Homily: Christmas Day

Readings: Is 52:7-10; Ps 98; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18

I can’t speak for you, but I find it hard to ignore the commercial side of Christmas, that part of Christmas our secular and materialistic culture wants us to focus on. Wrapped up in all the shopping and decorating and diners and parties, it's easy to forget why the Magi carried those original Christmas gifts to a newborn baby lying in a manger. Believe it or not, the true message of Christmas is not an order confirmation email from Amazon.com.

No, the true message of Christmas is the message we just heard, the message revealed to us in John’s Gospel: The creative Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. It’s the Archangel Gabriel’s message to Mary, when he said, "You shall name him Jesus and he shall be called Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us" and he “will be called holy, the Son of God.” It’s the message of a passionate God, the message of a God whose love for us is overpowering.

This is what we celebrate today: God’s fierce zeal for us, His commitment not to abandon us; for God is unwilling to leave us in the darkness of our own sinfulness, our own personal tyrannies. What we have in Christmas is a terrible desire on God's part to "be with us," to be part of the human condition: God with us in our entirety.

The Christmas message is that God simply won’t let us alone. God, the most passionate of Lovers, wants to be Emmanuel. And it’s this remarkable action on God’s part, this Divine decision to become one of us, that so many people find so troubling, so hard to accept.

Some years ago, in a diocesan newspaper up north, I read a story – I believe it was called a “Christmas Parable” – about a man who had come to the Church all the way from disbelief. I can’t recall all the details, but I’ll share what I recall.

The man was a good guy, a compassionate and caring husband and father, well liked by those who knew him. He just didn’t believe. His disbelief was simple. Deep inside, he couldn’t understand how this God of the Christians, this Creator of all that is, could allow Himself to become a baby in a stable in Bethlehem. What was the point of it all? Why would this all-powerful God become one of us? Why would this Creator of all that is do something so demeaning, so nonsensical? Christmas, the Incarnation, none of it made any sense to him. It all seemed pretty foolish.

One wintry Sunday, a few days before Christmas, he’d just returned home from taking his wife and children to church. He’d pick them up later when Mass was over. He sat at the front window of their home, enjoying the view of his property – several acres of rural countryside, snow capped trees, an ice-covered pond, the old barn he’d recently restored.

That’s when he noticed a small flock of birds flying in circles around his barn. They’d scatter, then land near the pond, and then a moment later take off again, only to circle the barn once more. They kept repeating this odd behavior as if they were looking for a safe place to hide from the wind and snow and freezing temperatures.

Eventually he threw on his coat, ran to the barn, flung open the big doors and tried to coax the birds into the barn. He waved his arms, ran back and forth between them and the barn…he tried everything, but the birds simply didn’t understand. He could almost see the wind and cold pressing down on them. “Stupid, damn birds,” he muttered to himself. “They’re afraid of me. If only I were a bird, they’d understand, and I could lead them to safety.”

And that’s when God’s grace entered his heart; for it was then that he suddenly understood why God had to become man. It was then he understood the love of the Father, Who sent His only Son to be one of us – a Son Who would guide us to the warm safety of His Father’s Heavenly Home. God became man to turn to us a human face, to speak words of comfort and reconciliation, words that we can understand. It’s this gentle birth we celebrate today, this gentle birth that heralds out salvation.

A few weeks ago at the soup kitchen, I sat down next to a mother holding her little baby girl in her lap. The baby’s name was Heather. As I sat down, Heather saw my smile and reached out her little arms to me. Naturally I picked her up and she just snuggled right up against me and buried her little head into my chest and her arms clasped over my shoulders.

My first thought was that, “Here’s a little baby that needed some hugging.” And then I realized how wrong I was. Heather had been perfectly happy being held by her mom, with whom I could never hope to compete. No she didn’t need my hugs. But she knew that I sure needed hers.

