Lord, give us the eyes that see!

Compassion are the eyes that let us see others and to bless them. Lord, give us the eyes that see! The rich man could not see Lazarus because he lacked compassion. Compassion allows us to see and to bless the homeless person on the side of the road. Compassion helps us to see the migrant worker picking in the fields as we pass by or to see the child who has failed miserably, and yet to have mercy.

God, in His compassion sees each one of us. In our own unique brand of brokenness and poverty he sees you, he sees me, he has mercy and he blesses us.
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Expensive Charity

A recent CNBC report by Daniel Bukszpan focuses on the “charitable bagel.” Few foods are as heavily identified with New York City as the bagel. Other cities have their own variations on it, all profitably sold and happily consumed. However, no other U.S. city has ever come close to capturing that certain je ne sais quoi particular to the New York bagel.

Although the bagel is readily available at any time of day or night to anyone with a dollar to spend, Frank Tujague, executive chef at the Westin New York at Times Square, decided to deviate from the standard. He fashioned the world's most expensive bagel by topping it with white truffle cream cheese, goji berry jelly and gold leaves. The price for this creation is $1,000 and all proceeds from its sale are donated to the Les Amis d'Escoffier Scholarship, a charity benefiting impoverished culinary students.

Possibly a chef at the Westin in Los Angeles will dream up a similar ploy to raise charitable donations for the tens of thousands of homeless in LA?
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Gay and Homeless? Hate and Discrimination may Cloud Compassion

By Chandra Thomas

In April 2008, Brian Dixon (photo) was 18-years-old and homeless. Being gay, he says, only exacerbated his predicament.

After years of mental and physical abuse, at age 14 Brian left home to live with his grandparents. Within a year, they placed him in Georgia’s foster care system. From there he bounced around to several group homes. By the time he turned 18 he had earned a GED before officially “aging out” of the foster care system.

Brian fervently prayed to be granted an extension to remain in the foster care system a bit longer while he worked on his nursing degree. His new caseworker, whom Dixon describes as a “devout Christian,” was not in support. She had convinced her superiors that he was not “a good candidate” for that privilege. He thinks it’s because he’s gay. Within two weeks, Dixon was dropped off with his few belongings at a Southwest Atlanta homeless shelter.

“I was scared; I had nowhere else to go,” recalls Brian. “That first night they sent me to Covenant House and I just could not handle it. I was still in the foster care mindset. It didn’t really register in my mind that I was actually homeless.”

He also tried traditional adult shelters briefly, but ultimately ended up living on the streets of Atlanta. That catapulted him onto a yearlong emotional and heart-wrenching odyssey of illegal drug use, prostitution and “couch-surfing” from one friend’s house to another. In the summer of 2009, he fell victim to a brutal roadside rape at the hands of two strangers.

Atlanta-based licensed counselor Tana Hall says Dixon’s experiences are common among displaced gay youth.

Hall suggests Dixon is among legions of gay teenagers and young adults kicked out of their homes and out of foster care homes primarily because of their sexual orientation. Many claim that the discrimination they face – often rooted in religious conviction – even extends to homeless shelters and into the foster care system. Halls says she’s heard staffers at local Christian-based shelters make homophobic comments and it’s upsetting. [It’s unfortunate], but she often tries to avoid sending her clientele there because she fears discrimination, but sometimes it’s the only option available.

“The majority of calls I get on our helpline are young people who have run away because they did not feel that they were accepted in their home,” Hall says. “The primary reason that these young people are homeless is not because of issues like substance abuse or mental illness; it’s due to a lack of acceptance about who they are [from others]. It’s a societal issue.”

Brian acknowledges the only facility he’s ever formally been kicked out of was one touted as a “Christian group home.” Upon arrival, he says, he was required to sign a form agreeing to never disclose his sexual orientation. He tried unsuccessfully to conceal his sexual identity there.

“People kept asking me about it and I wouldn’t answer them; once they found out I was gay, it was pretty much downhill from there,” recalls Brian.
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Ode To Those Dead And Forgotten

by Mitchell Zeftel

I'm weeping and I wept all night,
yet I'm trying to sing praises
to those cremated and unknown,
maybe unknowable.
Last night on public radio, they
spoke of a mass funeral in Seattle
for two hundred homeless --
those who had no one to bury them.
Two hundred vials of ash --
O Virgin, save them -- and they
were blessed by authentic clergy
so as to destroy, say,
a conspiracy of silence
which shrouds the saddest eyes.
People found in flat, dusty rooms,
broken Safeway carts.
Yes, they died with no image
in their mirrors.
I've been weeping so much
maybe my tears should bring
a new kind of stained glass window,
because they, the forgotten, stained
their blood on the winds of Seattle.
O Lord, remember their names.
O Virgin, let their blood
be stained also in your eyes.

