Bring the HUMANITY Back

Chris, one of our board members, and I have been talking a lot lately about the homeless people we serve “not feeling human”.

This morning I spoke at the conclusion of Greenville College’s “Shak-A-Thon”, which is an event where students go “homeless” for about 36 hours, fasting along the way. This was a cold, wet two-day period for these kids to do this. Some ducked into basements to sleep somewhere dry – some toughed it out.

As we wrapped up the event, we asked them to share their experiences.

Students were encouraged to panhandle for donations, which would be used to benefit the Dirty Roots Revolution.

A group of students went to IGA to ask for money by the door. Their spokesman was impacted by peoples’ facial expressions and body language as they approached the door, knowing these “beggars” were going to ask for money.

One young man talked about how people walked a wide path around him to avoid walking near him as he sat on Scott field. These were people who knew him from class! They knew he wasn’t truly homeless. But his appearance and very presence made them feel uncomfortable.

I told them this is how our homeless friends in St. Louis feel every single day. When the GC students were sad and downhearted at these experiences, they knew that within hours, they’d go back to their warm dorm, shower, computer, and food. Our homeless friends stay where they are. They have those experiences every day.

And as sad as ONE experience made the GC students feel – multiply the number of experiences by infinity and you’ll have infinite more sadness, felt by the victim.

I say victims because they are. Victims of facial expressions and body language. Victims of people walking across the street to avoid them. The dictionary defines victim as “a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency”. These destructive behaviors – scowling, ignoring, avoiding – are voluntarily done by us TO the homeless people in question. They may make bad decisions. They may do things you don’t agree with. But, in this case, they ARE victims.

Jesus never put anyone through a “destructive or injurious action”. Even if they were doing bad things.

My original point, though, is that these experiences – when felt innumerable times – “de-humanize” people. As Chris and I have been saying lately: They don’t feel human anymore.

One of my great heroes, the punk rock prophet Joe Strummer, has a great quote that speaks to this:
“People can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. People are running about following their little tracks – I am one of them. But we’ve all got to stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything. This is something that I’m beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other. It’s because they’re being dehumanized. It’s time to take the humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed ain’t going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you’re nothing.”

People are doing bad things to each other because they’re being dehumanized.

Twice in the last three weeks I’ve seen news stories about women who were attacked – one was an elderly lady who was car jacked, the other a middle aged woman who was working at a check-cashing store and was robbed. They cried and prayed. And their softness impacted their would-be assailants. They talked with these men who were threatening them. They prayed. In one case the man thanked the little old lady and kissed her cheek before walking away. In the other case, the man emptied the bullets from his gun and left them with the lady. He took $20 but later turned himself in.

Those ladies HUMANIZED those men. The men were desperate. They had nowhere to turn and no one to turn to. No one to talk to. No one to make them feel human. To tell them that they have value.

Every life has value. Every single one. Homeless people and rich people. Teetotalers and drunks. Robbers and victims. Highly-educated people and those without education. Every life matters.

We are not called to judge – we are called to love. To show Christ.

To humanize people.

If we do what Joe Strummer suggests…”bring the humanity back to the center of the ring”, I think things will happen.

We’ll see the importance of these situations. We’ll have faces to go with “issues”. And that will motivate us.

Americans are good at responding to crises. Katrina. The tsunami. 9-11. We responded right away. And in force. With money. With supplies. Prayers. Volunteer time. Work. Missions trips.

Yet people are hungry, homeless, uneducated. Those aren’t “crises”. Well, they are, but they don’t get immediate and huge attention. We hear about them continually, but we get used to it. Katrina was immediate. The need was immediate. The end was in sight. “If we get them some money, food, and shelter, they’ll be OK. It won’t take forever.”

There is no end in sight for homelessness and poverty and hunger. We’re discouraged from throwing all of our resources and effort into that situation. We don’t know how long it’ll last.

Come with us on Saturday and meet Brad, a beautiful three-year old homeless boy with developmental issues and one of the most amazing smiles on the planet….Then I’ll bet it’s a crisis for you.

It changes you.

There’s a crisis going on. There are a lot of them, actually.

But there are a lot of us, too. Lots of people claim the name “Christian”.

Still more claim to want the world to be a better place.

We can all make an impact. We can all make a difference. I don’t believe God, in His infinite wisdom, put a certain number of us down here and then made sure that the troubles outnumbered and outweighed us.

Maybe if we each just did what we could. Used what resources we had. Took advantage of each unique opportunity that presents itself to us. Maybe then, we’d cover it all.

Maybe.

I dunno.

But I do know, without a single doubt, that everything you do matters. Every single, tiny, insignificant thing. Every big thing, too. (But there are more little ones than big)

And I know every single life matters. Every. One.

Let’s make a difference.