You see, brothers and sisters, in a very real way, little Heather is the meaning of Christmas. God with us. God with Heather. For that brief moment Heather is God’s love. Heather is Christmas. Heather is God's arms, God’s zeal, God’s passion for each of us.

God loves us despite our foolishness. He loves us with our broken lives, our selfishness, our tattered relationships, our foolish sins. God is two tiny arms determined to break into our lives.  God is a fierce little baby who makes no distinctions but embraces the least likely along with most likely.

This is what the feast of Christmas is about -- an enormously unrelenting love feast. Not a soft sentimental love, but a love as searing as any passionate romance. Christmas is God's fulfilled desire to be with us. This is what and why we celebrate.

For if God is not Emmanuel, if God is not with us, if God has not embraced our tattered lives, then woe to us. If God isn’t with us, there’s no hope, no light, only darkness and despair. And if that’s the case, we’re here tonight out of fruitless hope, or habit, or empty sentimentality.

But if we’re here out of love, if we’re here like ragtag shepherds to kneel and rejoice and let God take us in His arms, then we’ve caught the meaning of Christmas: Emmanuel, the passionate God, has had his way and has hugged us fiercely.

Brothers and sisters, when the wintry blasts of sin, suffering and death scatter our souls far and wide like those birds outside that barn, that’s when we need God the most. And that’s when Jesus comes to us to guide us to His Father’s loving arms.

There’s really nothing more to say this Christmas morning…except to wish each and every one of you, and all your loved ones near and far, a blessed and peaceful Christmas

It didn’t seem important

It didn’t seem important –

not at the time.

Just another poor man

dressed like the bums

who came knocking at the back door

when I was a kid.

Remember?

You do if you’re old enough,

and didn’t live in a fancy house

with a fence and a gate

to keep the riff-raff out.

It didn’t seem important.

We gave him a meal,

a good hot meal,

with a nice dessert,

and seconds until we ran out.

That seemed like enough.

It really did.

I even brought him coffee –

cream, lots of sugar –

when he came in early,

as he always did.

It didn’t seem important – 

at least not to me.

Handing him the cup

I could smell the booze,

the old stale smell

of cheap booze.

He’d slur a “thankya,”

but missing all those teeth

he was hard to understand,

so I’d just nod and

hurry back to the kitchen.

It didn’t seem important –

until he died.

They found him lying there,

early on a cold morning,

curled up on the hard ground

behind the bushes,

right outside the door,

of the soup kitchen.

It just didn’t seem important

to talk with him

or pray with him

…and so I never did.

Thanksgiving at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen

We got only a brief soundbite in the local media the other day, but I suppose it's better than nothing. They edited out my begging for funds as well as the interviews with several of our happy volunteers and wonderful patrons. You can check out the brief video clip below:

Thanksgiving at the Soup Kitchen

We had a bit of a surprise today at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. On Thanksgiving Day, or for that matter on most holidays, we usually serve fewer meals than on an average day. This, of course, is understandable. Many of our regular guests will spend the holiday with family or will have been invited to dine with friends or neighborhood groups. But this year we experienced almost no decrease at all, and so we had a very busy time of it. Fortunately, we also had a bumper crop of volunteers.

Because so many folks asked to help this Thanksgiving, Diane and I were able to give many of our regular Thursday volunteers the day off to spend with their families. We actually ended up with more than 25 wonderful helpers who spent the day assisting Diane with the cooking, greeting guests, taking orders, serving meals and desserts, pouring drinks, and most importantly, cleaning up at the end of the day. We were all extremely busy from the time we arrived at 6:45 a.m. until we turned out the lights and locked the doors at 2:00 p.m. As I recall the final meal count for the day was approximately 270 meals. That's a lot of turkey!

In addition to turkey, the meal consisted of all the usual tasty Thanksgiving fare. (See the menu at left.) But we couldn't have done it without the good people who helped us in advance of the day. For example, we had a whole corps of cooks who roasted and carved the turkeys ahead of time. Others made cornbread for Diane's special Southern cornbread dressing. And several people baked extra desserts and dropped them off early this morning. And then there were the people who just stopped by and handed us a generous donation, something we're always in need of. We receive no money from the government -- federal, state or local -- and so must rely completely on donations from individuals, businesses, churches, and neighborhood and civic organizations. We are truly blessed to have so many generous donors who always come through for us.


