to me. The fact that everyone had literally turned their back on me, and been most unhelpful genuinely upset me, and disheartened me. Are Christians not meant to be welcoming and hospitable? Yet this one man successfully managed to wipe out all of that I felt. These people I'd never met before fed me. I ate so much food, and it was all from people from churches miles away.

My point is, it takes one tiny gesture to change a persons day. They had huge amounts of food, and letting me share that with them was nothing, and yet to be welcomed in that way, by others who weren't even from that church was immense. Mother Theresa once said:

'What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things.'

In my experience this is so true. Those little things that people do on a frequent basis are so much more important to me than a one of grand gesture.

So maybe, we should not necessarily be thinking about giving half of our money to homeless or, spend huge amounts of money trying to pull off a big event for our young people. Though we can do that it is not always necessary. A simple stopping and talking to, or greeting someone on the streets, buying a homeless person a coffee, or bag of chips, or listening to our young people intently seem to have far more of an impact. It takes so little out of our time to do an act of random kindness yet the amount it touches another person is incredible. That's certainly not to say we should be doing kind things to benefit ourselves, but it is so nice to see other people happy. One small drop can make someones day. That man today made mine, and I think the guy who brought that homeless man a bag of chips yesterday made his. It takes nothing to do that. Nothing.

Think about it eh?