H2 Helper

Happy New Year! Weclome, 2012!

2012-01-01T10:20:00.001-08:00

Wishing one and all a blessed 2012, which has dawned bright and sunny here in San Ignatio. Along with it has arrived my first decision of the new year: whether or not to take revenge on Donnie.

As usual, Donnie and I had made plans to welcome in the new year with a mini-party. Some champagne. A few snacks. And Doah.

As usual, I feel asleep and became nigh onto comatose around 10:30. Doah lasted another hour, then toddled off to bed, emerging, according to Donnie, around 12:30 in the morning, like a groundhog on Feb. 2, saw his shadow, and scurried back to the bedroom.

As for me, I never did wake up. Donnie, ever the photographer -- and, in this case, as is typical of our New Year's eve celebrations, the lone celebrant -- took a picture of me zonked out on the couch and pasted it on Facebook. Of course, that brought it a lot of comments!

Now, he is sleeping in after all his heavy partying, and I am wide awake, greeting the sunny day and new year. Doah is dancing about, demanding breakfast, and I am ever so tempted to take a picture of Donnie, zonked out in bed, and paste it on Facebook!

Happy days and interesting decisions, my friends, I wish you in 2012!

(note: image from stunningmesh.com -- it stunned me; hope you like it)

Merry Christmas! God Bless Everyone!

2011-12-24T17:54:00.001-08:00

Since I do not blog on Sundays, I will post a Christmas message tonight, Christmas eve. Plans? With all the kids having flown from the nest a decade ago, Donnie and I will be having our Christmas eve dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, run by Korean, prior to midnight Mass, which is at 10:30 this evening. (It finishes at midnight, so the name is not entirely misleading.)

As he does every year, Finnegan, our priest's cat, has wandered from the cold into the warmth of the manger. Both he, and Sula, are parish cat, take turns sleeping in the manger. Sometimes they share it.

Sharing warm Christmas wishes with all! May God bless each one of you tomorrow and all days of this happy season!

Two Anti-Hunger Websites for the Holidays

2011-12-10T00:29:00.000-08:00

As the holidays -- and all the yummy treats that most of us will be eating -- approach, I wanted to share with readers of my blogs two wonderful sites that help those who may not be feeling full during the holidays, or any time during the year for that matter.

The first site, No Kid Hungry, is fledgling group with a good objective: www.nokidhungry.org. The leaders of the movement are asking visitors to their site to take a pledge to reach this goal by 2015.

The other site has been around for years (at least ten years) and does wonderful work: www.thehungersite.com, and I posted about it on H2Helper a while back. This site can be visited every day, and just by spending 2-3 minutes at the site, without any investment other than time, you can help feed hungry children worldwide, contribute to saving the rain forests, help autism research, promote literacy, support veterans, and help abandoned animals -- it is an amazing site.

Happy holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T13:24:00.000-08:00

I have no intention of spending Thanksgiving Day at a computer. In fact, I have all kinds of other plans, but I did want to wish all readers a happy -- and tasty -- day. As for me, I have a guest (friend) from Washington, DC, who has been here all week with me. Doah and I intend to attend the Thanksgiving Mass in the morning, then our whole family will go over to the community dinner that is sponsored by our parish. I think it is a bit unique. Every year the entire community (our town has only a little over 1000 people, including children) is invited to a free Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant-like building that our parish owns. Those who have cooking talent provide the food. Others serve or clean up. Since I have absolutely no cooking talent, my family and I serve on the clean-up crew. Every year hundreds eat for free -- rich and poor alike (and together). It is a great way to spend Thanksgiving!

However you spend your Thanksgiving, I hope it will be a day to remember and a day for which you find yourself grateful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T10:15:00.001-08:00

A Great Beginning

2011-10-25T17:02:00.001-07:00

On the way to work last Friday morning, I stopped off at the local 7-11 store to pick up some flowers for employees to celebrate their recent accomplishment. As I was looking at the flowers, I saw a mother and her young son (perhaps age 7) walking out of the store and overheard their conversation.

Son: "I really don't like this breakfast sandwich."
Mother: "I know you don't, but it was the cheapest one, and you need something."
Son: "OK. I really wanted the other one."
Mother: "The other one costs 71 cents more, and I only have another quarter."
Son: "It's okay, Mom. I can eat this one."

The store owner/manager overheard the conversation, too, and called out to the couple, "Ma'am, please come back. I will sell you the other sandwich for 25 cents."

The mother and son came back. The exchange was made, with smiles all around. Then, saying good-bye, the mother and son left the store.

As the door swung shut, the little boy put his foot in it, turning around, and called out to the owner/manager in a loud voice, "THANK YOU!"

I think everyone in the store that morning experienced a great beginning to their day.

Believer in Waiting

2011-10-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

My second spiritual book is out! The title, as you can see, is A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God. I will try to post some excerpts here from time to time. (Actually, I have already posted some excerpts from the draft on my Modern Mysticism blog.) The first set of books will be going to reviewers who signed up with Library Thing, but I notice that Amazon has been quick off the start and already has it available for ordering. I hope that anyone who reads either the book or the excerpts will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. It was one of those books that seems to write itself. I do hope to have copies of my own in about a week, at which time I will host a book coming out party for local friends who read the prepublication manuscript and provided feedback. If you read it, I would love to hear your feedback!!

(And, yes, there are a few stories in the book related to H2 Helper topics.)

Chernobyl Children's Project

2011-08-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

One of the first pieces I posted on Mahlou Musings was about Peter Volkovich from Belarus. I have repeated it below since links sometimes break. I was reminded about it recently when I came across a site, Children of Chernobyl, sponsored by a non-profit agency, founded after the Cold War to help the children Peter, I, and others were struggling to help during the end of the Soviet Union days. The work, begun by Peter, who, I fear, is no longer among the living since that would make him more than 100 years old now, has been taken over by a group of people, led by a Catholic priest, Louis Vuitton, who has become well known for his social activism. I found it thrilling to learn that more people are now involved and more children are now being helped. (For pictures of Chernobyl today, here is one site to visit: Chernobyl Today: Creepy Story. Be prepared to feel some sadness as the reality of a city devastated and abandoned is revealed.)

Here is the original post:

I met Pyotr Volkovich, the vice-president of the Peace Committee of the former Soviet Republic of Belarus in Minsk, in 1989. He was clearly a man with a mission: to improve his community, that community being the greater part of Belarus, which had suffered severely from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in nearby Ukraine.

While I was there, he gave me a description and history of the problem in the area and a list of medical supplies and equipment needed to care for the ill children, nearly 25% of whom had died from cancer after the reactor accident, many more of whom are now ill, and all of whom remain at risk from the irradiated soil and the food grown in it. I published that article in an international journal I edited, hoping that perhaps something would come of it. However, I did not follow up.

I met Peter again a year later when he was the keynote speaker at an International Rotary Convention in Portland, Oregon. Although I was only there by incidental invitation related to establishing a school exchange program, Pyotr said that from the moment he reached American soil at Kennedy Airport, even though he did not see me anywhere along the way, including upon arrival in Portland, he nonetheless knew that I would be there. I am convinced that this kind of confidence alone was enough to influence the events in his life.

I probably paid more attention to his speech than I otherwise might have because when he was introduced to the audience, instead of turning to his official interpreter, he asked me to do the interpretation from Russian into English for him. He gave one of the most brilliant speeches about the need for peace that I have ever heard. At what appeared to be the end of the speech, he presented the Rotary Foundation with the serial plate (framed in plastic) of the last surface-to-surface missile disassembled under the SALT Treaty. After hefty applause had died down, instead of leaving the stage, he continued with a very disconcerting phrase, "vokrug mira est' kolyakola..." (all around the world are bells). Bells was the only meaning I knew for the world, kolyakola, but I was hesitant to interpret it that way since the concept of bells made no sense in the given context, but I had no choice. Pyotr then continued, and everything made beautiful sense and left me and others with a lasting emotional response to his words: "They are big bells, warning of pending nuclear disaster. I did not, however, bring you a big bell. I brought you a small bell. [Here he took a tiny bell from his pocket and jingled it.] To hear this bell, you need the silence of peace."

The beginning of Pyotr's speech had focused on the serious medical needs of the Belarusan children, so our second meeting resulted in my sending information about the situation to medical circles in various places. Again, bad Samaritan that I was, I did not follow up but simply hoped that there would be interested parties who would contact Pyotr, and apparently some did.

Three years later when I again met Pyotr in Minsk, he had managed to arrange for the children from Gomel and other affected regions in Belarus to go to Germany for the summer, away from the radiation that daily accumulated to ever higher concentrations in their bodies. Although I was there for very different reasons (as a consultant to the Academy of Science textbook writers on the development of new K-12 and university textbooks in a variety of disciplines), he greeted me as if I were a long-time friend and fellow activist and excitedly told me about the medical equipment that the Peace Committee had received in the last 3-4 years from many different countries, saying "We consider this a result of your actions."

I was one of the few outsiders at that time to whom Pyotr had had access. However, I had never followed up on anything, so I could not honestly take credit for anything. Nonetheless, Pyotr pressed his gratitude on me.

That time I did help a little more actively. I gave the Peace Committee a monetary donation from my institutions, a rather hefty one, in fact, that we should not have been able to afford, but miraculously we ended up with a sum of money from our Russian operations that we had to somehow leave in Russia/Belarus. What better recipient could we have had than the Belarus Peace Committee?!

Like one person alone, one donation alone was not enough to make much difference. However, Pyotr knew that monetary contributions grow geometrically when they are combined, just as the combined results of people's efforts is greater than the sum of the parts. He put our contribution together with a contribution from an organization in Germany, and that allowed the Peace Committee to move 52 families from a highly irradiated area around Gomel to a newly built and relatively safe village not far from Minsk.

Pyotr knew all about getting anyone to do anything for him and be happy about it. I am sure that each individual was treated in similar ways. My ability to help was limited, but there were others who could and did help more. Pyotr treated all of us as if we were miracle makers when it was he who made the miracles happen.

I have not seen Pyotr since. In 1995, he retired from the Peace Committee, but he continued to work very hard behind the scenes for some years.

If you were to meet Pyotr, he would surprise you. Barely five feet tall and well past seventy when I first met him, he seemed seven feet tall and 30 years old as he talked about saving his land and his people. His eyes sparkled with the energy of someone much younger. His intensity and enthusiasm would move anyone to help him save his beloved Belarus.

The Pyotrs of this world can get anyone to do anything because they have a clear and altruistic goal and undauntedly tread toward it, regardless of obstacles. In such cases, everyone wants to help, and everyone feels good about helping. As for God, in addition to obviously facilitating some of those miracles, such as the inflow of medical equipment and the sudden appearance of hundreds of dollars in my institute's coffers that had to be used in Belarus, I think that Pyotr must have been one of His favorite instruments. After all, Pyotr proved that he could spread the good just as quickly as God could deliver it!

----------------

Peter's story is excerpted and adapted from a story I published in a collection of vignettes, copyright 2003.

Enroute to Help the Philippinos

2011-08-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Posted on the Army of Martyrs is this plea to help those who are helping others:

My brother, Steve, and his wife Katy, are on a plane to the Philippines as I write this post. They will be landing in Manila shortly. This is their second visit to Manila and they have decided that God is calling them to work with my charity, the Philippine Aid Society by fighting the extreme poverty in the Philippines.

Of course, they will be taking a big step down as far as living conditions in their move from suburban America to the urban Metro-Manila. This is a sacrifice that they have decided to make in order to serve the less fortunate.

Steve, assisted by Katy, will take on the role of "Program Coordinator" for the duration of their five month stay in the Philippines. For the first two months, they will operate a soup kitchen. From there, we have not yet decided the next plan of action. Our hope is to purchase a suitable facility for a more permanent structure where we can provide food and shelter for the neediest Filipinos. We will need financial resources to do this and will begin looking into grant opportunities in the near future.

We can use your help. If you have a blog, just posting a link to our website would be helpful. If you could consider a donation, even a small amount of money goes a long way in the Philippines. We're also on Goodsearch where you can earn money for our charity (or any charity you select) by searching the internet just as you would on Google. Superdonate is a free program that sells your unused computer power to research organizations and donates the money to a charity of your choice (and we're one of the options!) Also, check us out on Facebook.

Above all, please say a prayer for our small charity if you think about it. Thanks!

If you click on the URL in the lead-in sentence above, you will get to the original post, where there are a number of other links with additional information.

A Final Act of Kindness

2011-08-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

A police officer's random act of kindness was caught on tape last week, just minutes before he was gunned down. 'Today' correspondent Lee Cowan chronicles the touching story of Jeremy Henwood's final good deed. Footage from Henwood's funeral rolls as Cowan reports, "As thousands mourned the loss of San Diego police officer Jeremy Henwood last weekend, a quiet story of kindness began to emerge." Henwood, a Marine, had just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan only to be killed by a petty thief. "As the investigation continued and the eulogies were being written, this surveillance video surfaced," Cowan explains.

In the footage, Henwood waits for his meal at a McDonalds when 13-year-old Damien Tinsley comes up to ask him a question. "I asked him for 10 cents, and he said 'What is the 10 cents for?' And I said 'Three cookies.' And he said, 'Well I could buy the three cookies for you,'" Tinsley recounts. In the security camera footage, Tinsley smiles as the officer chats with him and buys him cookies.

-- from the Internet

Bear Witness to the Light

2011-08-03T23:09:00.001-07:00

One of the blogs on my blogroll has disappeared. Well, disappeared may be the wrong word. The blog is still there, but no posts have been posted in nearly two months. Fr. John Sullivan, Springfield, Massachusetts, posted regularly on his blog, Bear Witness to the Light. He was a kindly priest as I found out in his responses to my occasional comments. After a full month of seeing nothing posted, I became concerned. It did not seem that someone who had posted regularly for seven years would close down a blog without a word. One would expect to at least a final, good-bye post, but Fr. John's last blog was simply a routine post in keeping with his other posts. Something seemed wrong. No matter how I added two and two, I was not getting close to four.

So, I did a little research. After all, in a former life (uh, career), I was a pretty good academic. Therefore, I know how to research. So, off I went in search of one missing priest. And I found him, well, sort of. It turns out that Fr. John was injured by the tornado that flattened Springfield in June. He suffered a separated shoulder and broken leg and required surgery. He will be in a rehabilitation facility for a while.

In addition, St. Michael's Retired Priest Residence, where Fr. John was living, was damaged by the tornado. In fact, a good part of it was reduced to rubble. So, even when Fr. John is released to another residence, there is a likelihood that he will not have a computer for a while. (Of course, this is quite secondary to his health.)

I also tracked down an address where cards can be sent:

Fr. John Sullivan
St Michaels Cathedral Rectory
86 Wendover Rd
Springfield, MA 01118

So, if you happen to also be a reader of Fr. John's blog, you might want to send a card to him! I am going to try to send this information to all his followers -- if I can track down there email addresses. I ask you to pass along the information to any of his blog followers you might know.

Whether or not you know Fr. John, have interacted with him in the blogosphere or not, I would ask you to pray for him. I am sure he can use our prayers!

posted on all Mahlou blogs

God's Love Homeless Shelter

2011-07-02T11:02:00.001-07:00

For a heartwarming story of someone who has been fortunate tirelesslyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif and successfully helping those who are not fortunate read the story of God's Love Homeless Shelter in Helena, Montana. (Helena is not all that far from where our oldest daughter, Lizzie, was born in Hamilton, Montana many years ago. We loved Montana -- good country, God's country, good people, God's people.)

Thanks to Michael Lee McDonald for sharing this link on his Facebook page!

Homeless Man Learns He Is Rich

2011-06-20T01:21:00.000-07:00

Here is some interesting news from national news services. In the event that readers of this blog may not have seen it in spite of the story have received national attention, I am repeating here. It is not every day that someone who has been living on the streets has a fortune that is reversed overnight although many are able to get off the streets through the help of relatives and kind strangers and their own efforts. Any success story, regardless of the source of the success, is worth trumpeting.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A private investigator says he has tracked down a homeless Utah man and delivered some good news: He's inherited a lot of money.

David Lundberg said he found Max Melitzer pushing a shopping cart filled with personal possessions in a Salt Lake City park Saturday afternoon.

Lundberg declined to disclose how much money Melitzer will be receiving, but said the man's brother who died of cancer last year left him a "significant" amount in his will.

"He'll no longer be living on the street or in abandoned storage sheds," he told The Associated Press. "He'll be able to have a normal life, and be able to have a home, provide for himself, and purchase clothing, food and health care."

The story about Lundberg's two-month search for Lundberg has been reported by the Deseret News and KSL of Salt Lake City.

Lundberg said he was hired by the family's New York law firm to locate Melitzer, and some family members plan to meet Melitzer next week in Salt Lake City. He declined to identify them.

Melitzer's family wishes to remain private, and lawyers are deferring questions to Lundberg.

The investigator said he broke the news to Melitzer while they were sitting on a bench at Pioneer Park. While Lundberg said he didn't tell Melitzer how much money he was inheriting, the man was excited.

