Charity, Carnival and The Gobble Gobble Turkey Wobble

I thoroughly enjoyed my hometown school’s Band Carnival. We transformed the cafeteria, gymnasium, and outside yard of our high school into a smorgasbord of game booths and food tables. (I also remember pulling regular shifts as one of the “Dunk Tank” targets…hmmm…) The event helped the elementary, middle school and high school bands buy instruments and uniforms. It was quite something for a small town of 3,500 to finance an entire instrumental program for seven grade levels mostly from one event. It was a lot of fun, and it worked.

A far wiser man than I has suggested that the spirit of charity, at its heart, is the spirit of carnival. In other words, it can actually be fun to give toward meeting someone else’s need without expecting anything in return.

In earlier times, carnivals were held in part to provide a central gathering place (and event) that made it easier for people to bring help for those in need. Sometimes carnivals were “sponsored” by communities; other times by fraternal organizations within churches. As time passed, events have been used by schools, youth groups, civic organizations, and others to raise awareness and funds.

This year, in just a few days, Springs Rescue Mission joins with Care and Share Food Bank for the 2012 “10,000 Turkey Team” whose goal is to raise 10,000 turkeys through donations of frozen turkeys or the money to help buy them during the week of November 10-16. Ten thousand turkeys will provide enough protein to cover 330,000 meals for our neighbors in need in the Pikes Peak region and southern Colorado. It’s a challenging task, but not impossible.

And besides – we can have fun making it happen. We need thousands of people like you to join us for the kickoff event November 10 at America the Beautiful Park starting at high noon. The Gobble Gobble Turkey Wobble offers you the chance to not only provide a turkey or two, but to set one, two or three world records. (Please register now to be a part of those record-setting events at www.mysrm.org/wobble.)

You may not feel like you’re taking the problem of hunger seriously enough by having fun while you’re helping to provide protein for 10,000 or so hungry families, but remember the early church wisdom saying the Lord loves people who give out of cheer, joy, or even (in some translations) outright hilarity.

So be hilarious. Come to the Wobble dressed like a turkey. Dance the Twist for five minutes. Do the Hokey Pokey in a single line for another five minutes. Bring yourself and a friend or your family and a frozen turkey.

Let’s have some fun doing good through some cheerful charity. It works!

Perfect Storms, Tribes and Social Miracles

The common definition of a “perfect storm” began as “a phenomenon where conditions are just right to produce an event of catastrophic proportion.” I’ve also heard “perfect storm” used frequently and, I think, appropriately in describing the lives of so many we serve at the Mission. 

Rarely can we point to one single circumstance that drives a family or an individual into profound need or homelessness. It’s more a matter of conditions piling on top of each other in a way that produces catastrophe in someone’s life.

For example, when Warren lost his wife to cancer some years ago, he turned inward and medicated his grief with alcohol. He ended up alienating his married children and grandchildren. He began showing up at work hung over and depressed, which led to him losing that job. Unable to find another job in a shrinking economy while he was on unemployment, he ended up homeless, alone, hungry and addicted.  Grief, alcoholism, broken relationships, an economy on the fritz and fading chances for employment. Smells like a storm, doesn’t it?

Jerry’s cardiologist is convinced that the stress of being laid off led directly to Jerry’s cardiac collapse a few months later. Jerry kept looking for work while he was recovering. He went into interviews looking well-dressed, but really haggard. Meanwhile his nest egg shrunk and then disappeared. His deteriorated health fed his deteriorating opportunity to work which further deteriorated his economic stability-- or should that be in another order? Maybe it’s all of the above, together, firing at random.

So what do you do when your neighbor is caught in storms like those? Convene the next meeting of experts and make the homeless and hungry the main topic? Write a politician and tell her to take care of the problem? Hope some rich family foundation or Donald Trump-type coughs up a huge check?

What if you could be part of a social miracle? 

In his book Lost Icons (T&T Clark 2000), Rowan Williams (yep, that one -- the Archbishop of Canterbury) comments on what historian John Bossy calls “the social miracle” of the medieval community and church -- charity resulting from “the extraordinary process by which sectional loyalties were from time to time interrupted and overcome by a sense of integration, of belonging to an entire social body extending far beyond one’s choice or one’s affiliations of interest and ‘natural’ loyalty” (Williams, p.54).  In other words, people made the choice to move beyond the tribalism of the Dark Ages into a greater community to benefit those in need. Bossy counts that as nothing short of a miracle. 

He’s probably right. Think about the tribes, each with their own biases, mores and folkways, in our modern culture. Tribes spring up over economic status. Tribes thrive on divisive politics. Tribes nurture differences of social position. Tribes watch with fear should someone invade a comfort zone within their territory. Asking tribes to move beyond their perceived boundaries of relation is tantamount to social heresy. If one’s boundaries don’t include those who have slipped into a different tribe of people struggling with alcoholism or poverty, it can be difficult to even see the need to offer a hand up to others.

But that hand up is necessary for those neighbors (there’s a community term), many of whom may never share our tastes in candidates, football teams, restaurants or radio stations, who find themselves in perfect storms.  Our neighbors need the extraordinary process that interrupts sectional loyalties and goes way past “natural” loyalties. They need someone, in fact a community of “someones,” to break tribal boundaries and offer a hand up out of the chaos of their perfect storms.

