Lucky Man... Now and Then: Homeless visitor at stake conference

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Homeless visitor at stake conference

Today was stake conference, and through a series of events, I ended up listening in the foyer. It was an enlightening experience. I encountered a whole subculture those in the chapel most likely didn't know existed. A few mentally challenged individuals roved the halls filled with nursing mothers, rebellious chatty teen girls, coughing old men, and jubilant little kids running away from their mothers.

Perhaps the most interesting event was to watch the interaction or lack thereof with a homeless man who wandered the halls with a large hard-sided suitcase. One man spoke with him, some nervously smiled, some turned away, most just ignored him. I thought it was ironic that a counselor in the stake presidency was speaking about what it means to be Christian as many found it hard to show Christ-like love to this man.

I examined my own sentiments. Through my mind ran the name of a Facebook group I follow called "Empathy First." What level of empathy did I have toward this man? Would I be a doer of the word and not just a hearer? I admit that I felt a bit uncomfortable. I thought about the two empty bedrooms in my home. Thoughts then went to my wife and daughter. Would it be safe to invite him there? For a while, I did nothing - just observed.

As he walked around the corner out of sight, I finally found the courage to follow after him and speak with him. He said he was waiting to talk with one of the bishops who had helped him before. We spoke briefly. I gave him the little money I had in my wallet and walked away, feeling some level of comfort that he would likely receive additional help from the bishop.

To a large degree, I failed him, but I'm grateful to have at least minimally acted upon my desire to help this man. Next time I'll do better.

3 comments:

AWILTAGM said...: You haven't failed anyone. Monetary items are just that. You had the courage to talk him, to appreciate his circumstance and know that the bishop would help his needs further. You treated him as a Christian man should with dignity. People just want to be treated as human, and when you had a conversation with him, you treated him as being human. You probably had more of impact then you realize.; December 5, 2011 at 12:07 PM
J G-W said...: Homelessness frightens us because it confronts us with such fundamental issues of human worth and justice, and also individual and collective responsibility. Someone in that situation has huge needs that can seem overwhelming. It's not like you can solve this person's problem with a handout. (Though the scriptures would suggest that it's never inappropriate to alleviate a person's immediate suffering through short term sharing!)

When people end up homeless, it's usually the end result of a whole bunch of failures, both personal and collective... It could be the result of mental illness or substance abuse or a broken home or a recession that just won't end or a health crisis or just good old fashioned bad luck. Only the last cause is relatively easy to address with long-term success. Most of the other causes of homelessness require systemic changes in order to solve the root problem...

So when a homeless person wanders into the foyer of a Church (and it happens in my ward frequently, as we're an inner city ward in a major metropolitan area), we're confronted with something that can feel really overwhelming.

It's worth noting that homeless people frequently go to churches to find help... That says something in itself. I agree with AWILTAGM that if you were friendly and kind, and if you did what you could to direct this person to someone who actually can help (in LDS wards, that would be the bishop, who can help individuals access the church welfare system as appropriate), you've done your job in that situation...

Apart from that... Give generous fast offerings! Volunteer at a food shelf or a homeless shelter once in a while! And include consideration of the big systemic issues when considering candidates for public office!; December 6, 2011 at 1:36 PM
The Impossible K said...: You're so modest... I wish I could even have the courage to do that, but being a die-hard introvert makes such random encounters very difficult. And what more could you do? Do you look back and realize there was something more you could have said or done? I think we all face that feeling of inadequacy at times, but the mere fact you recognize it reflects what an amazing, Christlike person you are :); December 7, 2011 at 1:01 AM

Quotes and Thoughts I Enjoy

“The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”  - John Ruskin

“Do the things you used to talk about doing but never did. Know when to let go and when to hold on tight. Stop rushing. Don't be intimidated to say it like it is. Stop apologizing all the time. Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph. Spend time with the friends who lift you up, and cut loose the and cut loose the ones who bring you down. Stop giving your power away. Be more concerned with being interested than being interesting. Be old enough to appreciate your freedom, and young enough to enjoy it. Finally know who you are."

-Kristin Armstrong

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Albert Einstein

“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

- Norman MacEwan (1881-1953

“There is no effect more disproportionate to its cause than the happiness bestowed by a small compliment. ”- Robert Brault

‎"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." - John Milton

"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." -- Susanna Wesley (Mother of John & Charles Wesley) Letter, June 8, 1725

‎"We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it." John Newton

‎"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these." ~Lloyd Shearer

“To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy. ” - Robert Louis Stevenson

‎"When we work from a place I believe that says, 'I'm enough,' then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves."
-Brené Brown

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence - Frederick Douglas

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

“Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.” -James Freeman Clarke

Gratitude: “...begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. (It) is said to be the memory of the heart” President Joseph F. Smith

Where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be. Wherever the wound appears in our psyches, whether from an alcoholic father, shaming mother, shaming father, abusing mother, whether it stems from isolation, disability, or disease, that is precisely the place from which we will give our major gift to the community. -Robert Bly

“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.” -Lewis B Smedes

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” -Vaclav Havel

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live
your life so that when you die, the world cries and you
rejoice." Kabir

‎"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self." Aristotle

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
Henry David Thoreau

"All honest work is the work of God." D Todd Christofferson

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome,  and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life." -Derek Walcott

"I can't change the world, but I can change me, and I will." Bravone

“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.” -Saint Augustine

“What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The most beautiful people we have know are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful ...people do not just happen." ~~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"In the world it is easy to live after the world's opinions, and in solitude it is easy to live after one's own. But the great one is he, who in the midst of a crowd, can keep with a perfect sweetness of solitude."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” —Alfred D. Souza

“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” —Nelson Mandela

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” —Albert Pike

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman

"When in doubt check it out. When I've been offended, or think I may have been misunderstood, the best resolution has always come by letting the dust settle, and then, with calm and clarity, talking directly with the individual involved." - Bravone

“Patience is a kind of love. A love that is its own explanation in bewildered circumstance. It is an old, old woman placing a wrinkled-parchment hand against the cheek of a reckless child. Because her heart is too wise to make room for reproach. Too full to find place for offense. ” —Pavithra Mehta

"Faith is something greater than ourselves that enables us to do what we have said we'll do, to press forward when we are tired, hurt or afraid, to keep going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is entirely uncertain."

- Gordon B. Hinckley

"He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” —Vernon Sanders Law

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." -- Mother Teresa

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can can start from now and make a brand new ending." Anon

People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
People may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and
some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis.
it is between you and God;
It is never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” —Helen Keller

“The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn't need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas.” —Abe Tannenbaum

“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.” —Alex Tan

“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” -- Elisabeth Foley

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

"I did not find the world desolate when I entered it. As my ancestors planted for me before I was born, so do I plant for those who will come after me". - The Talmud

“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.” —The 14th Dalai Lama

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." ~ C.S. Lewis

“Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.” —Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924)

The greatest gift I will ever give myself is a life of moral purity.
Bravone

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is sacrificing what we want most, for what we want at the moment. Anon.

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God... and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we came here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father an Mother in Heaven.

Orson F. Whitney