"He's still in shock. This came out of nowhere," Lundberg said. "He's a really mellow guy in his 60s, very sweet and more articulate than I thought for a man in his position."
Advertisement

Melitzer has been homeless for years and last had mail correspondence with his family in September. But when family members gave him a number to phone, he never called.

Don Hill, house manager at the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, told Lundberg on Friday that he had seen Melitzer near the facility two days earlier.

Hill said he has known the homeless man for four years, and Melitzer stayed at places like the Rescue Mission when he's not roaming between Salt Lake City and Ogden.

"During the summer, I'd imagine, once in a while he'll stay out nights – outside," Hill told the Deseret News.

Earlier this month, a police officer found Melitzer sleeping in a car in an Ogden salvage yard.

Lundberg said Melitzer was taken Saturday to an undisclosed location in Salt Lake City and doesn't want to talk to the media right now. But Lundberg said he would talk to family members about possibly holding a news conference next week.

The investigator said he found Melitzer with the help of a tip. He received about 60 or 70 such calls after news about his search went out Friday.

"Someone called today (Saturday) and said they saw him at Pioneer Park. I thought it was another crazy tip, but sure enough, there he was," Lundberg said.

More on Pandhandling

2011-06-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

This has been a week rich in good posts by various bloggers.

Among these is a beautiful post about a panhandler by Anne Bender (Panhandler) on her blog, Imprisoned in My Bones, which I have listed on my 100th Lamb site as a recommended blog. Her posts and thoughtful and touching. I recommend that you take the time to read Pandhandler, as well as the comment made there by Mary, who describes a remarkable homeless man.

Enjoy!

Memorial Day 2011: Life after War

2011-05-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

I would invite readers to go to the following article, written by a member of Give an Hour. It tells the poignant story of a war veteran, hopelessly lost to drugs and despair, trapped in post-traumatic stress disorder and with few resources to help (most petered out before she could recover). The story seemed too appropriate for Memorial Day not to share. However, since it seems to be copyrighted, I have decided simply to include the link and urge you to take the time to follow the link and read the story; you won't regret it. You can find it here: I Served My Country...and Wound Up Living in My Car The veteran is Jennifer Crane; the author is Lynn Harris. If you can help GAH through a donation or through spreading the world, you will involve yourself in a very worthy cause. Visit the GAH website for more information.

More on God's Credit Card

2011-05-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

note: image copyright Katrin Wegmann (www.katrinwegmann.de)

Last Saturday, I encountered an unexpected situation where I ended up reluctantly using God's credit card to pay for Donnie’s new computer. He had a chance to get 25% off on a new laptop, which he desperately needed since his desktop stopped work a couple of weeks ago and his current laptop is ten years old. He was dead in the water when it came to doing his work, which is graphics consulting. It turned out that he was several hundred dollars short, and the only credit card that had that much money available on it was God’s credit card. I was very reluctant to use it. I do not use it for personal needs, but if we did not use it at this point, Donnie would be without work for a while since we could not afford the regular price and the special deal was available only on Saturday. Sighing, I agreed to use God’s credit card, feeling considerably guilty about it and hoping that we, too, might be considered worthy of God’s financial help.

I mentally calculated the length of time it would take me to pay off the card, and that did not reassure me at all. Then I went to the post office, and in the mail box was a new credit card from USAA, offered because I had spent eight years in the military years ago. The credit line was the same as on God’s credit card, and I would be able to transfer the balance without any interest for a year on Monday. I have now activated the card, transferred the balance, and God has his card back.

That is pretty stunning: God rescued His credit card from my illicit use! I know now that I must keep that card clear for God’s purposes—and people in need are sent my way routinely. If I had had any doubt that this particular credit card belongs to Him (I did not), that doubt would have been entirely erased on Saturday.

The Unusual Power of God's Credit Card

2011-04-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

note: image copyright Katrin Wegmann (www.katrinwegmann.de)

Monday evening Old Mission held a penance service, and I picked up, Rosie, the widow of my recently deceased friend, Jack, who has difficulty walking. Getting to confession is a difficult task for her, so she welcomed this evening opportunity.

As I drove up to her house in the country outside our small town afterward, we saw a tow truck with a vehicle on it, blocking her driveway. She recognized the vehicle as belonging to her unemployed grandson, who lives with her.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "They are repossessing his car. I know he has been having difficulty making car payments. Now he will have no way to get a job."

Rosie also comes to our Tuesday prayer group, and she had been praying for the last few weeks for her grandson, Gary, who had recently lost his job and was experiencing some financial difficulties, including having to move out of his apartment, the reason he was living with her. She had also been praying that George would come to faith.

We found a place nearby to park and got out of the car. I took out Rosie's walker. Gary approached Rosie as she started to walk toward the house.

"Grandma," he asked in a whisper, "Can you help me? My car broke down in a city two hours away where I had gone for a job interview and needed to be towed back here. I think I can fix it, but the tow truck owner won't leave the car unless I pay the towing fee."

"How much?" she asked.

"$185," Gary said, flinching, knowing that Rosie would be angry, mainly because she did not have that kind of money.

"I don't know what to tell you or what to do," she said. "I don't have that much, not here and not in the bank."

Gary was crestfallen -- and worried. "He will have to take the car back with him, then," he said. "I don't know what to do, either."

Having overheard this conversation in spite of Gary's attempt to keep it private, I asked, "Will he take a credit card?"http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

"Yes, he will," answered Gary, "but I don't have a credit card."

"Well, I do," I told him. "I have God's credit card, and it can handle $185."

"Are you sure??" He was stunned.

"I am sure," I told him. "That is the purpose of this card. God will make sure it gets paid off."

With great gratitude, Gary accepted the offer. I sent Rosie into the house, it being cold outside, while Gary, the tow truck driver, and I handled the transaction. Gary thanked me several times, and then I left.

The greater thanks came today, however. Our prayer group gathered at my house for our monthly spiritual movie night. (We watched Gospel Road.) After the movie, we spent some time together, as usual, in prayer, including praying for intentions that had been shared with us.

Rosie had a special intention. "Gary knew I was coming here tonight," she said, "and asked us to pray for his job search to be successful."

Doris, who was on transportation duty for Rosie today, was surprised. "Gary? Really? I thought he did not believe."

"Well," said Rosie, "something seems to have changed."

Yes, indeed, there is something special about God's credit card.

(And today, as I was leaving McDonald's after picking up a drive-through lunch, a young man was holding a card, saying "traveling, broke, hungry." I returned to the parking lot, explained to him I had no cash with me but I did have God's credit card. We went into McDonald's together, and he ordered a meal. We also ordered a meal for a second man, a local homeless one by all appearances, who said "just feed my friend; I don't need anything" (an obviously untrue assertion). Then, just in case, I purchased a gift card and left it with the young man should he be hungry in the future. God's credit card has many uses!)

Welcome, 2011!

2011-01-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a happy new year on the remarkable date of 1/1/11. I managed to get back into an older post and copy out the image. (Where there is a will, there is a way.) I have not been able to peck out as much as I would like on the new book in the past week on this computer, so I am awaiting with great expectancy the return of my own laptop, either repaired or replaced, in a few weeks -- a new start to a new year.

One great thing about Face Book is watching the New Year be embraced in country after country as it approaches our California coastline. We are among the last to welcome the new year, but the advantage to that is we get to enjoy a lot of other celebrations, beginning on the morning of December 31 (which I fortunately had off this year).

As the new year enters, we have had a remarkable change happen. Our little Simone, the feral cat we rescued when we moved nearly two years ago, changed from being aloof and afraid to affectionate. For the last few days, she has been following me everywhere, has nestled beside me on the couch, and has wanted to be petted. I always thought she would domesticate -- I am pretty successful at domesticating feral cats, the key to which is being patient. Two years is a long time to wait, but it looks like at least one little Leaver is entering the new year in great style.

So is Nikolina. She got her leg braces on Tuesday. They are pink! When I am able to post in a normal fashion and add new pictures, I will put a copy of Nikolina in her braces on the right sidebar. In the interim, it is great to see how she likes wearing them and knowing that in a while she will be able to stand and walk. The question asked when she was born in April 2009, will she be able to work, has been answered: Yes, she will!

Wishing a brave new world for all of you in 2011 -- and may it be gentle to you, as well!

A Thought for the Quiet Period

2010-12-27T17:34:00.001-08:00

Since I am reduced to silence for what would appear to be a few weeks, I would like to invite followers to guest post. Just send me a post (elizabeth.mahlou@gmail.com), introducing yourself, your blog if you have one (and a link if you would like), and post about something you would to share. You can re-post something from your blog or talk about something new -- whatever tickles your fancy. Let others get to know you. I think it will be fun for readers to discover who is behind the pictures under the follower list.

Here Yesterday, Gone Today, Back after Several Tomorrows

2010-12-27T10:45:00.001-08:00

Just as I took vacation time to work on my next book, my computer died. This is called Leaver luck; it has happened to us on so many occasions that I was not surprised. You see, Murphy's home is on a cloud right about our house, and whenever we start to feel comfortable with life as it is, he drops some raindrops, hail, blizzard flakes, and the like. The computer repair shop said that the computer was too dead for emergency CPR, so they have to send it to a hospital far away to see if it can be resurrected (perhaps not). That is going to take "weeks," they assured us. How many, they cannot say. Happily, the computer is under extended warranty. I am glad I had the foresight to purchase that. So, if it cannot be resurrected, I will be sent a brand new baby.

In the meanwhile, Donnie has loaned me his very old, but functional Macintosh laptop. I used to know how to use Mac; I am re-learning. The problem is that the computer is so old, it cannot handle even my Word files, and every single document I want to use, Donnie has to convert on his machine. Internet is difficult. I seem to be able to get onto blogger and publish comments, so please feel free to explore and comment on old posts. What is difficult to do is write new ones because I have no access to my graphics, no way to upload graphics, no way to handle large files, etc.

So, it looks like I am out of commission for some weeks. I can get online to read your blogs, and I will continue to do that. Posting on my own blogs, though, is, unfortunately, on hold until my electronic life returns to normal.

I am indeed still working on my next book. Donnie was able to convert the book file, but all my notes are not available. :( Well, I thought of those ideas, they will come back, or God will plant some new thoughts. I actually ended up drastically revising the table of contents while waiting for Donnie to convert the old document on his desktop computer, put it on disk, and pass it along to me in a format that the laptop will recognize. I also changed the title of the book: A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God. I seemed to be getting more inspiration coming my way now that nearly all I can do computer-wise is work on that book. (I am also getting more family and friend time, which is not all that bad, either.)

As for posting anything on my blogs, I am afraid I will have to wait until I am past the computer crisis and my electronic life is back to normal, which looks like nearly the end of January -- right after the book is due. Interesting, how dates and tasks work out that way!

A Few Brief Steps Away

2010-12-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

As this goes up (automatically), I should be on a plane for Hawaii, where I have some end-of-year business to conclude. After that, on Saturday, I will fly back home, just in time for the Christmas season to descend in full tempo. This year, though, Christmas cards will have to wait until February (January if I can manage a trip to Korea and card writing). We have no tree -- our cat Intrepid eats all plants, including artificial ones, and nearly died from the latter a few years ago so we have given up on a tree -- therefore I will not be distracted with tree decorating. Some holiday activities will, of course, take place as they should and as we want them to. However, I will be stepping back a bit from my normal kinds of blogging posts and the normal tempo of my blogs.

I have taken some days off from work to do a second edition/sequel of my book, Blest Atheist. Unfortunately, over the past two years, the title has been snagged for a variety of odd things, none of them having to do with the remarkable kindness of God, which is what the book is about at its core. Even a furniture store has taken it, along with an atheist reading group! In fact, although it is a spiritual book, essentially Christian, most bookstores carry it in the atheism section. (I guess no one reads books before categorizing them!) That has caused some angry, even rude, reviews from atheists who got a conversion story, rather than a confirmation of their atheism -- which must have been quite a surprise for them. (Christian readers and believers belonging to other religions generally review the book well.) So, the book needs a new title, which I am working on, and since time has passed and my spiritual experiences have continued on a path of deepening conversion, I plan to revise the book dramatically, as well as include those new conversion experiences.

For publication and marketing purposes, I need to turn in the manuscript no later than December 30, so I will reserve most of my writing effort for the book. Monday Morning Meditations will continue, and I will post excerpts from the book as I go along on Mahlou Musings. So, for the next 15 days, my posts may be sparse in spite of having prepared a few backups in case of situations like this.

I will indeed take time to enjoy the Christmas season. San Ignatio, as you can see from the pictures above and below, goes all out for Christmas. (Note: the placard under each lighted wreath/halo is the story of a saint important to this town: St Francis for it was founded by the Franciscans, St. John the Baptist after whom it was named, the real name of this town being San Juan Bautista -- I used San Ignatio as a pseudonym in my book and so I have continued to use it in this blog.) If this town has a year-round sacred feel to it, at Christmas that feel intensifies, beginning with the lighting of the streets, intensified by the daily performances of La Virgen de Teyepac (Our Lady of Guadalupe) by our local El Teatro Campesino, and concluding with our midnight Mass, which usually really is at or near midnight, depending on how you count the caroling.

So, please forgive my moments away. I will catch you when the book muse takes a recess and will be back on full-time blog duty in January.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Please Help Us Choose

2010-12-14T00:21:00.000-08:00

For years now, after our children grew up and became adults, rather than spending money on gifts that are neither needed nor particularly wanted, we have taken a family collection of the money we would have spent on each other and have instead spent it on things that others both need and want. For example, last year we gave visa cards to all the staff (cooks, janitors, librarians, handymen, monks, etc.) at the St. Francis Retreat Center, who do much to make sure that retreatants are able to devote their time exclusively to spiritual matters.

Each year we select a charity that has some special meaning to us. The retreat center is a place where both Donnie, my husband, and I have spent time that has contributed to our spiritual growth. Years ago, floods in India destroyed the homes of relatives of Appu, the college roommate of my daughter, Lizzie. When we were living in Jordan, we gave the money to the only animal shelter there, one which took in more than two dozen cats that I rescued from the streets of Amman. And so on and so forth. Family members nominate various options, and we all vote on which we would like to support in a particular year.

This year we have four "charities" from which we are choosing. Before we take a family vote, I thought it might be interesting to hear what readers thing. Here are the options we are considering:

(1) Afghans for Afghanis (see the link in the right sidebar under Ways to Help). Having spent time earlier this year in Afghanistan, I have developed a soft spot for this very impoverished nation. While factions in the leadership may have been working toward mutual extinction for decades, if not centuries, the everyday man is the one doing the greatest suffering. From the little I could see, by Western standards they have very little, even considering that their desires, values, and concepts of what a "normal" life looks like is quite different from those same concepts in the USA.

(2) Adopt a Box. Our parish has collected Christmas gifts for troops in Afghanistan. Ah, there's that Afghanistan soft spot again! The amount of gifts collected has far exceeded what the parish member who headed the drive anticipated. She was prepared to pay for the mailing of the gifts, assuming that if the collection can were entirely filled, it would cost her about $100 in postage. Well, our parish donated not a can-full but a truckload of gifts, and the postage will be about $1200. So, our pastor has asked that individuals offer to adopt a box of gifts for mailing. As a family, we could adopt a number of boxes. (There is an additional option, as well. I have told the parish member that I would use God's credit card for any orphan boxes.)

(3) Bennie's Homeless. Our friend, Bennie, works with the homeless in a nearby city, providing them with blankets, clothes, food, and personal articles, thanks to the generosity of his friends and neighbors. In return, the homeless work to clean up the local river along which they live. Thanks to their efforts, the salmon, which had nearly disappeared, are now returning "home" to spawn.

(4) Hope. Doah works for Hope, which gives work to the handicapped, who do janitorial and other kinds of simple tasks that they are capable of handling. Doah mentioned that Hope is short of money this year, so it seems that this is a charity that truly "touches" home.

We will take a family vote very soon. In the interim, I would love to hear readers' opinions: which would you choose if you were a member of our family? (I will let you know the result from all the blogs and from our family's vote.)

Bad Guy, Good People

2010-12-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

The world seemed pretty heartless earlier this week to the family of Aidan Sullivan, a 9-year-old born with a disorder that left one side of his face underdeveloped, deforming his jaw and skull and leaving him without a right ear.

A thief crashed a fundraiser meant to pay for surgery to construct an ear for the boy out of the cartilage from his rib, making off with about $8,000 raised for the brave son of a New York City firefighter.

But today, a foundation in a nearby community was on its way to the family's home with a check to replace the stolen money, and others who read about the third-grader's plight have also offered to help.

"One person did a bad thing, but a lot of people are stepping up to help," Tim Sullivan, a lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department, told the local Journal News for a story today. "It proves to us that there are good people out there. We're very grateful."

Added his wife, Colleen: "A bad thing turned into a good thing."

Aidan, of Brewster, N.Y., was born with hemifacial microsomia, a congenital disorder where the right side of his face is underdeveloped. The boy has undergone about 10 surgeries already, and even though he doesn't like hospitals and worries about being away from his 4-year-old sister, Kaylee, he was looking forward to this particular operation.