As the old Bruce Cockburn song says, they’re waiting for a miracle: the miracle that happens when our attention is fixed, even for a moment, on the fact that because we share the planet and our days with them, the hungry and homeless are somehow miraculously and wonderfully a part of each of us.

They need responses beyond tribes, elections, and platitudes. Our neighbors need the miracle and true synergy of community response, starting with the life jackets that will help them navigate their perfect storms -- food, clothing, education, options, housing, basic care.

Count this your invitation to be part of a social miracle right where you are.

Socks, Part Two: Preventing Frostbite and Its Fallout

My good friend Sarah Stacy, who manages the Mission’s Resource Advocate Program (RAP) for the chronically homeless, is genuinely excited about the possibilities of more socks for the neighbors we serve. She states her case far better than I could ever hope to rewrite it:

“The homeless are at great risk of frostbite on their feet for a number of reasons, one of which is damp socks or dirty socks that lose their ‘fluff’ (those air pockets between the fibers that help our feet stay warm) and ability to protect the skin. 

“Frostbite can take up to two years of extensive medical treatment to get taken care of, including inpatient care, managed pain control (which is risky for those with addictive personalities) and visits to wound clinics several times a week during the healing process.  It’s ugly as the tissue that was frozen falls off.  Medical personnel usually have to wait until the toes ‘self-amputate’ to preserve as much of the foot as possible in the healing process. 

“Treatment is painful and VERY EXPENSIVE to the community. Yet adequate footwear, including socks, could prevent the problem. 

“One of the yuckiest parts of caring for the homeless is asking to see their feet in the cold to help prevent these problems.  We have to educate, educate, educate our homeless to take care of their feet, and providing clean warm socks is a major way to help.”

So one more time for those of you in the Pikes Peak Region: You can find sock drop boxes around town in Colorado Springs. There are boxes located at TCF Bank (Powers & Constitution), Remington College, Nazarene Bible College, Gold’s Gym Briargate, The Coffee Exchange, Hollywood Theater (where Timothy Green will debut on August 15) & Community Bible Study.

Your gift of just one pair of socks could save someone a lot of pain, and the community thousands of dollars. (Imagine what a package of six pairs might do…)

Thinking about Socks

 

 

Can you imagine life without socks?

I never thought socks (or the lack thereof) were a big deal until JT. JT was one of the best guys you could have on your pickup basketball team, period. Poetry in motion. Guaranteed points if you fed him the ball anywhere within ten feet of the hoop.

I remember the day someone landed on JT’s left foot as he and JT were coming down struggling over a rebound. JT was convinced he’d broken a toe. I helped unlace and gently took off JT’s left shoe -- a battered old Puma, as I recall -- and was totally unprepared for the stench that was suddenly unleashed, the sweat inside that shoe and how chewed up JT’s feet looked. (And to top it all off, his toe was indeed broken.) You see, JT didn’t wear socks. It took me a few years, long after I was in another city, to realize JT couldn’t afford socks.

JT was clearly embarrassed to have his bare foot showing in front of his basketball buddies, but the pain of his injury forced the issue.  I don’t think that socks would have prevented a broken toe for JT that day. But I do know now as a parent and as someone who hopes to help neighbors without proper footwear that socks can make a big difference in one’s health and confidence. Think about it for a few moments. Socks  

• Protect feet from dust and moisture, keeping them clean.
• Keep feet 50% warmer by just wearing them in winter.
• Help prevent shoes from stinking up and rotting.
• Keep feet warm.
• Absorb sweat from the feet.
• Prevent fungi from growing on your feet.
• Help keep the feet soft, preventing cracking.
• Prevent foot odor.
• Prevent foot perspiration from spreading on the floor.
• Ease chafing between the foot and footwear.
• Give you comfort and confidence.[i]

We notice a lot of the children and adults we serve at Springs Rescue Mission are short on socks. Thus this shameless plug for new socks for our neighbors in need. Any kind, any size is just fine although the greatest need is likely for socks suitable for wearing with tennis shoes or work boots.

And for the next few weeks, a national sock drive for the homeless is being promoted jointly by the Association of Gospel Rescue Mission, Hanes and Disney to benefit rescue missions throughout North America. It’s in conjunction with the new Disney movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  

Without giving away too much, Timothy Green has a profound need of socks for his own reasons in the movie. (His situation is much like JT’s, only more whimsical.) I have been privileged to see two screenings of the film. It’s a good- humored, tender movie about two subjects near to my heart: parenting and adoption. I think it might be a bit too slow for preschoolers, but I would encourage children of all ages and the people who love them to see the film and then talk about it. You won’t regret it.

Back to the socks: You can find sock drop boxes around town in Colorado Springs. There are boxes located at TCF Bank (Powers & Constitution), Remington College, Nazarene Bible College, Gold’s Gym Briargate, The Coffee Exchange, Hollywood Theater (where Timothy Green will debut on August 15) & Community Bible Study.

Maybe you could pick up an extra pack of socks when you shop for school clothes for your kids or grandkids.  It’s a simple gift that can yield a lot of practical benefits, especially as we move from summer into fall.

And please, go see Timothy Green!

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[i] Revised from http://www.recipeapart.com/benefits-of-wearing-socks/#ixzz22n88cBbo. A friendly, not-too-technical article if you’re interested.