We also had a visit from the local media, including The Villages TV station, WVLG. So...I expect the story will appear on tomorrow's local news show. I'll try to remember to record it so I can post it online for all to see.

All in all, a wonderful day to serve God's people.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Wildwood Soup Kitchen - A New Video

I've written before about my favorite charity, the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, an ecumenical ministry in Wildwood, Florida that feeds the hungry. The soup kitchen is staffed completely by volunteers -- over 150 of us -- who represent nearly 30 area churches. We serve and deliver approximately 250 meals daily, and last year provided almost 70,000 meals to our guests and to shut-ins. This number has been increasing at 10-15% annually, so the need is growing. We're able to carry out this ministry thanks to the grace of God and the generosity of individuals, churches, civic and neighborhood groups, and local businesses.

Our cooks prepare absolutely wonderful meals -- hot meals complete with salad, rolls, vegetables, a main course, and dessert. Dear Diane is the Thursday cook and supervises a terrific team of about a dozen helpers. Although I'm one of these helpers, about all I'm good for is the heavy lifting.

Recently one of the churches that supports us (New Covenant United Methodist Church) made a brief, three-minute video to introduce people to the soup kitchen. I have included it below. I hope you enjoy it. (I make an academy-award winning cameo appearance.)

Should you feel called to make a donation, just send it to:

Treasurer
Wildwood Soup Kitchen
P. O. Box 1762
Wildwood, FL 34785

Thank you and God's Peace...

Ministry

      It didn't seem important

It didn’t seem important –

not at the time.

Just another poor man

dressed like the bums

who came knockin’ at the door

when I was a kid.

Remember?

You do if you’re old enough,

and didn’t live in a fancy house

with a fence and a gate

to keep the riff-raff out.

It didn’t seem important.

We gave him a meal,

a good hot meal,

with a nice dessert,

and seconds, until we ran out.

That seemed like enough.

It really did.

I even brought him coffee –

cream, lots of sugar –

when he came in early,

as he always did.

It didn’t seem important – 

at least not to me.

Handing him the cup

I could smell the booze,

the old stale smell

of cheap booze.

He’d slur a “thankya,”

but missing all those teeth

he was hard to understand,

so I’d just nod and

hurry back to the kitchen.

It didn’t seem important –

until he died.

They found him lying there,

early on a cold morning,

curled up on the hard ground

behind the bushes,

right outside the door

of the soup kitchen.

It just didn’t seem important

to talk with him

or pray with him...

…and so I never did.

- Deacon Dana McCarthy

The End of the Year at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen

Diane and I just got home after a long morning at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, a morning that left us with more than the usual amount of aches and pains. They're good hurts though and are a fitting way to bring an end to 2009.

Diane and her  team of assistants prepared a wonderful meal of barbecue chicken, scalloped potatoes, green beans and dinner rolls. And, of course, we offered a wide selection of tasty desserts. Apparently our guests enjoyed the meal because we had a good crowd of hungry folks and hardly any leftovers. We delivered or served a total of 239 meals today -- not a record but certainly above average.

A few days from now I'll have the final numbers for 2009 and we'll have a better sense of the growing need in our community. A rough estimate is somewhere n the neighborhood of 68,000 meals for the year -- a rather large number for a little soup kitchen in central Florida.

Thanks to all those who have kept us going through their financial support and their donations of food during 2009. We neither seek nor accept financial support from any governement agency -- federal, state or local -- and so I am amazed that so many people, businesses and organizations continue to help us year after year.

Have a happy and a blessed new year...