"Finally, an ear," he told the New York Post. "I want to look normal."

The theft happened Nov. 20, at a fundraiser sponsored by a group of firefighters. According to Colleen Sullivan, about $7,000 cash collected that night was put in an envelope and then placed in a box with about $1,000 in checks that were collected at an earlier fundraiser.

But the box was stolen at the end of the night when a family friend put it down for a moment.

"Everybody that was in the place that night knew that we were there to raise money to put an ear on a little kid," Tim Sullivan told the local ABC News affiliate in an interview after the theft. "How could you be such a bad person to a kid, a 9-year-old kid that needs an ear?"

The family had already planned to go ahead with the surgery scheduled for March, but were unsure how they'd pay for the expensive procedure, which is not covered by the family's medical coverage because the doctors do not take insurance.

Then on Friday, the day after a Thanksgiving Day story detailed their loss, they received a telephone call from Suffern Police Chief Clarke Osborn, a volunteer with the Vincent Crotty Memorial Foundation, informing them that he, along with Vincent Crotty's father, Peter, would deliver a check to cover the loss.

The foundation, based in nearby Rockland, was formed in April after a car crash that killed high school baseball players Vincent Crotty and Christopher Konkowski.

"If we could take some of that pain away, then that's what we want to do," Crotty told the Journal News. "I saw no reason why we couldn't reach across the river and lend a hand."

- posted on AOL News, by Lisa Holewa

Thanksgiving in San Ignatio

2010-11-29T00:43:00.000-08:00

I am proud of our little community's efforts to help each other, especially the efforts of Old Mission Church. Thanksgiving is not only no exception but it is a major big deal. Last Thursday, the Old Mission Church hosted a thanksgiving meal for any and all in town, regardless of social or economic standing. Those who could afford to donate, gave money. Those who knew how to cook, cooked. Someone anonymously donated 20 frozen turkeys. Twenty people raised their hands to cook them and bring them to the feast. Those with neither money nor cooking talent helped clean. As for me, I also helped clean. I can donate, but I cannot cook, and I do like to feel useful. We had so many cleaners, though, that it took less than a half hour to clean up after a three-hour meal for which more than 25% of the town showed up. No one should have been left hungry in San Ignatio on Thanksgiving Day. Those who did not attend, I suppose, were having dinner with relatives; I do know a number of people who donated in lieu of helping because they had planned family meals. We have come to enjoy the town meal so much, though, that we leave Shane's thanksgiving meal as a special event for Lemony's family, making the preparation easier for her, and instead participate in the community event, taking along Noelle, now that she is without Roy, and Doah, pictured above at the feast with Sr. Delores from our local Franciscan convent, Sisters of the Atonement. Every community should be so interwoven and caring -- little more than a big family, which is not such a little thing after all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T09:10:00.000-08:00

I am taking the day off from blogging to attend morning Mass and then help out all afternoon at Old Mission's community dinner -- open to all, regardless of SES or church affiliation. I will also take some time during the day and evening to drop in to followers' blogs with Thanksgiving greetings.

Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving!

Invisible People

2010-11-21T23:44:00.000-08:00

I would like to bring readers' attention to one of the blogs/websites that I list on my blogroll, whence came the picture above. (I am sure I will be forgiven for "borrowing it.") The site is called "Invisible People," and it accomplishes the intent of H2 Helper perfectly.

Each blog post focuses on an individual. Through a video, the individual is introduced to blog visitors. No longer is the individual just a face in the crowd. The individual is now a person with whom visitors can identify.

Poverty, whether it be felt through hunger or homelessness or both, is not without a face. However, it often is easier to drop a few coins into an outheld hand than to invite that person to share a meal. When we take in the former action, we fail to engage with the people whom we are helping. Our charity takes on an impersonal nature. When we take the latter action, we do engage with the people we are helping. Our charity not only takes on a personal nature, but the rewards are two-sided: the helper is rewarded along with the helped. Getting to know someone personally is always a reward, no matter who that person is.

People should not be invisible. The poor, the homeless, the hungry, the ill -- they are not all that different from those of us who have not had to carry these crosses. Looking the other way makes them seem invisible, but it does not make them invisible. They are real, and they deserve our respect and personal attention (and, if only for a brief time, our friendship). That thinking is what the Invisible People website hopes to catalyze by introducing real people to readers.

Stroll on over and meet some fine folks!

Homeless in America

2010-10-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

I recently happened across a wonderfully informative blog called Homeless in America. I have added it to my blogroll and invite you to consider doing the same. Below is just one of the interesting posts that you can find there. This one came from October 10. Many thanks to Br. Gary for allowing me to re-post it here word for word. If you have any time at all, please click on the link to see more of the posts -- they are all inspiring, both in terms of what others have done or in terms of what we should consider doing. Now, here is that post:

"It’s a story nothing short of amazing. A handful of homeless men lifted a 2 ton Cadillac off a little girl who was pinned beneath it. One of the heroes is a New Mexico man (photo) who credits his tribal heritage for saving the girl’s life.

The man who helped save 9-year-old Robyn Rubio’s life is not only tearful, but humble when he talks about his act of bravery.

“I don’t want to be called a hero,” said Stanford Washburn.

Washburn, a person who has nothing, gave everything he had to rescue Robyn. He even credits his Navajo heritage with saving her life.

“I chanted for her, ‘Please don’t leave us, be with us, be well, be well.’ That’s my chant,” said Washburn.

Washburn calls Shiprock, N.M., his home, but right now he’s homeless. The rescue took place while he was drinking in an alley near the Las Vegas strip in Nevada when he saw a Cadillac hit Robyn head-on. Washburn and several other transients jumped up and ran to help, miraculously lifting the 5,000 pound car off of Robin’s tiny body.

“I know she was scared, I know she was real scared,” said Tina Rubio, Robyn’s mother. Her daughter had to undergo treatment many days in intensive care.

What Robyn will know one day is that a homeless man from New Mexico saved her life. But it’s likely he won’t be the one to tell her. He’s much too humble.

“I’m just one of you guys, a red-blooded human being,” said Washburn.

A spokesperson for the Las Vegas Police Department said he doubts the men could have picked up the car if a child had not been underneath it. They also said it shows how humans regardless of their circumstances react to saving a life."

- From Homeless in America

Helping Afghanistan

2010-10-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

"For the last 25 years, Afghanistan has been plagued by disasters ranging from drought and earthquakes to war and terrorism. Afghans face low life expectancy, high illiteracy rates, and limited access to clean water, sanitation and electricity. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Today, as the country takes steps toward recovery." This is the introduction to Afghanistan on the Catholic Relief Services' website.

If I had any thought that this description might be exaggerated, that thought would have been shattered by my recent visit to Afghanistan. (Not with CRS; I had a different mission there.) Here are some of my observations, reported on 100th Lamb:

I had seen pictures of Afghanistan -- the dusty desert, the musty mountains. It seems that life of any sort -- animal or plant or human -- has an incredible struggle to live. Dusty feet in worn, torn sandals walked the streets where I was. In Kabul, there were similar sightings, but there were also cars, many of them, old but running. There was the constant lowering of men's eyes and the shuffling of women within burqas. (One Afghan wanted to put a burqa on me and take me home to his family. That would have been risky for both of us, so I declined what might have been an interesting cultural experience.) Good food at good prices with good service was the norm in restaurants, but these were things mainly for foreigners. I found essentially two classes: the haves and the have-nots. As always, there is potential in that disharmony for violence. And certainly violence can be found there. The Afghan is perhaps best described as a soft soul in a hard shell. As a foreigner, one wonders which of the hard shells are safe to attempt to break open and which are not. More than anything, I wanted to help these people, but there is little that one person can do, so I just lent my professional expertise, which is really all I have to give anyone. (I suspect that any side that can give these people jobs and a life
that allows just a little peace and even a tad of comfort will win the current war.)

In leaving the country, I had some time to talk to the Safi (Afghani Airlines) ticket agent on an interpersonal level because a traveling companion took our luggage to be strapped -- his had broken enroute to Dubai and, having repaired it, he did not want a repeat on the way home. I told the agent that we had brought some work stuff with us in a foot locker that was overweight so that he would be prepared to expect the overweight. We had come early so that we would have time to deal with overweight requirements and fees. (We had to pay $400 enroute to Afghanistan in overweight fees.) When my travel companion (another employee of our organization) brought the luggage over, the agent weighed each piece, marked it, and gave us the baggage tag, along with our tickets. When I asked where to go to pay the overweight fee, he looked at me and said simply, "I have waived the fee; that is Afghanistan's gift to you."

All I could think was that it is always seems to be the people with the least who give the most. Thank you, Afghanistan! I will be praying for you, for all your people -- those that might be considered friends and those that might be considered foes. That will be my gift to you.

If anyone has the desire or is given the urge to help the people of Afghanistan, here again is the website of Catholic Relief Services: CRS.

Where in the World Is Elizabeth?

2010-10-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

I just thought of an interesting little competition. While I am gone tripping, please leave a comment, guessing where you think I am and why. And since I will not have access to the Internet, no one will see anyone's answers until I return so there will be no influence one upon another!

I will send a surprise gift to everyone who guesses correctly.

This will be fun, no?

From the Washington Post , Of Concern to All

2010-10-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

The following article from The Washington Post opened my eyes. I had no idea that we, in the USA, have moved so quickly and so far along the path to a banana republic situation where the middle class gets squeezed down or up, leaving only the haves and have-nots. If we pay no attention to the have-nots as a country, we may lose more than our sense of humanity.

As 44 million Americans live in poverty, a crisis grows
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, September 28, 2010

When the government released new U.S. Census data on poverty last week, our warp-speed news cycle paid too little attention to what these numbers tell us -- and what the government could do to tackle this moral, economic and political crisis. It's clear that the Great Recession battered those on the bottom most heavily, adding 6 million people to the ranks of the officially poor, defined as just $22,000 in annual income for a family of four. Forty-four million Americans -- one in seven citizens -- are now living below the poverty line, more than at any time since the Census Bureau began tracking poverty 51 years ago. Shamefully, that figure includes one in five children, more than one in four African Americans or Latinos, and over 51 percent of female-headed families with children under 6.

These numbers are bad enough. But dig deeper -- as Georgetown University law professor Peter Edelman has been doing for nearly 50 years in his battle against poverty -- and the story told by these figures is even more staggering.

Edelman points out that 19 million people are now living in "extreme poverty," which is under 50 percent of the poverty line, or $11,000 for a family of four. "That means over 43 percent of the poor are extremely poor," said Edelman, who served as an aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and in the Clinton administration before resigning in protest over welfare reform that shredded the safety net. "That's over 6 percent of the population, and that figure has just been climbing up and up."

Edelman says that the number of people living at less than two times the poverty line ($44,000 for a family of four) is equally significant.

"Data shows that's really the line between whether or not you can pay your bills," said Edelman. "That has reached 100,411,000 people. That's 33 percent of the country. That's the totality of the problem -- whether you call it poverty or not."

For too long we have accepted the narrative -- promoted by well-funded conservative think tanks -- that claims people who are struggling are to blame for their troubles, and at the same time we don't have effective anti-poverty policies. So tackling the problem is seen as wasteful.

"So many people think it's their own fault," said Edelman. "They don't see the structural problem in our economy."
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But with so many in poverty, that narrative has become harder to sustain during the Great Recession, and so renewed work is being done to take on poverty and its structural underpinnings.

Half in Ten, a coalition working to cut poverty by half in 10 years, is pushing Congress to renew the TANF Emergency Fund , which is set to expire on Thursday. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have used the program to provide 250,000 low-income and long-term unemployed workers with subsidized jobs. The coalition is also pushing to make the Obama administration's Recovery Act reforms to the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit permanent. These progressive policies keep families from falling into poverty and reduce long-term costs such as crime, public benefits and lost consumption. Estimates of costs associated with childhood poverty run at $500 billion annually, or 4 percent of gross domestic product.

And then there are the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 a year, a centerpiece of the GOP's just-released "Pledge to America." Edelman says that it's difficult to see how we can help the 44 million Americans living in poverty today without that revenue.

Beyond what Congress can do immediately, it's clear that America needs a broader movement to create a more just and higher-wage economy. Edelman and other advocates say that we will need to push to make it easier for people to join labor unions through an Employee Free Choice Act or at least reduce legal barriers to organizing. The minimum wage should also be indexed to half the average wage.

"But you're still going to have a gap," said Edelman. "And you essentially have to invent some new idea of a wage supplement that starts from the premise that the so-called good jobs went away a long time ago and we've become a nation of low-wage work."

That's why 100 million people are struggling to make ends meet on less than $44,000 per year.

This devastating economic reality has the potential to create new political alliances -- and shape a 21st-century anti-poverty movement. Such a movement is urgently needed because the voices of the poor, of workers and of those struggling to get by are barely heard in the halls of power these days. Anti-poverty groups and advocates with ideas for a more equitable economy are often marginalized within even Democratic Party policy circles that seem hard-wired to reject them.

We know what needs to be done to reduce poverty. The question is who will fight that fight? And who will listen?

Sad News: Fr. Thomas Dubay

2010-09-28T18:58:00.001-07:00

I have mentioned Fr. Thomas Dubay's publications a number of times on my blogs, and they are in my recommended reading list. For me, his works have been my sanity checks and mainstay when it comes to dealing with the mystical experiences that have come my way. About two years ago, after a string of locutions and having just finished his book, Authenticity, I wrote to Fr. Thomas to tell him how helpful I had found that book (probably not one of his most popular because it is directed to those people who have experienced sound, voice, touch, and, as I have found over the past four years, they are not found in every pew in the church). I also told him of some of my experiences, of the details of my quest to determine their authenticity, and of some of my questions and concerns. I did not ask for a response and did not expect one. Nonetheless, a few weeks later, I received handwritten comments on my letter from Fr. Thomas, who apologized for the format but said that he had just arrived from another trip, was tired, and wanted nonetheless to respond to my note immediately. He told me that he thought that my experiences, as described, were likely authentic and why, commented on my comments, and suggested some answers to my questions. His letter gave me greater confidence in moving more deeply into contemplation and not pulling away from God at the most intimate moments.

Fr. Thomas passed away this weekend, and his passing feels like a personal loss. I will now treasure those handwritten notes even more. If you have not read Fr. Thomas's books, please find some time to do so. They are, for me, second only to The Cloud of Unknowing/The Book of Privy Counseling on my list of books to which I am addicted.

The following is from the Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington, D.C., who cared for Father Dubay during his final days; I have blatantly "stolen" (borrowed?) this information from his publisher and am certain that the publisher will be happy to have the word spread.

Rev Thomas Dubay, SM
RIP September 26, 2010

From Washington, DC:
This morning at 4:45, the Lord welcomed into His Kingdom Rev Thomas Dubay, SM, after suffering kidney failure and massive bleeding in the brain. Father’s frail health had been declining ever since his admission to the Little Sisters of the Poor home in Washington more than a year ago, but his suffering was even more noticeable in recent months. Despite this fact, Fr Dubay was just as witty as ever.

When Father’s superior, Fr. Bruce Lery, SM, called the Little Sisters on Sunday morning to tell them, he said, "We have a saint in heaven" –how true! Fr. Dubay was hospitalized about a month ago and then transferred to a rehabilitation facility for specialized treatments but his health was steadily declining. Yesterday he was re-admitted to the hospital with bleeding in the brain, and he was put in coronary intensive care. Although the ventilator was removed, he continued to breathe on his own.

Although he suffered from his loss of independence, he was happy to concelebrate Mass almost every day in the chapel of the Little Sisters Home in the shadow of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in our nation’s capital.

The Marist priests and brothers visited him almost daily, and Father depended very much on his superior, Fr. Bruce, who was always there for him. In a few words, Fr. Dubay literally practiced what he preached! Father was happy to give weekly classes to the Little Sister postulants –classes which he enjoyed as much as they! From his room, Father continued his spiritual direction with many persons who called on him and this also was extended to letter writing.

We can render prayers of thanksgiving for the wonderful support Father gave to religious communities spending a good part of his life giving conferences and retreats. Although his preaching and spiritual direction was delivered to contemplative communities, his teaching was not for them alone. Religious the world over benefitted of his spiritual wisdom and guidance for years. He will be sorely missed. May he rest in peace after leading so many souls to true spiritual peace during his lifetime! The opening prayer of today’s liturgy says it all: “Help us hurry toward the Eternal Life you promise and come to share in the joys of your kingdom”.

For more about Fr. Dubay's writings and work, see his author page at Ignatius Insight.

My note: Many have said that Fr. Thomas Dubay is one of the greatest spiritual directors and writers of our day. I believe it.

Why Does God Allow Suffering, Starvation, and Poverty?

2010-09-13T01:46:00.000-07:00

I would like to draw readers' attention to an interesting dialogue on Ordinary Hero log: Let's Get Real...Why Does God Allow Suffering, Starvation, and Poverty? The growing number of comments are insightful and well worth reading. I hope that readers of H2 Helper will take a minute to go over there, read the post, see the poignant pictures, think about the comments, and post a response of their own. For that reason, this post is very short -- just click on the URL and go on over to Ordinary Hero.

