Giants of Virtue

I saw something soul-stunning. I and several other medical students had the opportunity to measure blood pressures and glucoses at Carpenter's Church - a church/organization that apparently serves the homeless and the down-on-your-luck crowd - good people in a bad way. I felt so at home, as I knew I would, partly because this was the kind of people I felt privileged to work with all those years ago through a charity in the Fourth Ward of inner-city Houston - a life-changing zenith in my right-outta-high-school life.

Maybe it's the struggle that makes them so kind and fiercely honest. Or maybe it's that their faults have been dragged so far into the open (drug addictions, homelessness, abuse, violence, etc.) that, unlike in my world, there's nothing hidden and what you see is refreshingly what you get. Or maybe it's the safe haven of organizations like Carpenter's that gives them respite - I don't know. But I do know that I find myself inspired because I feel like I am among giants of virtue - were I in their situations (never mind how they got there) I'm not sure I would fare nearly so well. So I'm used to being amazed and surprised in this environment.

Usually, Tuesday evening is a time that the Carpenter's congregants gather together for a meal and fellowship. I was surprised to find out that for the month of October, Carpenter's clientele are fasting Tuesday evenings. Yes, they've chosen not to eat. They decided to give their meal funds to charities. You read that right. Homeless people, recovering drug addicts, and other giants of virtue were giving. Even now, as I type, I have to pause to absorb the significance of what I saw.

An executive from the South Plains Food Bank came to talk to them; however, unlike what one might expect, she didn't come to see what kind of food these people needed. No. The lady from the South Plains Food Bank came to tell the giants of virtue about all the needy children that SPFB feeds and all the families that depend on donations to the SPFB.

She was asking these homeless giants of virtue to GIVE. You read that right. Imagine watching this unfold before your eyes in a large warehouse-type room where about thirty very poor people at various stages of recovery and struggle listening to well-dressed SPFB executive (volunteer by the way) tell them how they could help a child avoid extreme hunger. It was living poetry. Take a moment before you read the next sentence ...

... because they passed the hat. The unwealthy homeless giants of virtue dug down deep, some into their dirty pockets and some into their plastic purses. It wasn't much, to be sure, but they gave enormously. I gave too - a pittance comparatively - because there was no way I could look that SPFB little girl in the eye and explain how near-penniless homeless people found a way to feed her but I didn't.

They didn't donate just to the South Plains Food Bank. Once again, "the poor" gave to me. I left Carpenter's Church gratefully ashamed and thoroughly inspired and hopeful. For all the atrocities and stupidities whirling about us, we live in a marvelous place and time in our human history - and among Giants of Virtue! Lord have mercy.

+Joseph Bishara