Videos added to the Wildwood Soup Kitchen website

It's only taken me a month, but I finally got around to adding some videos to the website of the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. As you know if you've followed this blog, our local TV station here in The Villages has been very supportive of the soup kitchen and gives us plenty of good publicity. They covered us at Thanksgiving and again at Christmas. I have now placed both videos on the website which represents a major technological breakthrough for us...not really, but it sounds better than the truth which is just plain laziness on my part.


Both videos have been posted on this blog in recent weeks, but if you'd like to check them out in their new "official soup kitchen setting", click here: Wildwood Soup Kitchen News.

Video: Christmas at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen

As I mentioned in a previous post (December 26), the local media came to visit us at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen on Christmas Day. This included a camera crew from VNN, our cable TV station run by The Villages. If you would like to view the brief story they put together -- including a clip of yours truly pontificating -- you can check it out below. It was a good day.




Blessings,

Deacon Dana

'Twas the day after Christmas...St. Stephen's Day

Today is a day of thankfulness, a day of praise and joy...and a day of rest and recuperation.

Having remained here in Florida this Christmas (with the intent of never again traveling north during the winter months) and with all of our children and grandchildren enjoying the snowy, frigid weather of Massachusetts, Diane and I spent the holy day with our other family at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen.

As the Thursday cook, Diane prepared the Christmas Eve dinner, assisted by our wonderful team of Thursday volunteers. And so by Thursday evening we were ready for a nice, long night's rest. But since I was scheduled to assist at Midnight Mass, the rest had to be postponed. It was also shortened considerably since we had been asked to help out with the Christmas day meal at the soup kitchen, and this meant setting the alarm clock for 6 a.m.

I confess I was a bit grumpy when that irritating alarm rudely roused me after only four hours of sleep. (I would have made a very bad monk.) But once I got to the soup kitchen and joined all the other volunteers, I was energized. We had a wonderful time and serving our guests was a delight.

I should be used to it by now, but the outpouring of true charity during this season of hope always takes me by surprise. This year, once again, the soup kitchen has been the beneficiary of the generosity of so many people that I am overwhelmed. In addition to the many financial donations that continue to come in from individuals, churches, businesses, and civic organizations, we have received huge donations of food. On Christmas Eve, for example, a local Cracker Barrel restaurant donated 50 of their wonderful pies. The local Winn-Dixie and Publix supermarkets also provided us with much larger than usual donations of bakery goods and other food products. God bless them all!

Even more remarkable though, are the number of folks who volunteered to help us to prepare and serve the special Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Indeed, we received so many offers to volunteer that we had to turn away most of those who inquired. We can accommodate only so many volunteers before we run out of both jobs and space. Even the media showed up and our local newspaper ran a front-page story today on our Christmas dinner, which you can read here: The Villages Daily Sun.

Then, to top off this festive day, yesterday evening my brother and some good friends joined us at our home for a wonderful Christmas dinner prepared by Diane.

Martyrdom of St. Stephen (photo taken in 2005 at Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, Rome

And so today, St. Stephen's Day, we will rest, and pay homage to this saint, deacon and martyr.

God's peace...

Goodness

With Christmas approaching the Wildwood Soup Kitchen is nicely and festively decorated in keeping with the season. And everyone -- our wonderful volunteers, our guests, and those who continue to support us -- are starting to exhibit the Christmas spirit. One of the consequences of this is the substantial increase in donations we've received in recent weeks. Because I know some of the donors personally, I also know that many cannot really afford the amounts they have donated. Such generosity -- folks giving from their need and not just from their surplus -- simply overwhelms me, a sign of the true goodness of so many people. These donations are especially appreciated now because of the major expense we face with the needed addition of a walk-in freezer and refrigeration unit. If all goes as planned, we hope to complete this project within a few months.