Time to Quander

2010-09-02T01:43:00.000-07:00

I ask the indulgence and prayers of readers of all my blogs. Other than for an occasional, already-written post or the Monday Morning Meditation (I never miss an "appointment" with God and right now that is especially important to me), I will be taking a week or so off to quander (ponder a quandary).

Donnie received a shocking call today from the work place of Doah, our youngest son, who lives in a group home from the mentally challenged, and immediately called me: Doah had been raped. I immediately left work, and we headed north. We met with the sheriff's department, the folks from Doah's workplace in whom Doah had confided, doctors and nurses, an advocate for victims of violent crimes, and Doah himself. Doah went through five hours of medical tests and over an hour of interrogation from the sheriff's department. The medical staff said that Doah inspired them with his obviously deep faith that gave him an extraordinary ability to cope with this trauma. The deputy told Doah that he was the best crime victim he had ever met -- Doah was straightforward and explicit, got the details right, and did not back down from uncomfortable truth. By the time the evening was over, the deputies had tracked down the rapist, an illegal alien without documents who seemed to have disappeared according to everyone who knew him, and had him behind bars. Impressive! So was the orderly procedure and all the help made available to us.

Nonetheless, this event has thrown our lives out of kilter, and I need some time to put things back together. We have brought Doah home with us until we can find another group home for him. We have to decide on any legal action we wish to take against the group home -- a difficult decision because I am suit-averse by nature. There is also more testing to do and results of testing to receive: hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV/AIDS. The latter is very frightening and very possible. I am asking all our friends to pray that Doah passes through this terrible experience without contracting HIV/AIDS as a permanent reminder and life-threatening consequence.

Thank you for your understanding and any prayers you are willing to say for Doah (or candles you are willing to light). God bless you until I am up and running regularly again.

Waste Management Helps Marlins Build Homes for Haiti

2010-08-30T02:11:00.000-07:00

I thought this press release from the Florida Marlins to be worth posting here. I would invite all to visit the Food for the Poor website (see right sidebar) for other such inspiring stories and ways to be part of the teams that are out there solving problems for the homeless and the hungry.

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Aug. 4, 2010) Moved by the ongoing crisis in Haiti, Waste Management has made a $50,000 donation to the Florida Marlins “Homes for Haiti” program to support the month-long campaign between the baseball team and Food For The Poor to build much-needed housing in Haiti.

Waste Management, which has more than 500 workers of Haitian descent in South Florida, rallied immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake to raise $100,000 in emergency aid for Haiti. Now the company has joined the Marlins’ effort to build homes in a country where more than 1 million people have been displaced.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Food For The Poor and the Marlins in this vital effort to bring housing and hope to those in great need,” said Dawn McCormick, Community Affairs Manager for Waste Management in South Florida. “It is gratifying to support our Haitian co-workers, many of whom lost family members in the earthquake, by participating in this effort that will put families into permanent homes and provide them with a safe and more secure future.”

The Waste Management donation will provide 10 two-room homes. Food For The Poor homes are permanent, sturdy concrete construction with rebar reinforcements, and strong corrugated zinc roofs. The charity is ramping up its capacity for building, and homes are going up in Pierre Payen, Trou Du Nord, Demier, Chastenoye, Delogner, Gros Chaudiere, Mahotiere, Leogane, and Grand Goave.

Marlins catcher John Baker, along with members of the Marlins’ front office traveled to Haiti on July 6 and 7 to see firsthand the destitute living conditions of families in Port-au-Prince, as well as in Cap-Haitien, where some of those fleeing the capital have moved.

“The trip to Haiti was an eye-opening experience; it was an awakening for me,” Baker said. “Most people don’t think of this kind of poverty being just an hour and a half by plane from Florida. Looking at pictures doesn’t do it justice. Until you have walked where they walk, and smelled what they smell, you really cannot understand.”

While the campaign started July 12 and runs for a month, the Marlins game on Aug. 22 will be sponsored by Waste Management, the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. About 4,500 Waste Management employees and community partners will be there to see the check donation to Food For The Poor.

“We are grateful for the support of Waste Management on one of the most important projects we can do right now, which is to build homes,” said Angel Aloma, Executive Director of Food For The Poor.

To donate, go to foodforthepoor.org/homesforhaiti or text “Haiti” to 25383 and donate $10.

Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development organization in the United States, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian agency provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 96 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

Contacts:
Kathy Skipper
Director of Public Relations
Food For The Poor
954.427.2222, ext. 6614
kathys@foodforthepoor.org

Carolina Perrina
Director, Business Communications
Florida Marlins, L.P.
305.626.7389
cperrina@marlins.com

Dawn McCormick
Community Affairs
Waste Management
954.226.9894
dmccormick@mw.com

Sabbath Sunday #2

2010-08-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

For this week, I selected a heartwarming story that was shared with me some time ago and which I posted on my 100th Lamb blog: Friends Are God's Way of Taking Care of Us. I am always appreciative of the opportunity to be a "friend" in this way.

Come Along on a Journey to Help Pakistan One Family at a Time

2010-08-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

Perhaps a few years ago, many people would not have been able to place Pakistan on a map -- well, those of us who were around when Bangladesh (East Pakistan) ran into trouble in the 1970s might have been able to put two and two together. Pakistan, however, was rarely in the news, at least in the regions where I lived, until right after 9/11 when the US needed help from that country. Now that country needs help from the USA -- and from the rest of the world, from you, from me, from anyone with a heart. Perhaps people gave all they had to Haiti; perhaps Pakistan is too far, too Eastern, too foreign for those of us living in the West. Whatever the reason, assistance from the West, which usually comes through for people in dire need, has not been as forthcoming in this instance, a place and time when help is needed in an overwhelming amount: 16 million Pakistanis are suffering from the devastation caused by the floods. (Help, of course, is needed and welcomed from everywhere and anywhere. Readers of this blog come from 109 different countries, including Pakistan. I hope that among you, there will be people who can help.)

Among the readers of Blest Atheist, the blog that preceded 100th Lamb, was Wajeeha, a young acquaintance of mine from Karachi, Pakistan. She and I mainly communicate via FaceBook. Over time, I have come to feel like she is just another of my children, and I am proud of what she is doing, both in college and in her current plan to help her country. A college student, living in an area unaffected by the flood but nonetheless concerned with the lack of help coming to the families stranded, impoverished, and left starving by the floods, she and her college classmates are taking matters into their hands and trying to help the people of Pakistan one family at a time. I asked her to write a post about her journey, and so I will let her tell it in her own words:

I, Wajeeha Asrar Siddiqui, with some friends and colleagues of mine have started the effort to help those who are affected by flood in Pakistan. We are collecting funds in this regard and have decided to take up the charge of everything under our own control. As prior we had trusted some government official with our money but there is nothing come to name of progress and God knows where the money gone. Now, we have decided to do everything by our own.

We are up for the task of rehabilitation for the people of Besham, Kohistan and connected districts. Our main motto is not to just provide them with food. The main motto is to let those back to their normal lives with all their respect and dignity. We are up to help those people without let them feel inferior to other members of the society.

We have aim to help those with food, water and clothing at first and then with books, raw material and space to practice and sale their handicrafts. People in those regions are masters of handicrafts. As we are already having Ramadan here so, the very first thing that is needed is drinking water and then food.

We would leave from Karachi to Besham and beyond by the end of August 2010. Our first target is to help 2000 families. An average cost of drinking water, food and clothing of a family for a month is around $150 - $200. We still need hands to join in and help us making our targets possible.

As we do not have much time left I request all those you’re seeking to help to send us their donations in cash. As the fact is, transferring of cash would take less time as compare to transferring of good. For all those who are looking forward to help can reach me by email ID: Wajeeha.thewonderful@gmail.com.

You can also reach our representative in Besham, Engr. Said Mehmood (s.mehmood@crspk.org) who is working with Catholic Relief Services to help all those who are affected by flood.

I promised her some help from God's credit card now that it is paid off once again (see God's Crazy Math -- it took only two days for money to appear to pay it off), but that has a credit limit (probably a fortunate thing). Won't you help, too? Even a couple of dollars can make a difference. Given the exchange rate and the cost-of-living difference, a little can go a long way. I will ask Wajeeha to report on her journey periodically when time and electronic resources permit. Let's measure the compassion of the blogosphere with Pakistan as a criterion!

Sabbath Sunday

2010-08-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

For this week, I selected a post from my 100th Lamb blog that seemed somewhat appropriate to the H2 Helper theme: Today's Drama.

Have a restful and peaceful Sabbath!

God's Crazy Math

2010-08-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

Although most of my bi-weekly salary is already spoken for before it arrives by bills, children’s needs, and routine living expenses, I do make donations to those causes to which I am led. A couple of years ago, I began sending $10/week to one cause only. Tt was all I could afford on my tight budget, or so I thought. Once I began the routine donation, it became possible to double it, then double it again, and again. I am now up to $210/week with that donation. I have also been able to add other donations to which I have been subsequently led: $110/week for donation #2, $20/week for #3, $15/week for #4, $12.50/week for #5, and $7.50 a week for #6. Each started out as a $10 weekly donation, then grew a dollar or two at a time until the older ones became sizable.

No, I did not win any lotteries, and I have no idea where the money comes from. It just comes, and I am certain that as a result, the lower donation amounts will increase in the same ways that the larger ones did. Before anyone thinks that I am simply being humble about my riches, let me confirm that my salary alone would not cover these donations. These are God’s causes, however, and God covers them through many small financial surprises, such as being able to use per diem to provide $1000 for the children of Palomar, Colombia. I save pennies, and God turns them into dollars. I share dollars, and God multiplies them multiple-fold. From out of nowhere come unexpected bonuses, a higher-than-normal (i.e. higher than the cost of living) salary increase, unexpectedly good royalties, and, when gaps appear, a paid consultation that appears without my seeking it through a phone call from someone whom I may or may not know in need of my professional expertise. I empty the coffers. God replenishes them to a fuller level than before.

Similarly, a financial dilemma with the IRS left me $11K in the hole with nary a cent in savings in late 2006. God not only took care of that but gave me more –- enough to pay the tax accountant and donate $400 to a retreat center struggling to rebuild after a fire. I figured that the extra money belonged to God and so found a way to return it to God through the retreat center.

It’s the same way with God’s credit card, about which I have blogged on several occasions. The latest need was $500. Last week, on Saturday, I put $500 on the card for a couple in need, figuring that I could expect $50 in immediate return from others wanting to help out. On Monday, I got $90 in donations from others wanting to help. I turned around on Tuesday and charged $82.50 to the card in order to secure frequent-flyer miles help the sister of a friend and her two children escape from an abusive husband. The friend paid back the $82.50 and added $118 to help pay off God’s credit card balance from the earlier charge. The rest will come. I have learned to trust God’s crazy math.

Sometimes It's Our Own

2010-08-02T00:16:00.000-07:00

In the spiritual circles in which I travel, particularly among the Franciscans, there is a pull (and sometimes push) to help those in need among the public: the hungry, the homeless, Just sometimes, though, it is not the stranger who needs our help. It is one of us. This our prayer group found out recently.

Two of our members, I will call them Carl and Renee, recently married, were excited to find out that their application for a home loan was approved. They found a modest home in our community and with great excitement moved in.

That was a month ago. Two weeks later, they stopped coming to our prayer group meetings. I called to find out why because it was unusual for them to miss even one meeting. They explained that they were depressed and trying to come to grips with an overnight change in their financial life. Just a few days after moving into their new home, Renee lost her job. Unfortunately, their ability to pay the mortgage was based in great part on her salary. Then, a few days after that, Carl learned that the overtime that he always got and which he counted on as part of his basic salary, given a very low weekly salary, would no longer be available to him. Instead, his employer was hiring a part-timer for the weekend hours -- it would be cheaper, I guess. They were reeling.

We discussed their situation at our prayer group. We decided to give them a housewarming party at our next prayer group meeting (tomorrow) but decided that we would do it not at the parish but at the home of one of our members who lives very near them. One of our members will be getting a greeting card for us all to sign and a plant to attach it to. In it, we will put a visa card that they can use to get past the next few weeks.

In discussing the amount, it appeared that most of us could only afford $5-$20. We thought we might be able to get a card for $150. Certainly, that would help them some, but we wanted to help more. I offered to use God's credit card. The card would hold at least $500, so I got a visa card for $500. A couple of people in our group were nervous about that since I don't have any way today to pay that off, and all we can raise right now is $150.

"Listen," I told them. "This is God's card. We are God's people, and Carl and Renee need God's help. We are God's hands on this earth, and God's credit card is there to be used. I am confident that between now and when the payment is due, some amount of money from a source we don't expect will show up to pay it off. It always works that way for me with God's credit card, and I trust God to make it happen again."

Either we trust God or we don't. There is no half-way! There is no doveryai no proverya (trust but verify), or trust but take no risks. Trust is risky. That is why it is called trust -- and I don't believe with God that there are any risks to trust!

Rickshaw Wala

2010-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

Amrita, of Yesu Garden, recently posted the following heartwarming story that is fully in keeping with the H2 Helper challenge. Here is the situation:

During the cold season a rickshaw wala sought shelter in our church porch. He is a street dweller and usually camps beside his rickshaw with his few possessions .His means of livelihood is ferrying passengers and earning a few rupees everyday. He eats at cheap roadside food stalls and uses public places to wash. One night someone stole his clothes and blanket an elderly couple in our neighbourhood had given him...

Read the rest of the story at Yesu Garden: Rickshaw Wala.

Guyanese Village Built by Dog Biscuits

2010-07-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

The following story was originally published in Florida Catholic and re-printed on the website, Food for the Poor. The Food for the Poor organization is dedicated to helping the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Joe and Judy Roetheli of Kansas City, Mo., made their fortune with a treat that cleans dogs’ teeth, and now the Catholic couple are using the fruits of their labor to house and feed those in need in far–off lands.

“We’ve been fortunate to have been successful and to have made the kind of money we’ve made,” said Joe Roetheli, 61, a parishioner of Holy Family Catholic Church in Kansas City. “There is only so much that we need and God wants us to do something righteous with our good fortune.”

Last October the Roethelis answered that call from God, partnered with the Florida–based Food for the Poor international nonprofit relief agency, and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village, a 100–house development in Guyana, the only English–speaking nation in South America.

Their $800,000 contribution allowed Food for the Poor to build enough houses to shelter up to 600 people in the village and provide them with sanitation facilities, a community center, a school, several retail shops, a water tower, electric service and a 5–acre community garden to grow food.

Their path to building a village for the poor in Guyana began with their Catholic faith — and an intervention from two priests, one from Ohio and the other from New York, Joe Roetheli told Catholic News Service. But, their means to be able to give so generously began much earlier, with an idea for a business and staggering achievement.

Roetheli was a federal government employee and his wife was a high school teacher in 1996, the year they invented “Greenies,” a dog treat that cleans the teeth of canines and freshens their breath.
By 2003 they had sold hundreds of millions of the dog treats, allowing them to form the Roetheli Lil’ Red Foundation, a charitable organization to help those in need. “Judy and I have always believed that it is important to give back, whether it is to your local community or to the world as a whole,” Roetheli said.

Their foundation funds a pet visitation program in nursing homes, mostly in rural Missouri; helps finance documentaries and books; and with their involvement in the Guyana project it now has branched into building stable villages for the poor in developing nations.

The Roethelis got the idea of joining forces with a relief organization to build a village when a substitute priest came to their church and discussed the great need in third world nations like Guyana. Shortly afterward, another visiting priest from New York told them about Food for the Poor and the work it was doing to help feed and house those in need in the Caribbean and Latin America.
“I almost see it as divine intervention twice,” Roetheli said. “Both times we heard things that we needed to hear.”

Initially, the couple had decided to develop their village in Jamaica, but after a year of trying unsuccessfully to get through government red tape in order to build, they moved the project to Guyana and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village in October 2008.

“The Roethelis are amazing people and so generous with their talents, time, energy and money,” said Angel A. Aloma, executive director of Food for the Poor, during an interview with CNS. “They are a great example of altruism. They have taken the rewards of their labor and used it to help those in need.” Last March –– when the project was about 75 percent complete –– the Roethelis made their first trip to Guyana to attend the dedication ceremony of the village they helped build. “We were taken aback at the extreme poverty in that country, and even though the houses we built are not the kind of houses Americans would live in, it’s such an improvement from what they had,” Roetheli said. Though he’d like to build another village soon, he said his foundation will have to recover from the financial hit it took when the stock market nose–dived in late 2008.

“We’ve got to weather the storm financially,” Roetheli said. “We took a monstrous hit. But, we’ll get there. I’m confident of that.”

For more stories of how Food for the Poor has been helping poor people in the southern hemisphere, visit the organization's website by clicking here.

