We are making our way home - and thankful for the friends and spaces we were able to join on this trip. One of this gifts of our trip was to sharing our love of reading. Jean found this gem in of a story about an everyday saint in the book These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. We found so many great books in a fabulous independent book store The Toadstool in Keene, NH where we got lost in the volumes and beauty of stories.
CHARLES STROBEL FOUNDED the Room in the Inn and its Campus for Human Development in 1986 as a center of learning, respite, shelter and relief for people living on the streets. Like them, he can pretty much be found there seven days a week. Originally it was formed as an organization of local congregations of all denominations that welcomed people in for a meal and to spend the night once the cold weather set in. The first building they had was typically dismal, with some classrooms for AA meetings and art projects, a place to pray. Charlie's primary gift may be his ability to serve the poor, but he possesses the equally necessary gifts of being able to work with a board, local government, the police, religious organizations of every stripe, and the people who have the means to underwrite his vision. His radical idea was that people who had nowhere to live need not be served in low, dark places, and that people with nothing should be able to stand beside people with everything and hold up their heads. The Campus building looked as new and stylishly modern in its glass and steel construction as the expensive condominiums that sprawl through Nashville a few blocks away, The dignity with which Charlie had always treated all people was reflected in their surroundings. The mission statement of the Campus reads: "Emphasizing the scriptural ideals of love and community through service to the homeless, our Campus provides faithful people of Nashville an opportunity to respond directly to the broken and the disenfranchised among us. The fellowship with the poor is at the heart of our purpose."
What that means is that I am the person the Campus is serving.
Part of its mission is to give me the chance to experience what has been the enormous joy of Charlie's life-the opportunity to respond directly to the broken and disenfranchised among us.
"All you have to do," he tells me, "is give a little bit of understanding to the possibility that life might not have been fair."
The trouble with good fortune is that we tend to equate it with personal goodness, so that if things are going well for us and less well for others, it's assumed they must have done something to have brought that misfortune on themselves while we must have worked harder to avoid it. We speak of ourselves as being blessed, but what can that mean except that others are not blessed, and that God has picked a few of us to love more? It is our responsibility to care for one another, to create fairness in the face of unfairness and find equality where none may have existed in the past. Despite his own experiences with unfairness, this is what Charlie has accomplished.
Invitation: “…a little bit of understanding …”
The Worthless Servant - Found in These Precious Days by Ann Patchett pgs. 51-53
About Charles Strobel - https://www.roomintheinn.org/stories/charles-strobel and about Ann Patchett https://www.annpatchett.com/about
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"The enormous joy of Charlie's life -- the opportunity to respond directly to the broken and disenfranchised among us. All you have to do is give a little bit of understanding to the possibility that life might not have been fair."
Somehow the idea of good fortune --- or privilege -- is derived from morality, something deserved. So, if someone is less fortunate, then this must be a failure of morality. Hence, the disdain toward the poor or those who are struggling to make ends meet in contrast to those with wealth -- rather than :give a little bet of understanding that life might not have been fair" for that person.