With Thanksgiving behind us, our next special meal at the soup kitchen will be served on Christmas Day. Thanks to the generosity of one family we were able to purchase some very nice spiral hams and all the other goodies needed to make up a full-fledged Christmas dinner. Since Christmas falls on Friday this year, Diane will not be the primary cook. She has, however, volunteered to assist the regular Friday cook and, naturally, I "was volunteered" to assist with the less skilled grunt work. Since all our children and grandchildren will celebrate Christmas with their own families up in Massachusetts, it makes sense for us to celebrate ours with our "soup kitchen family."

Some of our guests at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen

By the way, several readers of this blog have also generously contributed to the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, and I take this opportunity to thank you and to pass along the thanks of those who will most benefit from your kindness.

God's Peace...

Publicity for the Wildwood Soup Kitchen

This morning, as a consequence of one of those Google searches that leads to wildly unexpected results, I discovered a blog of the National Association of Realtors. The particular post I encountered, dated November 13, was entitled, How to Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen. On the page there's a state-by-state listing of just a few of the nation's many food banks and soup kitchens, and right there, among the five sites listed for Florida, is our own Wildwood Soup Kitchen, including a link to our website. Our thanks to the realtors for including us on their list.

When I first put the soup kitchen's website together a few years ago, I thought of it more as an internal tool, as a means to keep our 100+ volunteers informed. But then I thought it might also be a nice way for others to learn about what we do and perhaps even contribute. While we don't get a lot of hits (soup kitchen websites aren't particularly glamorous), the site has generated quite a few donations as well as many requests to volunteer. So I suppose it's been worth the small extra effort.

Anyway, it's always nice to get a little publicity.

A Soup Kitchen Thanksgiving

20091126-SoupKitchen
Originally uploaded by deacondana

A long, tiring, but enjoyable day. Diane and I, along with my brother, Jeff, who is visiting with us, were up bright and early this morning and at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen by 7 a.m. to begin preparations for our Thanksgiving Day dinner. We had a record number of volunteers who joined us as we cooked, delivered and served over 230 meals. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with all the fixin's. Our guests, young and old and in-between, all seemed to enjoy the day and were happy to take a lot of the leftovers home with them.

Yesterday I also mentioned that our local media folks stopped by the house to give the soup kitchen a little publicity. As a result there was a wonderful writeup in the local paper, The Villages Daily Sun. They also gave Diane and me some face time on our local TV station, VNN, letting me ramble on about the nature of this wonderful ministry to those in need. My only complaint is that the TV folks didn't include my appeal for donations. I've included a video clip (above) of the local news show.

My other complaint is that I was so busy I didn't have time to sample the wonderful meal that Diane and her team of kitchen volunteers put together. This, I suppose, is a good thing since my waistline has been somewhat unstable in recent weeks and needs to settle down...way down.

Here are a few photos of some of our wonderful guests, along with the volunteers who made the day such a success...

Our team getting ready to fill those empty plates

 

Fixin' the sweet potatoes

A young guest samples the pie

Happiness is a full tummy...

A smile of satisfaction

Brother Jeff chatting with our guests...in Spanish.

...and the coffee.

Blessings...and Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving at the Soup Kitchen

Time certainly has a way of passing quickly when you're busy, and this past week has certainly flown by. Diane and I and several other good, helpful folks have been working hard making preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen. It's always a particularly challenging day for us since almost everything about the meal is a break from our usual routine at the kitchen.

First of all, we give most of our regular Thursday volunteers the day off, so they can spend the holiday with their families. We can do this because we get so many other requests to volunteer on this special day. The problem, though, is that most of these Thanksgiving volunteers have no experience working in the soup kitchen so we need to provide a lot of direct supervision. And there are a lot of them! We usually operate with about six to ten volunteers, but tomorrow we'll have 20 or more. We'll need them though.

On Thanksgiving we don't serve the meal in the usual cafeteria style. We serve each person individually at his or her table. They are met at the door, escorted to a seat, and shown the menu. (I've included a copy.) If there's something they don't want or like, the server notes it and takes the information to the kitchen where the person's plate is then made up. The server then takes the meal and drink to the guest. Other servers will move among the tables carrying trays filled with desserts. We try to make it a special day for all who come.

