This was inspired by participating in the sorting and packing of gifts for The Salvation Army's Adopt-a-Family program here in Boston. It is not meant to be passed off as an actual letter, but rather what the thoughts might be of a young man in this situation.
I'm 17 years old. Mom just got back with our Christmas gifts. 3 big garbage bags that say Family #30 on them. A couple of weeks ago, mom had this paper and asked me and my brother what we wanted for Christmas. He's 15, we're the oldest. The little ones all asked for toys and dolls. My nieces and nephews are too young to even know what to ask for, so mom just wrote something down for them. We aren't really into toys any more, so I asked for Nike sneakers. My brother thought that sounded good too, so he said the same. I'm hoping some nice family from the suburbs decides to "adopt" us and I guess I hope to get those sneakers for Christmas. But I'm pretty much done with Christmas. It's not too magical when you're Family #30 anyway. You know what I really want for Christmas? I don't want to be family #30 any more. I don't want mom to have to give our list to a social worker, so the social worker can give it to someone else and some nice lady who lives in a big house and feels badly for Family #30, all 9 of us, can go out and buy us gifts. You know what? I don't want the sneakers. I don't want to be here. I don't want to live here. News is talking about everybody getting shot. I want to live where people don't know the people getting shot. I don't want to see the empty desk where one of those kids sat. I want to live where mom and the rest of us aren't numbers. Family #30, SSI# whatever, you're next, please step forward. Maybe that's why half my boys end up in prison, cause all their lives they've just been a number. Go to the house and keep being a number. I'm not a number. I have a name. The most important number about me ought to be my age: 17. Still a boy, forced to be the man because I'm the oldest. So I don't want to be adopted. I've got a mom and she does her best. I want a safe place to live that regular people can afford. I want a school that doesn't have to choose between another math teacher and oil to heat the place. After that, I don't even know what I want, I just wish it weren't like this. Family #30, gifts in garbage bags, bought by strangers with strangers' money and then left for us to pick up. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. I'm sure those people are really nice. But I just wish their charity wasn't under our tree this year.
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5 comments:
Good perspective. To me that's a reason that our direct services are good and needed but not enough. Even our corps members for the most part aren't actively engaged in lives like the one you are talking about. Transforming community so that these 17 year olds don't have to be numbers anymore. Now that's a vision!
Good post Drew...It is easy for the veterans of the movement to trumpet the fact we are doing the most good..the most good is not putting band-aids on bullet holes..it is transforming communities and lives through a combination of witness, warmth and a willingness for us to sacrifice so that others don't have to live like this 17 year old.
Is there something else we should be doing? Maybe we should rediscover the active engagement as Jason has suggested.
Eddy, isn't that a copout, though? I mean, yes, Christ said, "the poor you will always have." But I think a lot of Christians use this as an out to stick our heads in the sand on social justice issues. We absolutely have a responsibility to the person and a person's most important need, a Savior, can be met while they remain mired in a terrible situation physically (poor, homeless, living in public housing). But don't we also have a responsibility to try to improve the community in such a way as to stop the cycle, to attempt to give people a better experience in this lifetime?
Is that too idealistic for you? Or is it impossible?
Sometimes, I think that we throw $200 at a $200 million dollar problem so that we can feel like we did something. But did we do enough?
Between the great things that we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.—Adolph Monod
I don't know that we have the power to fix the world, but we can at least know the name of the Mr. 17 with which we engage. Who knows, maybe he is the one God plans to change the world through.
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