Excerpt from a collection of poems in the spirit of St. Francis. More on the Internet at http://www.thestreetspirit.org/
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5 Reasons to Help the Homeless This Summer

Helping the homeless is most talked about in the winter months because of the freezing temperatures and the spirit of giving in the holiday season. But the homeless community needs our help in the summer time as much as ever! Here are 5 reasons to care for the homeless this summer:

•Risk of sunstroke and heatstroke. Many homeless shelters force residents to leave during the day. The homeless may not have access to a place to cool off all day.
•Risk of dehydration. Public water fountains are harder to come by than you would think. More homeless will die in the summer months from dehydration than those in the winter from exposure to cold and hypothermia.
•Homelessness increases in the summer months. During the winter, landlords are less inclined to evict a family and families are less inclined to give up the fight against eviction notices and move out. A while back, the New York Times wrote about the "summer surge" of homelessness.
•Kids no longer have support from their schools. During the school year, homeless students are provided with free or reduced price breakfasts and lunches. They also have a safe, comfortable place to spend their days.
•Kids no longer have a free place to have fun with their friends. Homeless kids can't afford pricey summer camps or tickets to water parks. Summer break can mean two months of boredom and loneliness.

What Can We Do?
1. Host a free event for the homeless, like an outdoor movie screening or a public picnic.
2. Run a water bottle collection drive.
3. Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
4. Run a summer clothing drive and pass out cool items such as shorts, t-shirts, socks and sneakers.
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The Old and the New

The Old Testament bears witness to Jesus' mission to the poor . . .

"Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness.
May he judge your people in righteousness,
your afflicted ones with justice.

"May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness.
May he defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
may he crush the oppressor.
May he endure as long as the sun,
as long as the moon, through all generations.
May he be like rain falling on a mown field,
like showers watering the earth.
In his days may the righteous flourish
and prosperity abound till the moon is no more . . .

"For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight." (Psalm 72)

The New Testament establishes Jesus’ mission to the poor . . .

[Jesus] on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21)
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I Desire Mercy

There is confusion by some concerning the apostle Paul’s statement, “Jesus became sin, who knew no sin.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) How is that possible for one who was sinless? One possible explanation is that Jesus became sin because when he entered this world, a world made of laws, he did “break laws” while fulfilling his mission here. For instance, he “worked” on the Sabbath – meaning he healed the sick on the Sabbath laboring as a physician when it was illegal to do so. He and the disciples lived as homeless men and therefore often had to eat with unclean hands and did not observe all the required fasts. So technically, some laws were broken and some eyebrows were raised by the higher-ups. Yet, as the Apostle James said, “Mercy triumphs over justice.” (James 2:13)

Jesus, because he gave unparalleled mercy, he overcame sin and the law by showing mercy - for example the mercy he gave to the woman caught in adultery. Jesus said to the keepers of the law, “Have you not read how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless. And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” Matthew12:5-7 By following in his footsteps, we are guiltless of our sins when we live out the law of mercy toward others.
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The Answer is Blowin' in the Wind

In 2009, rock legend Bob Dylan was on tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp and decided to kill time before the evening's performance by walking around a neighborhood near the seashore. Someone called the police to report that a man was wandering around the low-income area. Two young officers equally unaware of American pop culture icons approached him.

"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," he said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

Dylan wasn't carrying any identification so they took him to his hotel, where several tour staff vouched for him. The officers stated afterward that he couldn't have been nicer to them.

Apparently, according to a new poll, Jesus suffers a similar fate. Unfathomable amounts of ink have been spilled over the centuries since the invention of the printing press in writings about the person of Jesus Christ. But the truth of the matter is that none of them, not one, help us know Jesus. No matter how well we may think we know Jesus, we do not. No matter how much of the Bible we have studied, how thoroughly we have studied it, how exhaustively we have sought out the main character of the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth, none of that, none of it, helps us know Jesus at all. And it is probably also true that the more we think we know Jesus, the less likely it is that we actually do.

The same notion as to the unrecognizability of Jesus is also in the Gospels. Mary Magdalene did not recognize him at the tomb. Two of the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus did not recognize him either. In another episode, Thomas looks at Jesus straight in the eye but does not know him until he places he hand in his wounds. What makes us think that we who are alive today are any better? Yet by the sounds of it - many commentaries, writers, journalists and church goers believe they have Jesus all figured out. But is that really possible?

Today, an insightful poll officially closes here at Homeless In America. For the past year, we asked the following question of our readers, visitors and bloggers:

“The first time God entered our world, unrecognizable to the “church” – He came as a helpless baby, in a barn and as a migrant. He journeyed with 12 dirty, sweaty and uneducated homeless men. If He obscurely came in poverty today, would the church know Him?”

Here is how they responded . . .

11% said, “Yes, I think that most Christians would recognize Him.”

88% responded, “No, I think that most would be clueless.”

In closing, it's hard to imagine an icon of a generation like Bob Dylan being unrecognized. Even in 2009, one would think his face would serve as his ID with anyone over the age of twenty. It has been said, and is backed up by our poll, that if Jesus came back today, he might be arrested for loitering. What is the world coming to? "The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind, the answer is blowin in the wind."

Thank you for participating in this and all Homeless In America polls. Please scroll down to near the bottom of this main page and vote in all the new polls and surveys. God bless you for being a voice for the poor homeless.
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