As you can see by the menu, the meal has a bit of a Southern flavor, which is to be expected given our location and dear Diane's Southern heritage. Cornbread dressing and sweet potatoes never graced my family's table during my formative years in New York and New England. But our four children all grew up enjoying Diane's true Southern cooking and have kept those recipes alive in their own households.


We have some local media folks coming by our home later this afternoon. They want to interview Diane and film her carving one of the turkeys that we'll serve tomorrow at the soup kitchen. Should be interesting, but first I have to finish my chores and vacuum the rugs. A retired husband's work is never done.

Our warmest wishes for a truly Happy Thanksgiving. Take some time tomorrow to thank our loving God not only for your family and the blessings He has bestowed on you, but also for the gift of life, for your very being.

And please keep us in your prayers as we do our best tomorrow to serve God and His people. God's peace...

Soup Kitchen Miracle

You're probably tired of me writing about the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, but I just can't help myself. I am so wrapped up in this wonderful ministry that it tends to monopolize my thoughts, or at least capture the attention of a majority of my few remaining brain cells.

We are currently in the middle of an internal study on improving the efficiency of our overall operation, to include ways to cut operating costs and yet continue to offer our guests quality, healthful and appetizing meals. (Today, for example, we served 243 meals.) One area that has always troubled me relates to the number of ancient and grossly inefficient freezers we own, freezers that run 7x24 and just suck up electricity. We have a bunch of them -- each donated by an individual or business, usually because the donor had replaced it with a more efficient version. As you might imagine, our electric bills are up in the stratosphere. To address this problem we're considering the purchase and installation of a large, efficient walk-in freezer to replace all those old clunkers that take up space throughout the soup kitchen. This would be a major project for us. Purchasing and installing such a freezer, plus all the other changes we need to make, will likely cost us in the neighborhood of $20,000. This is a very large sum of money for an organization like ours.

And so I've been working on a plan that would appeal to the business community to help us fund this project.We intend to approach local businesses, large and small, plus service organizations like Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions, and ask them to buy "shares" in the project. They would not only help us provide a necessary service to the community, but we would ensure their generosity was well publicized. My plan is to kick off this project within a few weeks, once I have all the details worked out. But then yesterday I received a call from a local business asking me to stop by. This afternoon I did just that and was handed a check for $5,000! They want no publicity for their gift so I won't mention the name of the company, but thanks to their generosity we are now 25% of the way to our goal...and we haven't even started the effort. God is good.

Soup Kitchen...The Need Grows

It being Thursday, Diane and I spent a good part of the day -- from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen where Diane, along with her many helpers, cooked up a wonderful meal of baked ziti with all the trimmings. Everyone loved it...as usual. And we ended up serving and delivering a total of 235 meals. It wasn't a record but it's still far above the kind of numbers we were used to in the recent past.

And so, as board president (a responsibility I'm trying to convince someone -- anyone! -- else to take on), I feel the pressure to go out to the highways and byways and beg for dollars. It's not a particularly onerous task since the Lord is always at my side and seems to convince people to give despite my inane comments. I am truly amazed, though, that we are able to cook and serve so many meals (over 62,000 last year - see graph below) without taking a cent of money from the government...any government. We have a sense that government money would likely lead to government control and an inability to serve anyone who walks in the door hungry. Our entire total-volunteer operation is funded solely by donations from individuals, churches, local businesses, and civic and community groups. And when one considers how much it costs us to operate and maintain the kitchen (well over $1 per meal), I sometimes can't take it all in. "He loves justice and right; of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full." Amen!

Check out our growth in demand

I often speak to church groups, since our volunteers, who number almost 150, represent over 30 area churches. But my next scheduled fund-raising event will be a bit different. I will visit the local Jewish synagogue where I'll address their women's group. It should be a challenge to present a Christian ecumenical ministry to a group of Jewish women and then to ask them for donations of food and money. I suppose I can rely on Moses who in Deuteronomy commanded God's People, "Tzedek, Tesdek [Justice, Justice] you shall pursue," and remind them that charity to their neighbor is a mitzvah, a commandment of the Jewish Law. We'll see how well that goes over.

