Invisible People

On Thursday morning, I help prepare and serve breakfast for those in need. The usual Thursday volunteers include a priest and a nun, a semi-chronically homeless person and myself. We're volunteers with Dorothy Day House in Berkeley. Everyday, dedicated people get up early and make sure 180 or so of our neediest neighbors get a basic, healthy breakfast.

As my fellow volunteers and I were traveling from the kitchen where we cook the food to the dining room where we serve the food (that's another story), we talked about our guests. We wondered when their lives went off the rails. What were their dreams as children? When did they lose those dreams?

Many of our guests are the people you pass by on the sidewalk everyday and don't even notice. They're anonymous. They're invisible. And, as Jesus reminds us, they're our neighbors.

Some of our guests need help, but resources for the poor aren't available. National interest in helping the poor doesn’t seem to exist, either. The poor are unable to afford lobbyists to advocate Congress or state legislatures on their behalf.

I think there's a difference between meeting a need and solving a problem. As volunteers, we can meet a need. What we can't do is solve the problem.

To solve the problem, we have to start seeing the poor. Then, we have to start seeing the poor as our neighbors. We have to realize that the poor are just like us. They too have hopes and dreams. They want shelter, food, security and opportunities. They want to dream about a future that's better than their present.

If the words of the prophets of old are true, then what God will judge this nation for is not whether we allow marriage equality for all, but rather for how we treat the least of these in our midst.

Stephen Colbert so poignantly reminded us: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”