The Least I Can Do

This is the week where our Church hosts the local homeless shelter program called Safe-nights.  Our local community action group spends the cold months of the year moving a group of 30 or so homeless folk around to different churches and community centers in the county.  They have cots and blankets and the host churches provide dinner and breakfast.  It's a really huge effort, which over the course of a winter can host upwards of four hundred people.  Four hundred homeless people, some of whom are children, just in this county.
If I think about it too long, it just makes me steaming mad.  When I look at these little faces that come with their bowls for some ice cream after dinner, I think two things:

1. I am so glad to be able to give them something.
2. I wish I knew some way to fix this.

I saw a little internet video done by comedian Russell Brand (who is showing up as the voice of conscience and reason rather more often than would expect from a man who makes his living telling dirty jokes).  He gave a rather alarming comparison: we could end homelessness in this country with the money that we, as a nation, spend on Christmas decorations.  I inherently distrust these sorts of comparisons, because I wonder how exactly this sort of thing is extrapolated on both ends (how much do we actually spend and how much would it actually cost to end homelessness, and is it a purely financial phenomenon).  But I do have to think that there are ways we could do better than we are for less than the cost of one of our more trivial expenditures.
I mean, if we're really going to celebrate Jesus birth, especially with the story that most of us have adopted about the circumstances of his birth, we ought to be working a little harder to make sure there is room in the inn.
This homelessness thing is a societal problem, it is a result of our capitalist economic system, which is good in many ways, except when it must deal with matters where profit is difficult or impossible.  Our church must invest a moderate amount of time, energy and money into participating in this network, but it's the least we can do, if we wish to care for the least of these.
Even these little ones though are not the least, because they can pass muster with the system, they can play by the rules long enough to get a warm place to sleep and a few good meals. There are some who are too mentally ill, or too addicted to drugs, or just too anti-social to be able to host in this program.
Some of the people that are with us now seem like they may be a little on the edge of acceptability, and one wonders if they would or could ever learn to "play the game" well enough to make it out of homelessness forever.  I suspect that some people might always choose to live on the margins of society.
It is a fairly common move to start to consider the most extreme cases rather than the ones closest to the path.  Indeed, in those sorts of shocking cases, it's tempting to feel like you're just enabling some really destructive life choices.
You can't let that stop you, do what you can.
As I wrote about last week, with the example of the people arrested for feeding the homeless, sometimes we don't actually see how selfish we're being.
Tonight is my third night of sleeping on a cot in my office, for the sake of this little project.
Every time I'm tempted to feel like a martyr because I'm not home in my own bed, I come back to this realization: I am so blessed.
When I look at my kids, taking their beds and their food for granted, I'm not mad at them, I 'm so glad that I can give them what they need.
At the same time I want us all to look for ways to fix the system, it's the least we can do.