The Ticket

2010-07-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

Since I have not found anything of particular interest to readers in the past almost ten days (well, of interest to me -- I am not always certain what is of interest to readers), I thought I might re-post here a blog entry I posted on 100th Lamb a couple of days ago. It has to do with a use (again) of God's credit card and how God seems always to help us when we are in the act of helping others. Here is the story:

On Monday, one of the members in my prayer group told me of someone, a certain Jose, who has been mostly unemployed this year, who needed a plane ticket for Texas (from California) this coming weekend! I have offered my frequent flyers miles from time to time, but this time would be quite a challenge. It is a holiday weekend, and it was a last-minute ticket. I knew I would not have been asked had it not been important, but could the airlines help?

I called the Premier Executive line for United's elite flyers. The agent on the other end was very pleasant. She found one flight only from San Jose and one flight from San Francisco. Then she volunteered that both required the same number of FF miles; however, for those miles the flight from San Jose was first class and left a tad bit later although still very early in the morning and the one from San Francisco was economy and really early. Well, that was a no-brainer, especially since San Jose is the closer airport.

The agent patiently entered all the "gift" information for Jose and sent him a copy of the itinerary. Then she charged me the required $35 for the telephonic, last-minute transaction. I used God's credit card to pay for it.

Later, my friend called and said that Jose had noticed the charge on the itinerary. Should she pay it, she asked, or would he be charged at the airport. Neither, I explained. I had used God's credit card to pay for it, and I was certain that the money would appear before the card payment was due.

Then I settled down to work on bills since it was pay day. As I worked through the budget, I found a $35 bill that I had planned to pay this pay day but for some reason that I had not caught, it was already paid! I think it is fair to count those found dollars as payment for the $35 I owe on God's credit card.

My only comment: well, that did not take long! I think my friend Omar is correct -- God spoils me in not making me wait!

Oh, and one other comment: I love having this credit card; it has given me many opportunities to help people that I could not otherwise have done!

Homeless in Hunterdon

2010-06-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

For the past year and a half, five high school students have worked with Interfaith Hospitality Network of Hunterdon County, Inc. to produce a film called “Homeless in Hunterdon.” This is a documentary film depicting the stories of 12 formerly homeless residents of Hunterdon County. This is a story of struggle and hope and compassion. All 12 families received shelter and services from Interfaith, which is the only homeless shelter for families and single women in Hunterdon County.

This extraordinary film, directed by Voorhees student Brandon Rowe, was premiered at the Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at 7 pm. This film was selected for the Queens International Film Festival in November, 2009. There were also musical performances by local artists and students. All 12 film participants were there for a question and answer session after the film. The Voorhees National Honor Society hosted the event for the evening.

For more information and a clip, click here.

I just happened across this story, found it fascinating, and wanted to share it. I hope you found it interesting, as well.

Ronald McDonald House

2010-06-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

As I threw my leftover change into the collection box for Ronald McDonald House after buying an ice cream cone, a snack on our trip to Ohio to attend a family wedding, I thought about how much less the stress on Donnie (my husband), Lizzie (my oldest daughter), and me it would have been had there been a Ronald McDonald House in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1970s when Noelle was born. We lived in Ayer, too far for a daily commute, and so during Noelle's multiple surgeries for spina bifida, hydrocephalus, and related problems, we had to move our family into a hotel close to Boston Children's Hospital. As a young Army lieutenant, with Donnie working part-time teaching photography at the post education center, we had a very limited income and the effort to be near Noelle to support her, sign medical forms, and provide information to caretakers broke us. Other than a car and minimal furniture (when Shane was born right only 13 months after Noelle, the babies had to share a cradle), we could afford no possessions. Not even a television; Lizzie was five years old before she discovered the "magic box," as she called it. Every penny went into the outlandish (for us) cost of eating away from home and paying for a hotel. Further, we were mixed in with tourists, and our experiences were anything but joyful and fun.

If Ft. Devens, where I was stationed, had had a large medical facility, that would have made a world of difference. Even were there a regional military hospital, it would have helped, as it did when Noelle was first born and cared for at Wilford Hall Medical Center, about 250 Texan miles from where I was stationed in San Angelo at Goodfellow Air Force Base. I was able to take leave (until it ran out) and live right on base at the BOQ (Bachelor Officers' Quarters) for a manageable sum.

At Ft. Devens, however, the only option for critical care was Boston, and that meant civilian costs, covered in great part through the military CHAMPUS (medical reimbursement) program. The major cost was being nearby, and it took us easily a decade to work ourselves out of that debt.

When Noelle was a teenager and beyond most of her surgical needs, McDonald's began establishing low-cost houses for families of chronic care children being treated at regional medical complexes. What a great idea! To have a place to stay without worrying about breaking the bank is a significant stress reduction in an already highly stressful situation. So, I always contribute my change. It is so little for so much.

There are other organizations now that have done similar things. I contribute change to those, too, when they pop up on my radar. I hope that you will do the same when you see them on your radar!

Play and Feed

2010-05-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a fun way that people, including kids, can effortlessly feed the world's hungry simply by playing a game. The FreeRice site donates rice to the UN World Food Programme for each question that is answered correctly, thanks to advertisers. (In this way, it works similarly to The Hunger Site, to which I try to go every day.

So, for a fun way to help the hungry at no cost, drop by the FreeRice site: click here.

Have a good day!

Online Billion Helping the Hungry Billion

2010-05-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

When the number of hungry people in the world passed the one billion mark, the United Nations World Food Programme turned to the people who are online (now topping one billion in number) to each give a little to help to the hungry. They called their pcampaign, Billion for a Billion, and asked people to donate and to spread the word online and elsewhere. The message is simple: If everyone does a little, we can achieve unimaginable results.

Here are some of the things the online billion has achieved so far, as listed on the UN World Food Programme website:

Donations
1. Responded to the earthquake in Haiti with small donations that added up to 12 million meals for children
2. Collectively contributed enough money to feed more than 19 million hungry children in school
3. Donated enough grains of rice through the online quiz game FreeRice to provide meals for 4 million people

Awareness
4. Raised awareness through half a million posts on the web about the billion hungry people
5. Shared key hunger facts with friends and colleagues 35,000 times through Twitter and viewed the ‘Billion for a Billion’ video 500,000 times
6. Spread the ‘Billion for a Billion’ call to action through all social networks, using it as a profile picture or background image on personal pages

Inspiration
7. Created inspirational videos about hunger through the HungerBytes video contest. One of the videos gained over 31,000 views on YouTube.
8. Built a movement of 200 bloggers against hunger who help keep the billion hungry in the public eye at all times.
9. Inspired children such as 8-year-old Aditya from India, who wrote to us that we could use his pocket money to help other hungry children.

For ways in which you can be part of the one billion helpers, click here.

Hunting for the Hungry

2010-05-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

In Virgina, for almost two decades now, hunters, teaming with the professional game associations, have contributed thousands of pounds of venison to food banks and charities to feed the hungry. Here is some background information.

During the summer of 1991 a meeting was held to determine the feasibility of the Hunters for the Hungry concept in Virginia. Involved in this discussion were representatives of the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, the Virginia Association of Meat Processors, the Virginia Deer Hunters Association, the Virginia Federation of Foodbanks, other nonprofit food distribution charities, and interested individuals. Information was also available from the Virginia Department of Health and the Virginia Department of Meat and Poultry Inspection.

The outcome of this meeting indicated that venison could be donated, processed, and distributed while complying with all laws and codes applicable in Virginia. It was decided that the program should be administered by a certified 501 (C) (3) organization and that to function best funds should be raised to cover the costs of having professional meat processors(butchers) accept, cut, wrap, and freeze the deer donated by hunters in Virginia. Distribution would be handled through foodbanks and other charities. A nonprofit administrator volunteered to take on the project as a pilot effort and Hunters for the Hungry began in Virginia in the fall of 1991.

During the first year over 33,000 pounds of venison was donated, processed, and distributed. The program expanded and in its second year over 68,000 pounds of meat was handled.

It became clear that the potential of the program was quite large and the decision was made in January of 1993 to form a separate nonprofit corporation to administer and operate the program. This was accomplished and continues to exist. That organization has a corporate title of Virginia Hunters Who Care, Inc.

The Hunters for the Hungry program has continued to expand. Annual distribution now exceeds 400,000 pounds.

For more information, check out the website: Virginia Hunters for the Hungry.

God's Credit Card to the Rescue -- Again

2010-05-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

"Go dancing tonight," the doctor told me yesterday afternoon at the end of my appointment. Yes, he wanted some more tests, but in general he agrees with me that I have been blessed with better health than my attention to taking care of myself deserves. So, I went dancing. Well, not literally dancing, but the effect was the same.

Donnie and I decided to grab a Subway sandwich and take it back home to San Ignatio (which has no fast food joints). We had some new movies from Netflix that had arrived in the mail and decided that after a hard week we deserved a relaxing evening. And that is just what we did -- after taking care of one of God's children.

When we arrived at Subway, we encountered a girl in her early twenties who asked us for a dollar. Well, being a mother, I have to know some things from kids in their twenties.

"What do you need it for?" I asked.

"Food," she replied.

Ah, in that case, I had a better solution that a dollar bill. I handed her one of my $10 McDonald cards. She could buy a couple meals with that. She thanked me and seemed sincere about it. Hollister has a 22% unemployment rate right now, so there are many hungry people looking for help.

AS Donnie and I stood in line, we had second thoughts. McDonald's was on the other side of town, and here we were at a place selling FOOD. For heaven's sake, we could buy her a meal on the spot and not make her trek somewhere else. Then she would have the card for a meal the next day.

So, I went back outside to talk to the young lady. She had started to walk off, ostensibly to go to McDonald's. "Excuse me," I called after her. "What's your name?"

She approached me. "Mary," she answered. Now there's a name that makes you think twice!

"Well, Mary, would you let us buy you a meal?" I asked.

She agreed with a wide smile, and in we went. We talked a little about the kinds of sandwiches we wanted while waiting in line, and she seemed a little awkward. That made sense, I thought. She did not know us. However, the real reason soon came to light.

"I don't know how to ask this," she started, then continued. "I feel guilty about accepting a meal for myself and then going home to my family who are also hungry. I was trying to collect money to buy food for them all. Could I get something for them, too?"

"How many of them are there?" I asked.

"Six," she responded. "Two children, my mother, my sister, and my brother-in-law, besides me."

"Okay," I told her. "We can manage that." Of course, we could manage that. I had God's credit card with me. ( I had originally set up a $250 credit card to carry with me for those times I ran into people needing help when I was without cash. The credit line on that account has been raised without my request to $500, then to $750, then to $4500. Yikes! I wonder if God has a big spending request pending for me. Not to worry; every time I have used the card for someone God has put in my path, within a month the amount of money needed to pay off the card has dropped into my lap. I run a zero balance on it.) So, here we were, God's credit card where it always is -- in my pocket, and a young lady in need of six meals.

Mary excused herself briefly to use the bathroom. The lady in front of us in line had overheard everything and suggested that we save money by getting six footlongs that were cut in half. That way it would only be $15 and would still be enough for six people. I considered it briefly and decided to leave that decision to God. It was, after all, His credit card.

Mary came back just in time to order. She immediately asked for four footlongs and two children's meals. As she darted back and forth between the person handling the bread and meat and the person handling the toppings, I remembered so many times doing the same thing with our kids. Sometimes, I had ordered as many as ten, depending upon who was home at the time. It was always quite an experience for the sandwich makers when my family came to dinner or I stopped by to bring them home. I got involved in the information passing to the sandwich makers, helping Mary. What joy! What fun! It was just like the old days, and for a brief few minutes, through Mary, it was like being back with my kids in younger years.

Finally done, we packed up all the sandwiches, chips, drinks, and headed out the door. "How far do you have to walk?" I asked Mary, eyeing her multiple bags.

"Oh, I live nearby," she said. "Near the dollar store."

"That's more than a mile away!" I protested. "We will drive you."

So, we drove her there, talking along the way about her family, current situation, boyfriend -- and the, yikes, fact that she might be pregnant.

"Okay," Donnie, now the dad again, brought up. "How are you going to feed the baby?"

"Well, if I am pregnant, my boyfriend has agreed to pay for the baby and get married. He has a job."

That seems like a backward way to do things, but I guess the modern days are different from the days in which we grew up. Nonetheless, both Donnie and I slipped right back into the parent role, discussing the implications of these kinds of things. She seemed to accept that even though we are not her parents. Somehow, it just all seemed so natural.

All too soon, we arrived and let her out. She started to walk away, then set down her bags and came back to me, as I was about to get back into the car after helping her with the bags. She reached out and gave me a big hug and smile. "Thanks," she said. And that was it.

Yesterday, I followed the doctor's orders. I went dancing -- but not in the literal sense.

Stand Downs

2010-05-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting idea from the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans: a "stand down" for homeless vets (or for homeless people in general). From the coalition's website comes the following description:

The Stand Down for homeless veterans was modeled after the Stand Down concept used during the Vietnam War to provide a safe retreat for units returning from combat operations. At secure base camp areas, troops were able to take care of personal hygiene, get clean uniforms, enjoy warm meals, receive medical and dental care, mail and receive letters, and enjoy the camaraderie of friends in a safe environment. Stand Down afforded battle-weary soldiers the opportunity to renew their spirit, health and overall sense of well-being.

That is the purpose of the Stand Down for homeless veterans, and achieving those objectives requires a wide range of support services and time. The program is successful because it brings these services to one location, making them more accessible to homeless veterans.

Stand downs in May are taking place in Lakeland, Tucson, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Lansing, and San Luis Obispo. Here is the schedule for 2010 Stand Downs.

Let's spread the information!

National Conference on Ending Homelessness

2010-05-10T02:36:00.000-07:00

The National Alliance to End Homeless is hosting a conference. The image above gives the most important details. Here are some more:

(1) Registration can be accomplished on line at the Alliance's website: click here.

(2) Events include pre-conference meetings, workshops, institutes, and keynote speakers.

(3) Unfortunately, at least for me, the registration fees are a bit steep: $450 for early registration and $700 for on-site registration. Scholarships are available, but they must be requested by May 21: click here for the link. In addition, volunteers receive free registration.

(4) Hotel accommodations for those who do not live in the DC area have been arranged at $205 a night.

It sounds like an interesting and useful way to spend three days!

Twitter Transforming Help for the Homeless

2010-05-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

I recently came across an interesting post about someone twittering about a homeless situation and people stepping forward as a result to help. Here is an excerpt:

An LA mother and her nine-year old son have been homeless and living out of their van. Earlier this week, their van was towed by the city - along with all of their clothing and belongings. Horvath, who works during the day as an outreach worker for an LA-area shelter, tweeted the following message:

That message was received by several thousand followers. One person responded to Horvath's message, and offered to purchase clothing, food, and even a few toys for the family. Needless to say, the family was thrilled; the young mother said it was the first time she and her son had received new clothes in a very long time. Horvath documented much of the event on video, and has since blogged about the entire ordeal here.

You can read the whole post here: Will Twitter Transform Homeless Services in 2010?

This is not the first time I have read about a Twitter comment bringing out the best in people. It is good to know that social networking can be used effectively for something other than chatting. What a great idea it will become if everyone starts using it this way.

Hard to Believe the Inhumanity of People

2010-04-28T23:36:00.001-07:00

Homeless good Samaritan left to die on NYC street
By DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press Writer © 2010 The Associated Press
April 26, 2010, 11:42PM

I came across the following story, published two days ago and had a hard time believing that people could be this way. I am curious as to readers' take on this. Why do you think people walked past? What would you have done?

Now, here's the story:

NEW YORK — The homeless man lay face down, unmoving, on the sidewalk outside an apartment building, blood from knife wounds pooling underneath his body.

One person passed by in the early morning. Then another, and another. Video footage from a surveillance camera shows at least seven people going by, some turning their heads to look, others stopping to gawk. One even lifted the homeless man's body, exposing what appeared to be blood on the sidewalk underneath him, before walking away.

It wasn't until after the 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant had been lying there for nearly an hour that emergency workers arrived, and by then, it was too late. Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax — who police said was stabbed while intervening to help a woman being attacked — had died.

"I think it's horrific," said Marla Cohan, who teaches at P.S. 82, a school across the street from where Tale-Yax died. "I think people are just afraid to step in; they don't want to get involved; who knows what their reasons are?"

Tale-Yax was walking behind a man and a woman on 144th Street in the Jamaica section of Queens around 6 a.m. April 18 when the couple got into a fight that became physical, according to police, who pieced together what happened from surveillance footage and interviews with area residents.

Tale-Yax was stabbed several times when he intervened to help the woman, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. She and the other man fled in different directions, and Tale-Yax pursued the man before collapsing. Authorities are searching for the man and woman.

A 911 call of a woman screaming came in around 6 a.m., but when officers responded to the address that was given, no one was there, police said. Another call came in around 7 a.m., saying a man was lying on the street, but gave the wrong address. Finally, around 7:20 a.m., someone called 911 to report a man had possibly been stabbed at 144th Street and 88th Road.

Police and firefighters arrived a few minutes later to find Tale-Yax dead. Officials say they're not sure whether the man was still alive when passers-by opted not to help him.

Residents who regularly pass by the same stretch of sidewalk, in a working-class neighborhood of low-rise apartment buildings and fast food restaurants near a busy boulevard, were unnerved by the way Tale-Yax died.