Should you have an urge to give to those who are less fortunate and in need of a daily hot meal, feel free to send a check to the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, P. O. Box 1762, Wildwood, FL 34785. We will use your donation wisely and you will be blessed [See Matthew 25.]

God's peace...

Another Weekend Away

Later today Diane and I head off to Orlando to attend our diocese's diaconate continuing education weekend. And so, once again, you will experience a weekend free of my ramblings and misguided thoughts. If you are among the handful of odd folks who actually look forward to what I have to say...well, you'll just have to wait until next week.

For those who are interested, I am taking two books with me. The first is Ironies of Faith by Anthony Esolen, a book I have been looking forward to reading for some time. I met Dr. Esolen, who teaches at Providence College, when I worked there back in the 1990s. Very bright, a wonderful scholar, and a man of deep faith, he's also an excellent writer...oh, yes, and his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy is among the best I have read.

The other book I plan to take with me is Jean Danielou's The Infancy Narratives. I bought a 1968 paperback edition of this little book, now long out of print, a few years ago, but never got around to reading it. I have enjoyed many of Cardinal Danielou's other books and thought that, with the approach of Advent, this would be a good choice. Like many of Cardinal Danielou's books, it's hard to find a copy, but if you're interested, click here to choose from several used copies.

A brief comment on another very different subject...

A few moments ago I received a phone call from a parishioner who is very distressed about what he believes is happening in the world and the Church. And while I agreed that the world is in terrible shape -- the world is always in terrible shape because it is the "world" -- as Christians, as Catholics, we can never succumb to the world's constant call to despair. Our faith must always engender hope. The two go hand in hand. And the two, working together in our hearts, give birth to love. Love must be the driving force in our lives, the cause of all that we do. As I tell the folks who volunteer in our soup kitchen, you shouldn't be doing this out of a sense of duty; you should do it out of love.

Please keep Diane and me in your prayers, that this weekend will be inspirational as well as educational.

God's peace...

Economics 101 - Soup Kitchen Version

I'm no economist, although I did shuffle my way through a few graduate courses in economics way back when. Indeed, my only vivid memory of any of those economics classes was the day my macroeconomics professor stated that the government should encourage high trade deficits. In his words, "Those other countries give us all those cool Toyotas, and Sony TVs, and BMWs, and Italian suits, and we give them worthless paper (i.e., dollars) in return. Sounds like a good deal to me." I'm still trying to figure out whether he was right or not; although, right or worng, I suppose he's very pleased these days.

Anyway, as you might guess, when I want to get a sense for how the economy's doing, you won't see me pulling out the demand curves or Laffer curves or statistics on personal income and outlays or any other kind of curves or traditional economic indicators. No, I have far more personal and, I believe, reliable data upon which to draw my conclusions. I use two metrics. First, I just count the number of meals we're currently serving at the soup kitchen and compare the total to the totals of previous months and years. And then I compare how tired I am and how many muscles ache at the end of a six-hour soup kitchen shift compared to the previous week.

Now I realize that my indicators don't sound very scientific, compared to those used by economists, but we all know that the intelligence of most economists is highly overrated. Since they never agree with each other, I don't see how all of them can be smart. And so I figure any conclusions I come up with are likely just as valid as theirs.

Now to the nitty-gritty. What's been happening at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen? Exactly the opposite of what I'd like to see. The demand for meals has been increasing, and at a steep rate. It wasn't long ago when 200 meals was a very busy day. Now we're regularly preparing 250 or more meals daily. Last Thursday we served and delivered 254 meals (a record for our Thursday team), and today the total was 250. On some other days this week the totals exceeded 260. These are very large numbers for us. But that's not all. Reinforcing what these numbers seem to represent, is the pain I am currently experiencing. My back and legs muscles, the associated tendons and bones, even my skin, are all aching at unprecedented levels. My day at the soup kitchen, you see, interrupts the calm of my sedentary life and forces me to use body parts that are normally protected from such abuse. Usually the two aspirins I take each Thursday at 1 p.m. do the trick. But not today, and not last week.

