I haven't posted much to my blog in the past three months, therefore I am reposting my own article from June in order to get back on track. This post from June has something to say about graditude and grace on this Thanksgiving Day, 2010. Happy Thanksgiving Day to you!
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According the St. Petersburg Times, the members of the St. Petersburg City Council have already made up their minds to tighten the city's street solicitation ban. In other words, they want to prohibit people from standing near busy intersections--and other locations--and asking for money.
I remember a story told by the comedian, George Carlin, that went something like this: I was catching a taxi to the airport in New York and this guy was standing on the corner holding out a pan, screaming PLEASE! Pul-leeese! I gave him a dollar. My plane arrived in LA, and while driving out of the airport, there was a guy, standing on the corner holding out a pan, saying, PLEASE! Pul-leeese!" It's a franchise!
But asking for money in St. Pete is no laughing matter today. If you want to read some scary comments, read the comments section to an article about “begging.” It's unsettling to think that some of these online readers of the newspaper are my neighbors. Here is one of the more tame comments: "I'd prefer not to be solicited by anybody, be they homeless people or firefighters. It is all annoying. And I suspect if most people were honest, they'd say the same thing.”
The first thing I noticed about this comment was the idea that if something is annoying we should automatically outlaw it. Having cut most welfare and other social programs, we are ready to ban even asking for a dollar.
But the comments go farther, the person writes, "I'd prefer not be solicited by ...fire fighters." 9/11 is long ago now and those warm and fuzzy feelings about people who run into burning buildings to save our lives seems to be slipping away like cool breezes during a hot Florida summer.
The weird thing about this person complaining about fire fighters asking for contributions is the fact that, no doubt, at the next Fourth of July picnic with her family, she will probably say something like the following: "I miss the old fashioned neighborhood when everyone cared about one another." In the good old days, were there no annoying people? In the good old days, did fire fighters stay in the firehouses and did poor people look like Red Buttons bowing when you gave him a nickel? In the good old days everyone had a grandmother or Aunt Betty who served the homeless out of the back door of their house on Main Street.
Now Aunt Betty and Grandma want to send the fire fighters back to the firehouse and make it safe to walk the streets of our city without thinking of poverty, hardship and pain.
Jesus once told a story about a man who went to a far away country after asking his father for his inheritance before his father even died. The old man gave the son the money. The younger son went and squandered it on wild living. One day, while feeding pigs, he came to his senses and decided to go home and beg his father for a job working as a servant in his fathers' fields. Before he could even get to the front door of the family home, the old father ran to his prodigal son and embraced him and threw a party to welcome his son back into the family.
The story doesn't end there. The boy had an elder brother who refused to attend the party. He called the old man outside of the house while the music was playing inside. How dare you throw a party for this son of yours? He said. I've worked for you so hard over these years and you never gave me a party!
The father was stunned. Everything I have is yours. The father said. Your brother was lost and now is found! Can't you see how happy I am to have him return? Why are you not happy, too?
Where did we get the idea that life should be easy and we should never have to have to observe annoying problems like poverty and hardship? If we are like the elder brother who has done everything right and never needed to stand at a street corner asking for a dollar, why are we not more grateful for the life we have lived? Why are we so bitter that we want to send our younger brother back to a far away place so that we don't even have to look at him?
You might say, “Well the prodigal was repenting, these homeless people are just begging.” Look more carefully at the story. The father ran down the road to greet the younger son before the boy could even say a word. The old man was full of grace and forgiveness.
What was this old man trying to teach his elder son? Why did Jesus tell this story? Does this ancient story have anything to say to us today in St. Petersburg?