"Is anybody human anymore?" asked Raechelle Groce, visiting her grandmother at a nearby building on Monday. "What's wrong with humanity?"

In the urban environment, it's not unusual to see people on the street, sleeping or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

But even assuming the person they've just passed is drunk, instead of injured, is no reason not to notify authorities, said Seth Herman, another teacher at the school. He remembered calling an ambulance when seeing a man who appeared to be homeless on the street, with a beer bottle near by.

He called 911, he said, because "I felt it wasn't my job to figure out if the person was drunk or actually hurt."

Groce agreed.

"I just think that's horrible, whether you're homeless or not," she said. "He's a human being; he needs help."

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

Insights into Lack of Family Support for the Homeless

2010-04-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida somewhat recently published a very interesting post, which I am reproducing in part here. (The image is also reproduced from the Coalition's site.) That post answers one of the questions that frequently comes to mind when one encounters the homeless and/or the hungry: Where are their families? Why don't theny help them? How/why did they end up on the street all alone? Well, read below to see some answers:

"From his own experience, a formerly homeless man named Clyde offers a description of reasons that family reunifications are difficult for the homeless. The words below are taken directly from Clyde’s subjective but insightful blog post:

* Many don’t have parents or any other family to ask for help, even if they wanted to. For some, their parents have passed away, or are in such poor health or financial condition that they can’t help anyone.

* An increasing number of young homeless never had real parents. In some homes, children are treated as just a burden, being fed and housed but little more. Many are physically abused, though verbal abuse can be just as destructive….Thousands of young people run away from these conditions and end up living on the street.

* Many homeless people may have several brothers and sisters, grown-up children, or other relatives, but being family doesn’t mean they will help. They may not be capable of helping due to their own health or financial situation. Some will only grudgingly help a little and make it very clear that it’s an unwelcome burden.

* There are times where the homeless person had been helped by parents but refused to improve their own situation. Sometimes family members may just have to say no, if only for a while, to give the person an incentive to try harder."

The rest of the post, along with other interesting posts and statistics, can be found at the Hope for the Homeless blog maintained by the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida.

Sabu Help: Self-Help for the Poor of Ghana

2010-04-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend Sabu Help will be holding a fundraising event and is asking for bloggers' financial help, where possible, and prayers. I am blogging about it here because I believe it to be a worthy cause. Readers are asked to spread the word.

Here is some information:
Sabu Help is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping rural poor people help themselves, find ways to produce food, earn an income, and raise healthy families. The organization supports investment in such ventures as agriculture, animal husbandry, skilled services, and retail & trading. Donations and grants are used to provide business micro loans, supporting the poor people to invest in their community resources and productive businesses. Then, Sabu Help "pays it forward" by recycling repaid loans to help fund more poor people in other communities. Currently, the organization works principally in Ghana but hopes to expand to other locations.

Additional information can be found at the organization's website: Sabu Help.

Is Giving a Handout a Crime?

2010-04-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share the following article that was posted recently at The Responsibility Project. The content is certain to raise emotions. I recommend that readers go to the original article and post a comment there for greater effect. (Nearly 50 people have already done so.)

Give To The Homeless, Commit a Crime?
March 16, 2010 By Kathy McManus

A television station in San Antonio, Texas, recently reported that a local councilman wants to make it a crime to give money to a beggar or homeless person on city streets. Those who open their wallets would be fined.

“If there’s no money for the panhandlers, the panhandlers will go away,” said Councilman John Clamp.

But some residents say what will go away is their right to give. “I think it is absolutely ludicrous to ticket someone for wanting to help out another human being,” one person commented online. “To me, that is the same as punishing someone for wanting to do the right thing.” Another wrote, “Whenever I am tempted to pass judgment over these people I ask myself how desperate would I have to be and how far would I have to fall before I would beg? Then I hand them a dollar and get on with my day.”

“You are all missing the point,” wrote another resident who said giving cash to “bums” was ill advised. “I used to give them money,” the writer continued, “until I started seeing them in the park drinking and smoking crack!” San Antonio Express-News columnist Victor Landa , however, questioned the practicality of the proposed law by asking, “Whose responsibility is it to be the street-level charity police?”

Tell us what you think: Should it be a crime to give money to someone on the street?

Away from Blogging for a Week

2010-03-27T20:06:00.001-07:00

With the beginning of Holy Week, I will be taking a week off from blogging so as to spend as much time as possible in prayer, which, in reality, will be considerably less than usual and certainly far less than I would like.

Unfortunately, I cannot take a week off from traveling and am sad that I will be on a plane between Ohio and Texas Thursday evening, which means that I will miss Maundy Thursday Mass, which is one of my favorites. (The year that Fr. Greg, a priest assigned to our parish on an interim basis, was here, 2007, I was one of the 12 whose feet he washed; then he asked the 12 of us to wash the feet of everyone in the church -- it took a long time, but it was a very good experience for everyone.)

I even have to work on Good Friday this year. Usually I can manage my schedule so that I can get off work. Fortunately, the senior manager I am traveling with is also Catholic, and I have charged him with finding us a Mass in San Antonio. I hear that there is a wonderful cathedral near the Alamo. (He is reliable; we have attended Mass together during our required travels in Korea and in Germany at churches that he has tracked down.) I have told our San Antonio branch that once we know the time of Mass, they will have to work my meetings around that time. I will be back early Saturday afternoon, in time for Easter vigil at Old Mission, which is where I really prefer to be -- in my little town which one visitor once called "namolein" (Russian: "saturated in prayer").

I will be back after Easter, and I wish all of you a wonderful, blessed week and as much time as you want to spend with God.

(Photo: Wallpaperoriginals.com)

Cell Phones for Haiti

2010-03-23T00:38:00.000-07:00

An interesting project came to my attention in recent days: a project to provide free cell phones to Red Cross workers and others who need them in Haiti. Recellular will refurbish donated phones and send them to those who need them in Haiti; where they cannot be reburbished, Recelllular will donate their value to Haiti. Here is the introductory blurb on the Phones for Haiti site:

There are an estimated 130 million phones retired in the United States every year. If even a small percentage of them are donated to Phones for Haiti, it would contribute millions of dollars towards relief from the devastating earthquake. ReCellular will give 100% of the phone value as a contribution to the American Red Cross. In addition, qualifying phones will be refurbished and supplied to aid groups working in Haiti. All phones are accepted, though newer phones will provide the most value to the charity — in some cases $100 or more.

Check it out! It might be a way to help and eliminate some of your clutter at the same time.

(Image from ReCellular site. Photo by Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross)

How to Panhandle

2010-03-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

I came across this wikihow that teaches people the do's and don't's of panhandling. I am reprinting here from the wikihow (am sure that the author won't mind because it was put out for public sharing and education) because it gives some interesting insights into the panhandling world, situation, and mind. My comments follow the article.

A panhandler is a person who depends on the spontaneous charity of strangers for his/her survival. In some parts of the world, begging is the only alternative to starvation, especially in the context of a poor economy or an oppressive government; in other parts of the world, panhandling is illegal because of its association with addiction and irresponsibility. You never know when you might have to ask strangers for help, whether you've been mugged in a foreign land and need enough money to make it home, life deals you a particularly harsh hand of cards (like abuse, disability, illness, war); or you become so dissatisfied with your existing options that begging seems like a better alternative.
Steps:
(1) Swallow your pride. Most people find it difficult to quietly beg for money from friends or relatives. It’s even harder to beg from complete strangers where everybody can see you. Still, you’re going to have to suck it up and be humble. If you've already exhausted the alternatives and begging is your last resort, it may help to keep in mind that in many countries, begging does not hold the stigma it does in most of the Western World, and in some places asking for alms is considered an honorable profession.
(2) Remember what you're offering. People who give you enough money do so because it makes them feel good. A person is more likely to help you if they can identify with you, and if they feel their contribution will make a significant difference in your situation. Sometimes, people give alms for religious reasons, and other times because they feel guilty for having been born with so much more than others without having necessarily earned it. The more you learn about why people give, the better you'll be at receiving.
(3) Clean up. Before you begin, make an effort to look presentable. You certainly don’t want to be smelling of alcohol, for example, but you also should comb your hair, practice overall good hygiene, and dress in clean, but cheap clothes. If you stand out, people are more likely to give you money. Wear comfortable shoes and dress in layers so you don’t get too warm or cold. You want to present an image of a hard-working, normal person who is just like the people from whom you are asking for money, except that you’re a little down on your luck.
(4) Make a sign. A simple sign on a piece of cardboard makes you more noticeable and tells your story—it’s advertising, plain and simple. Remember, you want to make people feel good for giving you money, so give them a reason: you just got laid off, you’ve got a family to feed, etc., and you need help. Tell your story concisely, and make your sign in neat, large letters. Make sure the letters are bold enough to read.
(5) Find a suitable location. Location is all-important to a successful begging endeavor, and the most important facet of location is traffic. The more traffic you can get, the better. There are two general approaches to location: you can target foot traffic or automobile traffic, but usually not both.
(6) Smile and greet people courteously. You'd be surprised how far a simple, unassuming smile will go. Smiles are welcoming, and put people at ease. Especially in the U.S., people generally appreciate a positive attitude. Then again, remember that you’re down on your luck, and you may want to play it a bit differently. Regardless of your approach, say "hello" or “good morning” to people and make an effort to notice them politely—they’ll be more likely to do the same to you.
(7) Ask for money directly and softly. You may assume that people know you want money, and most people do, but you’ve still got to work for it. Ask passersby nicely and in a quiet voice—they’ll have to listen more carefully and may slow down, and you’ll also appear less aggressive. Have something to put money in: a cup, a cap, a guitar case, a pan, etc. This makes it easier for people to quickly drop some change in. Empty it regularly so people—both customers and potential crooks—can't see how much you’re bringing in.
(8) Remember the names of your regulars. If you frequent a certain location, make an effort to remember the people who give you money. You probably won’t get a chance to know them by name (although you may), but you can recognize their faces and any distinguishing characteristics—for example, a person may carry an umbrella every day, even when it’s not raining—and give them a special greeting. Maybe even give certain regulars endearing nicknames if you don’t know their real names.
(9) Thank everyone. If someone gives you money, show your appreciation. Even when people don’t give you money, thank them (implicitly) just for listening, and wish them a good day. Doing so will make them think twice about refusing your request next time they pass you.
- reprinted from Wikihow

Here are my comments to the steps given above:

(1) I think we, who are the alms givers not the alms receivers, think mostly about our own emotional state. I wonder if we consider how difficult it must be for panhandlers, at least for the sincere ones who are truly in desperate straits, to ask for help from total strangers in public places and how awkward and worthless they must feel when few people will even speak to them, let alone look at them. Fr. Christian (Blessed Is the Kingdom) recently published an interesting poem on this subject written by Ellen Palmer in the 1990s called "Eyes." It is very much worth the time it takes to click on the link and read that sensitive and touching poem.

(2) Likewise, the more we learn about the people to whom we give money, the easier it is to give to them. That is why I like carrying God's credit card with me so that I can take someone to lunch, fill their tank with gas, or help them out in more personal ways, ways in which I can get to know a little bit about them.

3) When I put in the effort to get to know someone to whom I am giving alms (obviously, this is not always impossible and really is the exception rather than the rule), I almost always discover that we have something in common.

(4) I wonder how good this advice is. I do find those signs helpful if I am just driving into or out of a parking lot. However, I often hesitate in those situations, not knowing whether the person is "for real" or not even though it is not up to me to make that determination. I never hesitate when someone approaches me person to person on the street or in the parking lot with a specific request. What do you think?

(5) I guess I am more likely to get involved in the foot traffic location, but perhaps that is because I love to get involved: get to know the person, buy something for them, eat lunch together, or just sit and pass the time of day or listen to their stories. To do that in an auto traffic area would be very difficult -- I would have to notice, not hesitate (my bane), go park, and return. That requires greater deliberation on my part and less spontaneity and is therefore less likely to happen. On the other happen, I imagine that penny for penny, it might result in more income for the panhandler. I guess it depends on what it is specifically they need and why.

(6) This works both ways. Even if I do not have any change with me or time to stop and help, in my experience, saying "hello" makes both of us feel better. After all, would we not say "hello" to any other individual we might pass by. Why should panhandlers deserve any less courtesy?

(7) Good advice and not necessarily superfluous. If I know what someone wants money for, I could sometimes help in ways that they don't anticipate. For example, once Donnie had someone ask for money outside our local grocery store. He said he wanted to buy breakfast. Donnie bought him breakfast, and the two sat and ate at one of the cafe tables outside, California being a state of perpetual spring. Then he learned that one of the things that the panhandler was collecting money for was a cell phone because he had friends who could tell him where day jobs in our local agricultural economy were available at the last minute because someone was ill for the day; even though there was not a full time job opening, he was able to go and harvest for the day. Without a cell phone, however, he could not find out about these opportunities in time. Donnie told him to stay put; then he returned to our house only one minute away. (In San Ignatio, everything is only one minute away by car.) He returned with a spare cell phone that we no longer needed because we had upgraded and gave it to the panhandler, whose name, I believe, was Dick.

(8) Good advice. Getting to know a panhandler by name is helpful to both giver and receiver and can build a relationship. For a number of weeks, Donnie, who works at home and loves to take his daily breakfast at the cafe of our local grocery store, would thereafter meet Dick for breakfast every morning that Dick did not get a call to work. Over time, Dick was absent more and more, and finally, one day, Dick told Donnie he would not be able to meet for breakfast any more because he had just gotten a full-time job in the fields!

(9) An attitude of gratitude is good for everyone. I also thank panhandlers for sharing themselves with me, for trusting me with their stories, and for letting me help them. The rewards of alms giving go in two directions -- and maybe even in more than two directions.

I am curious as to your reactions to these "instructions." Comments?

Please, God, Give Me Another Chance!

2010-03-10T00:46:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning during my start-of-the-day prayer time, the thought that we would be spending a significant portion of the day in Santa Clara with Doah, including going out to lunch together, floated into my head, and I asked God to send me someone to help. (I was thinking about the H2 Hunger challenge: take a homeless & hungry person to lunch or dinner and get to know the person as an individual.) It had been some time since I have had that kind of opportunity, so I asked for Saturday to be the day that it happened again.

As Donnie and I headed out to lunch with Doah, I had a very specific scenario in mind: someone panhandling, asking for lunch money. Prior to lunch, I wanted to run into Kohl's to look for a new outfit since I have lost enough weight that most of my clothes do not fit properly. As we drove into the parking lot of a shopping mall where we had never been before, having set the GPS to find the store for us, I saw a man with a card on the exiting side of the entrance into which we were driving. Could this be our lunch partner, I wondered and mentally made plans to check for him after we finished at Kohl's and before heading to Roundtable Pizza, the sign for which we had noticed upon driving into the parking lot.

My errand at Kohl's took longer than I thought because I could find nothing appropriate or that fit. Finally, I gave up. By then both Doah and Donnie were hungry. We looked around for the pizza place, but it did not seem to be anywhere near its sign but on the other side of the very large parking lot -- large enough that we had to drive there. I glanced at where the panhandler had been standing, and he was not there. Hm...

Well, there was nothing to be done about that. We went into Roundtable, ordered some rather run-of-the-mill pizza, ate it, and left.

We left the parking lot through a different exit, one with a street that had a light at the end of the block. At the end of the block, by the light, there stood the panhandler who had been at the other exit when we entered a couple of hours earlier. That took me by surprise. He held a card that said "Hello, peace be with you. Please help. God bless."

This did not fit with the image I had had in my head. I had expected to find him before lunch and take him to lunch, not hand him money. Moreover, he looked like he was not desperate, like he did not even really need any money. Although I had no change with me, I did have a spare $10 bill in the car visor that we used for emergency cash, but I hesitated to hand it over. I was focused on the way I had planned on helping, not on this new scenario.

The light stayed red a very long time. I was able not only to think about the situation but also to talk about it.

Doah spoke up. "Belle [the woman in charge of his group home] says not to give my money away." Of course, she says that. He gets very little pin money from SSI and only about $5 a week from his sheltered workshop duties. Nonetheless, he would give all of it away. I have seen him do it. So, Belle was only looking out for Doah's interests in telling him that.

While I was debating whether to be charitable to this man or not, the person in the car behind me held out a dollar bill, and the man walked over to accept it. Well, at least someone helped, I thought.

Before I had time to consider any further, the light turned green, and Donnie drove off. As we left the area, I realized, too late, that this may very well have been the person in need that I asked God put in my path. Why, otherwise, would he appear in the spot where we entered and then reappear in the very different spot where we exited? And why would the light stay red such a very long time? I was so focused on the lunch option, on my plan, that I did not think soon enough about forking over our $10 emergency gas cash. Yet, somehow, I think that is exactly what I was supposed to do, like the people in the car behind us did, setting an example that I did not follow.

I do not know why I hesitated although I could make some guesses. A small part of the reason probably was the influence of Belle's words although they really did not apply in this situation. Another small part of the reason may be something that occasionally (actually, too frequently) causes me to hesitate: I wonder if the panhandler will use the money for bad things, not good things (but I know it should not be up to me to make that judgment). The biggest part, the important piece, I finally realized is that I was so focused on my plan that I probably totally missed God's plan.