And so, after bending my extraordinarily non-scientific mind to focus on these numbers and my aching, aged muscles, I have concluded that the economy is going down the toilet. I really don't think any of those hundreds of billions in stimulus dollars have made their way to Wildwood, Florida; and I suspect they never will. The poor in our area, particularly the working poor, seem to be losing ground and I fear the numbers and my pains will only increase.

Of course, the Wildwood Soup Kitchen doesn't rely on government at any level for anything. We can continue to feed the hungry only because of the generosity of individuals, churches, local businesses, community groups, and service organizations who provide us with the money and the food to do God's work in our community. How fortunate we are to have such generous donors, along with a corps of approximately 150 self-sacrificing volunteers, an ecumenical group from nearly 30 local churches. Last year we served over 62,000 meals and this year we will surely exceed that figure.

As President of our Board of Directors my primary task is to raise money; and so if you happen to experience a sudden urge to donate, you can go directly to our website and donate via PayPal, or you can send a check to our P.O. Box address listed on the website. Every penny counts. And because we have NO paid staff, you can be sure that every one of those pennies will go directly to the work of our ministry.

http://www.wildwoodsoupkitchen.com

Blessings...

Odd Thieves Who Target a Soup Kitchen

Although I didn't intend to mention this particular incident on the blog, today I thought it might be worth sharing. And perhaps someone can give me some insight into the psychology of thievery. First a little background.

I'm president of the board of the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, an ecumenical ministry located in Wildwood, Florida, a few miles from our home here in The Villages. We have upwards of 150 volunteers from approximately 30 different local churches, and serve a full, hot meal Monday through Friday to anyone who comes through the door hungry. We also deliver a little more than 100 meals daily to shut-ins and others who, for any number of reasons, are unable to come to the Soup Kitchen to eat. Last year we served or delivered over 62,000 meals. The total number of meals has increased every year since the Soup Kitchen opened 15 years ago.

All of this is accomplished solely through volunteers. We have no paid employees. And we are blessed that the First Presbyterian Church of Wildwood has, for over a dozen years now, let us use their fellowship hall and kitchen every weekday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. This is by no means a "mega-church"; indeed it is a small community church with about 100 members.

When it comes to operating expenses, we rely completely on donations. We receive money from individuals, local churches, local businesses, community and neighborhood groups, and civic organizations. We take no government funds. We are also blessed to receive frequent donations of food from these same sources.

Although our donors are very generous, we certainly don't have a lot of money. And neither do we keep much cash on the premises. We did, however, have a small safe, which we used to store the occasional check that someone might drop off or the small donations made by some of our guests. It was usually emptied every day or two. We like to keep the money we have in the bank.

Last week someone broke into the soup kitchen and stole the safe. The safe contained no cash or checks, just a few receipts from local grocery stores. So the thieves got nothing. Presumably, by forcing open the safe they also made it useless and would be unable to resell it. To our knowledge, nothing else was taken, not even any food.

Now I've thought about this all week and just can't imagine the kind of person who would break into a soup kitchen and steal a safe. You'd think there would be far more tempting targets in town. But then I suppose the average thief isn't all that bright. It still bothers me though. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

And there have been some other ramifications. Because of the possible involvement of one or two community service people, we will no longer allow people sentenced to community service to complete their hours by working at the soup kitchen. This was a decision beyond my control, and it saddens me that we won't be able to help these folks, most of whom have been good workers just trying to get their lives straightened out.

Ah, well, we will continue to do as Jesus instructed us -- "When I was hungry you gave me food..." -- and trust that He will continue to guide us and support us in doing His work.

God's peace...it's there for the asking.