Greetings,
Permit me to share some reflections from my Fourth Week of Advent.
The final withdrawal of U. S. military forces from Iraq last weekend produced a number of additional flights of military personnel into BWI Marshall and other airports. The volunteers of Operation Welcome Home Maryland do a fine job of greeting the troops, welcoming them home, and giving them a “goodie” bag to tide them over as they wait for another flight to their home or for their ride home if they happen to be local. They seek to have a large number of people to welcome the troops with a boisterous and heartfelt welcome, and many groups and individuals check the schedule of flights and plan to be there. However, with all of there unscheduled flights, there were a number at off times where the regular groups would not be able to be there. On Monday afternoon Roberta and I went to meet a large incoming flight. There was another one at 11:00 pm that night which I went to while Roberta was sending off another “final” edition of her book to the publisher. Then we found out that there would be five unscheduled flights in a 24 hour period, so I went to the 11:15 pm Tuesday night arrival and stayed for the 3:30 am Wednesday morning flight. Apart from the eight OWH crew and the family and friends anxiously awaiting their loved ones, there were only two of us volunteer greeters for those flights. However, I did see something unusual. The 11:30 flight had many Air Force personnel, and a group of nine officers from a base in New Jersey came down to meet it, including three generals.
After the arrivals, Wednesday was the usual rather full day, but it was also the long planned Homeless Persons Memorial Day Service. I have been attending the meetings preparing for the service, though others did the yeoman’s work for it. The service was very well done, with some 200 people coming to the Inner Harbor amphitheater to remember and honor the 111 persons who were or had been homeless and who died this year. Each person was named and lifted up, for each, regardless of the circumstances of their life, was a person of sacred worth, with gifts and graces from God to be shared with all of us. A pair of shoes, with a name tag and a votive candle represented each person. It was meaningful sight.
As I blessed the military personnel coming off of the planes, I looked into each face. The great majority of them were young, perhaps 19 to 25 years of age. Whether young or older, these were individuals who were able to walk off the plane of their own accord. There are thousands who have come home but could not make their own way. They lie in hospitals and homes, they struggle with rehabilitation and terrible losses. Yet even these “healthy” women and men are facing a great struggle. Many have, or will have, deep psychological problems. Many will not be able to find employment. Many will come home to marital and family problems and they will face a high rate of divorce. And far too many will commit suicide as they find themselves unable to cope with what they have seen and had to do, and with their new problems. I try to bestow God’s blessing upon each of them because they so much need it.
The Homeless Persons Memorial Service took place in front of “Santa’s Place” in the middle of the city, surrounded by expensive hotels, huge office buildings and stores offering the “good life” to all who can afford it. The number of homeless persons increases each year, and a very large, increasing number of them, in spite of what the VA tells us, are veterans whose service for their country at least contributed to their problems. Many others suffer from health problems which overwhelm them, and leave them destitute. Many have lost their jobs, and are no longer counted as “unemployed,” in the wishful thinking number that gets reported every month. We are in the land of milk and honey, where even our “poor” have more than a majority of the world’s people, yet homelessness continues to increase, and the long-term consequences of it continue to take their toll on individuals and our society. Some of us know first-hand the care and love so many homeless have for others; we know the talents and abilities which they have and which they want to share with others.
Thus it was a week of seeing potentially great hope in the eyes and responses of many of our finest young men and women, and seeing the care and concern of those homeless and those others who care about the people who suffer. It was a week of uplift and encouragement, mingled with the realization that if we, collectively, do not take the needs of people seriously and help them overcome the difficulties they face, their lives will turn down and be filled with despair.
This Christmas God once more tells us the message of hope and life and love which can empower us to be the agents of positive transformation, to be use in bringing the message of God to reality.
May this hope and commitment fill your life, this Christmas and always.
Yours & His,
DED
No comments:
Post a Comment