I immediately felt miserable; I felt like I had failed God. Actually, I think I did fail God. So, now I am begging God to give me another chance -- and really hoping that I won't blow it the next time.

As I was writing this post -- I started it on Sunday -- I came across a post that helped me see the situation in a different light and thus to react differently. That post was written by Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom -- a site that is on my blogroll because I find many of the posts insightful and educative) and titled Still Hoping for Failure.

Fr. Christian had written:

"May we not let our own failures to follow Christ get in the way of our faithfulness to Him. We don’t have to be perfect Christians. It is enough to simply ask for mercy when we need it and remember that love never fails."

So now, I am going to ask for mercy, forgive myself, and beg God for another chance. (I am also going to start carrying McDonald's gift cards because that way I might not be as likely to hesitate. It seems that I may have to protect myself against my own second guessings if I want to do any good in this world.)

Note: Simultaneously published on Blest Atheist and H2 Helper.

Food Banks in Crisis

2010-03-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

"Be a hunger hero," says a food bank in Michigan.

The following information was brought to my attention by Lynn (Life According to the Wall Street Redneck's Wife) from Michigan. Gleaner's Food Bank needs your help! Michigan, especially the Flint and Detroit areas have been hit very hard by the tough economy and the break down of the automobile industry. Michigan is suffering from the highest rates of unemployment in the USA. This rise in the unemployment rate, which has yet according to ABC News this morning to peak, has caused a rise in the number of families needing help with basic necessities such as food and housing.

Just last week, at the Bible Studies class I attend, one of the participants, Tom, who assists at a food bank in Hollister, California (yes, unfortunately, the home town of the recent Pentagon shooter), told of the difficult situation there, with significant shortfalls in contributions and the need to allocate a maximum number of times per week that individuals or families can come in to receive help. In fact, some of the people who used to contribute are now people in need of contributions as a result of last year's immense bust in California's housing market, a bust similar to that across the USA but with seemingly greater consequences, considering that California has, in general, the highest housing prices in the country, both for owning and for renting. So, renting has become a problem for those who have lost their homes.

Given these two distant-from-each-other food banks in crisis, I would imagine that any city anywhere in this country has food banks in similar situations. If you are in a position to help, it would seem that there is no better time than now.

Readymade Packets for the Homeless

2010-03-02T00:03:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Schmidt recently wrote a post for the (In)Courage site called The Hidden Face of Homelessness. I found her post so appealing that I would like to bring your attention to it. You can find the full post at (In)Courage: The Hidden Face of Homelessness.

What Ms. Schmidt is suggesting is so obvious but unlikely to have been thought of very many people. She prepares "care packages for the homeless" that she carries around with her and hands out when she happens to run into a homeless person. Here is what she suggests including in a care package:

1. Hand warmers, gloves
2. Snacks
3. Wet Wipes
4. Toothbrush/toothpaste
5. Water bottle
6. Mints/gum/cough drops
7. Kleenex
8. Chapstick
9. Note/bible verse
10. Pillar candles

This is something we can all do, both for those that we take to dinner and those we just occasionally run into. I will say "yes" to her question: "Will you join me [in carrying and giving out care packages]?" How about you?

Help Alleviate Hunger with One Click

2010-02-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

About ten years ago, when I was working at NASA, a colleague brought The Hunger Site to my attention. "All you have to do is go there and click, and food will be donated to hungry people," she said.

Now that seemed unrealistic. I was certain that she had misunderstood. However, the name of the site was easy to remember: The Hunger Site. So, I typed in www.thehungersite.com to see what was really the situation, and, sure enough, my colleague was correct! The site is free. All you have to do is take the time to go and clock. (Of course, if you would like to buy something from one or more of the sponsors, then even more food is given to the hungry people of the world, but purchases are not necessary.)

Today, a decade later, the site is still running. To the hunger program have been added additional ones: donations for breast cancer, rain forest, literacy, child health, and animal rescue. All of these donations only require a click!

I try to go there every day. Obviously, I have not remembered -- or found the time -- to go every day for ten years, but I have, indeed, gone often enough to know that much food has been donated as a result of very little effort by me. I encourage all who have wandered onto this page to check out The Hunger Site. Clicking is fast and easy. As the Nike ad says: Just do it!

In a Moscow Tunnel

2010-02-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

I related this story some time ago on my main blog, Blest Atheist, but since it has become buried over time and at the same time is pertinent to the H2 Helper theme, I decided to re-relate it here.

The story took place in Moscow, Russia not long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I was providing consultation to the Ministry of Higher Education, and every day during the three weeks or so I spent there I had to pass through the tunnel connecting transfer stations on the metro line I was traveling. In that tunnel, I would pass by a squatting woman, dressed all in black, with her hand held out and her head hung down. Beside her, a little girl of perhaps 3-4 years, was sometimes leaning against her knee, sometimes squatting in a similar posture with her hand also held out, and sometimes twirling around, dancing from tile to tile that lined the metro floor. Mother and daughter, I assumed. Passersby (more frequently than I usually see happening in the USA) would drop some coins or press some paper money into the woman's hand. I never saw anyone speak.

This scene was more remarkable because it was occurring right after raspad (the dissolution of the former Soviet Union); during Soviet Union days beggars were unheard of and, for that matter, not permitted. Panhandlers and beggars were a new-order phenomenon, one with which contemporary Russia would become all too familiar. What put this woman on the streets, I wondered? I, too, was unused to seeing beggars in Russia and certainly not a mother and child.

Although I never handed out any alms to her and cannot say why I did not, I felt uncomfortable each morning and evening that I passed her. The last day I was in Moscow, I was making my final trip back to where I was staying with friends and realized that I had forgotten to change my leftover per diem rubles to dollars. My friends would not be able to do that for me; they did not have dollars -- it was still too early in post-Soviet history for dollars to have appeared in the households of everyday people and too early for the appearance of those exchanges that now appear on every street corner in large cities like Moscow. Further, I was leaving at pre-dawn hours, long before the airport exchange would open, and once I got back to the USA, the money was useless. Rubles are not tied to the gold standard and hence cannot be converted into other currency outside Russia. Moreover, I had more than the amount that visitors were allowed to take out of the country so the money would have been confiscated by Russian customs with the chance of getting in trouble.

Just then, I came across the lady and girl. It was before the great evening hordes would sweep through the tunnels and carry anyone standing still past their preferred stopping points, and so I had a chance to meet these two. I squatted beside the lady and asked her why she was on the street. She told me a little of her story, much of which I have forgotten. It rang true: an abusive alcoholic husband without a job (being on the street was safer than being at home and certainly she did not want to leave her child at home with him when he was drunk) and the vicious cycle of not having money to obtain care for her child (child care had not been a problem in the Soviet days of ever-present yasli, or children's centers) and having a child with her getting in the way of getting a job, plus a depressed and changing economy where many of the traditional jobs were no longer viable. And, of course, there was that problem with lack of knowledge (how to survive in a more capitalistic manner, how to be independent, how to problem-solve) that comes with mother's milk in the USA and had not been required before the raspad in Russia.

In an instant, this mother became for me an archetype. Anyone could have been she, given a similar unfortunate set of circumstances. In fact, there were times that, except for God tossing me some contemporary manna in the most critical moment (only God knows why because while I desperately needed it, I did not particularly deserve it), I could have been she. Talking to her, I realized that I knew how to handle my per diem money. While I could have used those dollars at home for any number of things, they were, in reality, "spare" rubles that I should have spent for per diem but had not needed because friends had seen to it that I was well fed and had a bed to sleep in (although I did share it with the daughter in the family, Russian apartments being miniscule by American standards). I explained my dilemma in converting rubles to dollars to the lady and asked her if she would take them for her child. Giving her that many rubles straight out could have been quite embarrassing even for a panhandler, but for her child, nothing would have been embarrassing. The amount of money would either keep her off the streets for a couple of months or provide her with the means to look for work; I hoped she would choose the latter but have no way of knowing how things turned out. The thought that she would not simply be benefitting herself but would also be helping out a foreigner (whom Russians feel committed to help) let her maintain a sense of self-respect. I suppose the self-respect of a panhandler should not have been important to me, and actually the self-respect of a stranger would not have been. However, thanks to our short conversation, I had now met this woman. She was no longer a stranger. She mumbled something about God bringing us together for mutual help, but at the time I was an atheist and did not understand what she meant. I do now.

Tanya's Bombzh

2010-02-19T23:06:00.001-08:00

The word in Russian for a homeless person is bombzh. It is an acronym that has come so forcefully into daily language since the raspad (dissolution of the Soviet Union), before which one would never find a homeless person on the streets of any Soviet city, that I cannot remember what the words are that make up the acronym. B likely stands for bezdomnyi (homeless), but the rest of it has simply faded too far from my mind to be recalled.

Years ago, a friend of mine, Tanya, an immigrant to the United States from Moscow (who has since returned to Russia) was living alone in a small apartment in Arlington, Virginia. Each day on her way to work, she passed the Rosslyn metro station. Outside the metro, several homeless men would panhandle passersby. Like me in an earlier period, she began talking to one of them. Each day she would give him a few coins -- she did not have much money herself, being an immigrant, working at a low-paying job. Each day he would share a few words with her. This went on for days, then weeks, then a couple of months.

November arrived and along with it Thanksgiving. This would be Tanya's first Thanksgiving in the USA. She spoke to colleagues and work, watched television, and read. All about Thanksgiving. She wanted to join in the celebration and experience a day of gratitude. She would be alone, however, and while she had celebrated Halloween and before that Labor Day and before that the Fourth of July alone, she wondered how she could best experience Thanksgiving, a holiday that was generally celebrated with family.

It was then that she realized that she did have family. Her "family" was living on the streets of Arlington. It was "my bombzh," as she called him. (I knew him by no other name.) So, the day before Thanksgiving, she walked over to the metro station, which was only a couple of blocks from her house. Sure enough, her bombzh was there. "I am all alone and would like to celebrate Thanksgiving with family," she told him. "Would you be my family?"

He readily agreed. They had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal together. Most of the food was not traditional American Thanksgiving fare, except perhaps the turkey. However, Tanya was a talented Russian cook, and everything she prepares is very tasty. The bombzh had quite a good meal.

And therein started a tradition. First Christmas, then New Year's Day, for every holiday, Tanya invited her bonmbzh to her apartment to celebrate. Over time, he seemed very much like family to her. As for herself, Tanya never had to celebrate a holiday alone again.

God's Credit Card

2010-02-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

note: image copyright Katrin Wegmann (www.katrinwegmann.de)

This is not exactly a new post. I posted it originally on Blest Atheist (some months back, before I had started he H2 Helper). Now it seems that it fits best here. So, here goes.

I imagine the title of this particular posting sounds a bit odd, but perhaps a little explanation will make it seem more reasonable. Several months ago, I blogged about a nagging little concern that I had in the case of people asking for handouts in a post called, "The Art of Panhandling and the Act of Giving." My concern at that time was the thought of giving to people who did not really need the money or to people who were going to use it to make their condition worse (e.g., buying alcohol with it). Over time, both from bloggers' comments to that post and my subsequent reading and discussion with others, I have come to the conclusion that true giving is separated from dictating what a person does with the gift. So, that dilemma for me has been resolved.

There arose another dilemma, though. I do not carry money with me very often because I have so often been mugged and I do not need to because we are a plastic society, pretty much worldwide these days. So, when a panhandler or a person clearly in need has crossed my path, I have often not been able to help (although I would have otherwise been in a position to help). And so, I would ask God to give me another chance to help -- and I would blow it again because once again I would have only plastic with me. And then I would ask for another chance and blow that one and on and on.

On one of those occasions when I was apologizing for losing yet another opportunity to help one of God's people in need and "explaining" (obviously, a superfluous act) that given my plastic-only habit, I am not in much of a position to help anyone, into my head popped the concept that God can use plastic, too. And so I got God a credit card.

It was one of those card offers for a small credit line: $500. One can, with time, increase it as the bank and the customer build a relationship, but $500 seems to be quite an appropriate limit. I never end up putting that much on the card, and with that limit I cannot possibly get in over my head, at least not for long. Not that this could possibly be a worry because God always provides for me in such cases. So, God and I have this deal now. I reserve this card for His purposes. When He puts someone in need in my path, I pay with His card. (Of course, I can use my other cards, too, but they are usually maxed out, so having a card exclusively for God's purposes is very helpful.)

Here are a couple of recent examples of how God has used His card:

(1) I met a man in the parking lot of our local grocery store. He was on his way from Ohio to southern California to move in with his daughter, his luck having run out in Ohio. He was traveling by motorcycle, which requires less gas, and he had enough gas to make it to where he was going, but he had run out of food money the day before and was hungry. He asked for a couple of dollars for a doughnut and coffee. He thought that would carry him through the remaining six hours of his trip. I told him I had no cash but I did have a "special" credit card and if he would pick out what he wanted, not limited to a doughnut and coffee, for lunch and for the road, I would pay for it. So, he did, very judiciously. At the same time, I picked up some strawberries for dessert for dinner for Donnie and me. They were on sale: buy one, get one free. (This kind of surprising sale, just at the right moment, happens so regularly now that I would be surprised if it did not happen.) So, I gave the free strawberries to the hungry man; obviously, the sale was intended for him. As for paying off the credit card bill, the amount was so minor that it was no problem at all; I was able to include it in our food budget for the month without crimping our style, simple as our style tends to be.

(2) A couple of nights ago, about the time that the town was rolling up its sidewalks, I dashed to the grocery store to pick up some supper, our food supplies having become somewhat depleted while I was traveling. There, a young couple came up to me, the girl crying, saying that they were completely out of gas, no one would help them out, and that they were only two hours away from their destination. They looked younger than my kids, and it turns out that they were only 19, traveling across country for the first time to see some childhood friends. They begged for just one gallon of gas, enough to get to a town with more people where they might be able to get more aggregate help. I told them that I had no cash and explained about my special credit card. Asking them to follow me to our only gas station, I used the credit card to fill up their tank. They were ever so grateful -- and extremely relieved. The cost? $36. The next day, one of our church members saw me at daily mass (only when I am in town and can get off work, I go, so it is not all that often, unfortunately). This church member told me that she really needed two copies of my book immediately. (I keep 8-10 books on hand at all times, just in case, and I get them at author's discount.) Once she had paid me for the books and I had ordered the replacements at author's discount, my "profit" was exactly $36, just enough to pay the credit card bill.

So, I ask you: Is there any doubt that God is using "His" credit card?

Simple Things

2010-02-07T16:26:00.001-08:00

Chris at Enchanted Oak is raising money for Haiti through blogging. For each person who participates with a list, a poem, or a prose piece about the joy of simple things, her family will donate $2.00 to Heartline Ministries for their medical clinic and other programs in Haiti. The Heartline Ministries blog by John McHoul will tell you more about what they are doing.

Here are the rules:
Post your piece this weekend and include a link to her blog. Then pop in there to say you’ve posted your “Simple Things.” Post by midnight, Pacific time, Sunday, and don’t forget to link with her blog and notify her that you’ve posted. She will allow you to borrow the “Simple Things” photo. If you don’t have a blog, a comment on her blog will count too if you tell her so.

And here is my list of simple things:

1. A whispy breeze on a hot day.
2. A ray of sunshine on a cold day.
3. The smile of a stranger on a sad day.
4. The affectionate face lick of a cat (or dog).
5. A heartfelt hug from just about anyone.
6. Watching someone you have taught achieve an understanding of something new.
7. A sense of God's love.
8. Sharing a meal with someone hungry.
9. Family (under any circumstances).
10. Shared prayer.

Now, please go share yours!

Save a Fish, Save a Person

2010-02-05T03:13:00.000-08:00

From Footsteps, the monthly publication of the Juniperro Serra chapter of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO), with thanks to the editor and the Garcias for permission to re-publish:

Save a fish; save a person. That’s what Herman Garcia, founder and President of the nonprofit organization, Coastal Habitat Education & Environmental Restoration (CHEER) in Gilroy, California is doing. Herman, brother of our own Benny Garcia, is a local businessman in Gilroy and an avid outdoorsman. He saw a need to save the steelhead trout in the 1300 square mile Pajaro River Watershed, an area encompassing Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, so set about to do something. In 1997, Coastal California Steelhead were listed as a threatened species under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Because their freshwater habitat is disappearing, the steelhead population in Central California has fallen dramatically. Their numbers are an indicator of the overall health of the watershed, the quality of the water we consume, and the environmental health of Monterey Bay.

But this story is more than about saving fish and preserving the watershed; it’s also about saving people. As part of CHEER’s work, volunteers rescue steelhead from May through October. The remainder of the year they work to restore the streams and creeks where the fish spawn. This restoration includes a large amount of trash removal. Much of this trash, CHEER discovered, was left by a large population of homeless individuals who camp in the watershed.

Instead of looking for ways to eliminate the homeless camps along the creeks and streams, CHEER found a better solution—they engaged and empowered the homeless to be a solution to the problem instead of a cause. Herman believes that the homeless situation in the watershed is a social, political, environmental and public safety issue. Such a multi-dimensional problem requires out-of-the box thinking. So, three to four times a year, Herman and his CHEER volunteers trek into the backcountry of the watershed with food and provisions for the homeless. They provide each homeless volunteer with a hot meal and two weeks of food. In addition each person receives a pair of work gloves, long handled grippers for picking up trash, a supply of garbage bags, and a dose of education about how to care for and restore the habitat. The homeless volunteers later meet with Herman at a designated pickup area where they turn in the full garbage bags in exchange for another two weeks of food provisions. The number of homeless volunteers has grown from 12 to over 70 in just the past six months, taxing the resources of this infant organization to provide the food needed for their mission. Currently all food is purchased with money donated by CHEER volunteers.

CHEER is in need of what Herman calls “car food.” That is food that requires neither refrigeration nor heating. He suggests canned foods such as meats, fruits and beans with pop tops only; peanut butter and jelly; crackers and tortillas. In addition, the homeless have a great need for blankets, sleeping bags and jackets. CHEER will also gladly accept monetary donations to purchase food. CHEER is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so all donations are tax deductible. Donations may be earmarked for the homeless project.

CHEER,
PO Box 1735
Gilroy, CA 95020

Dorothy Day once said, “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.” Herman Garcia has started a revolution of the heart in the backcountry of the Pajaro River Watershed. Our father Francis would be pleased.

Joy in Despair

2010-01-13T07:55:00.001-08:00

For me, in dark moments, moments of grief, I am helped by focusing on moments of joy for the past, knowing that life is a balance of both. As we await the pulling of the plug and the formal end of Ray's life, with the understanding that he really died a week ago and has been artificially kept alive thanks to marvelous modern technology, I think back to something that happened a few years ago and which I describe at the end of my book, Blest Atheist.

Even if there are difficulties ahead, there will be help and protection. There will also be rewards. There always are. With God, the rewards are unanticipated and unusual. The simplest among them are the greatest.

One evening last December, the thought came into my head that I should take my evening walk around the mission grounds early. Normally I walk there around 9:00 p.m., and it was only 6:00 when I felt the push to go outside for my walk.

No, I thought. Why would I want to go now? Even though the eventide falls around 5:30 on December nights in San Ignatio, I still prefer to go later—after dinner and dishes and before retiring for the night. It is a marvelously restful way to end the day. Walking brings out the happy endorphins, and just being at the mission provides great encouragement toward prayer.

No, I’ll go later, I thought and began cleaning the kitchen in preparation for dinner. Then the impulse came again. The “argument” went back and forth a couple of times until I approached Donnie, who usually accompanies me on these walks.

“Donnie, how do you feel about taking our evening walk early tonight?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know why,” I answered. “I just feel like we should go early.”

Donnie acquiesced and quickly assembled his pipe tools. (He likes to sit and smoke while I walk.) We opened the door and stepped out under the night sky. And there it was, spread across the heavens: a breathtaking lunar ice halo.

Ice halos are rings of light that surround the sun, moon, or other sources of light, such as street lamps. The ones in the heavens are caused by millions of ice crystals in thin, cold, cirrus clouds floating in the troposphere reflecting and refracting light. This particular ice halo was circumhorizonal, a rare phenomenon for which adequately descriptive words, other than scientific ones, are even rarer. Refracted light from the moon spread in a 360-degree circle all around the sky on the same level as the moon yet at the same time touching the horizon wherever we turned—or so it seemed although in actuality the circle of light was parallel to the horizon and not lying upon it. The halo filled the whole sky, with the full moon in its zenith filtering a stream of light through a gossamer foramen in the firmament onto the mission grounds below.

I could almost hear the proud words, “Look what I did!” The hymn of Isaac Waats came to mind instantly: “The moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.”

On the mission grounds canopied by the horizon-to-horizon crystal glow, I walked, my arms extended. Irrepressible joy spread past my fingertips, riding on the splendor of light toward the horizon.

Then it was gone. Had I come at my usual time, I would have missed it.

These then are the things that have been seen and experienced by the blest atheist. All the events reported herein [in the book] have enriched my life, but the greatest of these was God sharing with me the lunar ice halo: “Look what I have done!” The hound of Heaven had finally caught me and then had shown me what I had been missing: “Look what I have done!” Indeed, I could almost hear those words and a few more: “Look at what I have done—for you, for all people, because I love you whether or not you even believe that I exist.”

All the miracles that God has done in my life and in the lives of others through me have been wondrous, but pulling me outside to view the ice halo stands out above them all as the most affirming act of God’s love. The miracles were about healing and turning bad into good. They have been important, of course. Viewing the ice halo, however, was about relationship: God’s relationship with me, God’s relationship with all of us. When God called me from my house onto the street and into the field at the mission, I understood that I was special—not special out of many, but special among many, special like all people are special to God.

On an individual level, I was and am at best only a Good Samaritan, and still God wanted a relationship with me. In so many ways, I was and am but a child who finds the adults who can help a sick child artist, a crying lady, a boy in white, or an orphan dying from brain tumors. Like a child, I have no burning desire for financial gain, material possessions, or fame and power. Those desires were beaten out of me in my youth. Although many of these things have appeared unbidden in my life, my true treasure is the people who have come into my life from all continents of the world. There is where my heart is. I want to “pass on” the good that God has brought into my life by using my linguistic proficiency, cultural acumen, and multi-domain knowledge gained from living in the land of splat! to connect people who need help with people who have the ability to give help, no matter where they live or what language they speak. For what good is money if it cannot be used to help those in need? What good are material things unless they make this world a friendlier place: a blanket to warm a homeless man, food for a hungry family, clothes for those burned out of a home? What good is power if not used to empower the powerless to be free to flourish? What good, too, is dreaming an impossible dream if it does not kindle the dreams of others? What good is reaching an unreachable star if it does not sprinkle light onto a dark existence? What good is happiness if it does not splash joy onto dispirited ground, inspiriting the life within to sprout and reach for the heavens? If, indeed, as I have found, helping those in need, making the world a friendlier place, empowering the powerless, kindling dreams, lighting the dark, and splashing joy across the land is what a Good Samaritan does, then I want to be a Good Samaritan for life. To my delight, God seems willing to use me in that capacity. For certain, God knows my heart and what I treasure.

God has many Good Samaritans. Some, like me, are blessed to help a few wounded souls in intensive ways. Others are blessed to help many people in more extensive, but less intensive, ways. Some God leads with their full knowledge. Others, like me for so many years, God leads through their hearts alone. In return, God gives them a treasure far greater than money, honor, power, or prestige: they know a perfect joy that nothing else can give.

I am sure that others saw the ice halo that night for God encourages all people to step bravely out of the grey boxes in which they are cowering and stride buoyantly forth into a divine world resplendent with color, love, and joy. In our tiny town, though, I was the only one who showed up at the mission to see the splendor on that particular winter evening. Others may have showed up elsewhere for the ice halo could be seen for miles. Perhaps even more were called to behold it but were not listening. Those who did listen experienced an unrelenting tug to come outside and witness an awe-inspiring manifestation of God’s loving caress ephemerally spread against the heavens and permanently imprinted in the mind and on the heart.

Note: Concurrently published on all Mahlou blogs.

Time Out from Blogging in Reverence for Life

2010-01-07T16:19:00.001-08:00

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts this week. There is an explanation beyond the fact that I am once again on the road, this time in Washington, D.C. (or more accurately, Arlington, Virginia). I will probably be able to post Quick Takes tomorrow evening since I wrote most of them on the plane here. However, anything else may take a few days.

Upon arriving here, I received an urgent phone call from Noelle. Her significant other of ten years' duration had a heart attack during dialysis (he has no functional kidneys) and is currently unresponsive. X-rays show a swollen brain, and doctors would like to have permission to pull the plug. Noelle, our hopelessly hopeful, never-say-never, that-empty-glass-will-soon-be-overflowing child, wants to wait. Probably Lizzie will be the one to make the decision for everyone, as she did in her grandmother's case ten years ago. That time she decided that keeping her grandmother alive artificially was in no one's interest, including her grandmother's, since even if her grandmother came out of the coma, she would not be able to care for herself or even think since all functional brain tissue had been destroyed by a brain bleed. Since Lizzie is a professor of cognitive neuroscience, doctors are willing to share records and test results with her that they would not normally share with family members; they know that she will look at them dispassionately and make an objective and measured judgment as a professional colleague.

Lizzie has conditionally weighed in on Ray. Not having the x-rays yet and just listening to the description of what has occurred and considering his comatosity, she has informed her sister that in her opinion the situation is "bad." However, she won't give any final advice until she sees documentation.

A little background: Ray lost kidney function in 2006 and was comatose (without brain swelling or damage) for several months, then was on life support in a city five hours away until December 2007. It was a wonderful Christmas present to have him be taken off life support and breathing on his own. Then, in December 2008, he was released into a care facility and transferred to Salts where he was just a few minutes away from Noelle. That was another wonderful Christmas present and a prayer answered. Ray and Noelle have had a full year beyond what they hoped for together (or as together as they can be, considering that Ray cannot even come home to visit).

Until Lizzie weighs in with an informed opinion, we wait and pray. I have asked for Ray to be put on the Old Mission prayer list, and I would ask you to pray, too. It is difficult to know what to pray for since Ray, even if he regains consciousness, will never be able to come home, will always be tied to a dialysis machine, and will likely be in pain much of the time. Since God knows better than I do in all cases, I personally am praying that God will do what is best for Ray. No matter what we personally would like to see happen, the rest of us really are insignificant in this instance. I am sure that God will take good care of Ray without prompting, but I like to pray about it, anyway. I love the support and guidance.

So, with the exception of the Quick Takes and the MMM, I plan not to spend time blogging but being available to my family and to Noelle. (I will be home on Saturday.) Life itself is special, and we should take time to acknowledge that and show our reverence for what God has given us. It is unfortunate that we tend to do so only when Death looms or has completed its reaping. Nonetheless, better now than never.

Quiet Magic

2010-01-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

People helping people. Now, that's magic. Maybe even God using them to create a miracle or two.

I have come across two posts about Christmas help via Tweet for a mother and 9-year-old son, living in a van, which was towed, leaving them with nothing. God's good helper, Mark of the Hardly Normal blog, jumped in, after learning about it on Tweet. Pastor Matthew Barnett of Los Angeles Dream Center, after reading the Tweet, met the family at Walmart. Clothes and a Christmas toy were the result.

I cannot tell the story as well as those who were directly connected with it, so I will simply post the URLs and urge you to go to those links. It will be well worth the time and the extra effort to hop on over to another blog/site.

(1) A post on Kat's Korner: InvisiblePeople Tells Homeless Stories--And Changes Lives

(2) The original story with tweet comments and a youtube interview on Mark's site: Magic of Twitter Brings Miracle to Homeless Family

I would also add that Mark, who describes himself as a long-term grinch, now uses a smiling grinch as an avatar!

Ordinary Heroes

2009-12-27T00:07:00.000-08:00

I would like to bring your attention to a wonderful Christmas story of people helping a family in trouble. You can read it at the Ordinary Hero Blog: here. (Do read the story; you will find surprises there, including the fact that while volunteers were turning the house into a home, the mother gave birth to a baby desperately in need of prayer -- and that result was amazing, as well. It is, indeed, a real Christmas story.)

Merry Christmas to all of you -- and may your holiday days be as fulfilling as this one was to the ordinary heroes who turned a house into a home for a family in need.

D. C. Employee Delivers Christmas Tree to Snow-Bound Family

2009-12-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

Until Sunday, Victoria Dawson's faith in the District government -- epic snowfall or not -- hovered somewhere around zilch. Then Toran Felder, a gust of holiday magic dressed as an employee of the D.C. Department of Public Works, rang her doorbell.

"Oh, my God," Dawson said, bursting into laughter. "Oh, my God."

The man from DPW was holding a Christmas tree.

Like a lot of people in the Washington region, Dawson, a public school teacher, awoke that morning on a street buried under a foot or two of snow. She spent hours outside with her two kids and their neighbors, kibitzing as they drank hot chocolate, ate brownies and shoveled.

After 14 years on Asbury Place NW, a one-block street in American University Park, the last thing she thought she'd ever see was a District snowplow. One year, the neighbors chipped in $20 each to hire their own. "We were trained by the Barry administration to expect nothing," Dawson said.

On Sunday, about 11 a.m., a rumble could be heard around the corner. Could it be? Dawson ran toward the racket, jumping up and down, flailing her arms as if she were being rescued from a desert island. Here came the snowplow driver, making the turn onto their street until . . . he got stuck. Eventually, he backed out, promising that another plow would be along.

"I thought, 'Yeah, it's not possible to be lucky twice with the District,' " Dawson recalled, "not in one day."

Two hours later, a second plow arrived, only to get stuck as well, which is what brought Felder -- a burly, $54,000-a-year supervisor -- to the rescue, barking orders with the booming voice of a stage actor.

Turning to the neighbors, Felder joked that another 18 inches of snow was on the way, which prompted Dawson, a single mother, to remark that she'd probably never get herself shoveled out, she'd never get her kids' Christmas presents, she'd never get a Christmas tree. The man from DPW turned to her and launched into a sermon of sorts, the one he delivers to each of his seven children, his two ex-wives and anyone else who will listen. Every day that there's food on the table, every day that there's a roof overhead, that's Christmas, Felder said.

"We were just charmed," Dawson said.

And then he turned to her and asked, "Do you need a tree?"

She blanched. No! she stammered. Yes! No!

"I'm going to get you a tree," he said, and before Dawson knew what was happening, Felder had jumped into his pickup and disappeared. He didn't say when he would return -- he was a bit busy that day, to say the least -- but he promised it would be before Tuesday.

Felder, who has worked for DPW since 2000, said he is prone to random acts of charity. During a recent shift, he said, he came upon a bedraggled man going through garbage and took him out for a meal at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

"It's the way I grew up," said Felder, who was raised in Seat Pleasant, the son of a construction worker.

In Dawson's case, Felder said when reached on his cellphone Wednesday, buying her a tree "just felt like something I needed to do. I wasn't looking for any kudos, believe me."

An hour after leaving Asbury Place, Felder was on his regular route when he spotted a tree lot on Massachusetts Avenue. "Man, I got a lady who needs a tree," he told the tree man. "Can you give me a nice price?"

For $30, Felder drove away with a tree nearly six feet tall. A co-worker in the truck with Felder looked at him and said, "Man, I don't believe this."

Dawson had a feeling that Felder would return, but seeing him there in her doorway, holding that tree, was astounding. The visitor asked about her kids and their ages -- 11 and 15 -- and promised to return with gifts, which he did Wednesday -- a Michael Jackson CD for one, Earth, Wind & Fire for the other, and a scarf for the teacher.

Dawson offered him money for the tree, but he waved her off, leaving her slightly embarrassed over her good fortune and reveling in the magic of a Christmas week encounter on a snowbound street in Washington.

This article, written by Paul Schwartzman, appeared in the Washington Post December 24, 2009.

Fly Away, Flu!

2009-11-27T20:43:00.001-08:00

I may not be blogging for a couple of days. The flu, or what seems to be the flu, has moved in with us and has taken over my agenda -- well, almost. I am working from home. Let's see, that would really be: dozing, doing, dozing, doing...zzz... I did manage to drag myself to the mission kitchen yesterday to clean the pots and pans from the town's Thanksgiving dinner. Donnie and I ate in a corner to avoid coming into contact with anyone else although he was not then ill, and no one but I wanted to scrub the pots and pans, so I was pretty much alone. (Fortunately, I was not feeling quite as bad yesterday as I am today.) So, I have decided to take a long sleep break until the flu flies away! See you post-hibernation!

Why This Blog?

2009-11-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

This blog is an outgrowth of my posts on almsgiving and, beyond that, personalized help to the poor (often, in my case, using God's credit card) and is meant as a vehicle to share the results of all those who are willing to take up the challenge to go beyond throwing money at the hungry and homeless. Let's get to know them, to give them dignity, and to provide them with respect. The challenge is the one that St. Francis threw down and took up: to eat together with the outcasts of society (in his case, mostly lepers) and through getting to know them in this manner, treating them as the same children of God that we all are, no less worthy of love and kindness than ourselves.
The challenge: Invite someone who is homeless and hungry to dinner once a month. (More often, if you can afford it, is, of course, wonderfully fine!) Get to know that person one-on-one.

And then, if you are so inclined, report here about the person you got to know and how that person has brought some meaning into your life and contributed to the world in spite of being hungry and homeless. There are two ways of doing that. Send me a post by email (elizabeth.mahlou@gmail.com), and I will add a graphic (or use yours) and post it, linking it to whatever site you wish. Or, simply leave a comment.

All comments are welcomed. There is no moderation enabled. I will keep this blog open to comments in this manner unless I encounter spammers.

So, forward march! Go out and feed a hungry person (emphasis on the word, person), and let's chat about what happens when God leads us to those who may have nothing today but will some day inherit the earth!