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Wednesday Witness: Step Outside Yourself

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

But God said to him, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?” – Luke 12:20

Not long ago I met a woman going through serious medical and financial difficulties. For many weeks, she had been off work and in severe pain due to a spinal injury. She was behind on her bills, immobile most of the time, barely able to care for herself and her child. Friends and family offered what support they could, but even the very best prognosis put her a month away from working again, provided she still had a job.

At the end of a tearful conversation, I offered to pray with her and for her. She gratefully accepted, and I asked the Lord to heal her, to address her challenges, to protect her family, and to guide those around her to know how best to help.

When I stopped to ask if she would like to add anything, she said yes—and then proceeded to pray for a friend who was going through hard times and needed a spiritual boost. She prayed earnestly, by name, for this other person, then thanked God for all the help He has provided to her so far. She never once mentioned her own situation.

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Wednesday Witness: Take a Minute

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

In last week’s Wednesday Witness column, I described one of several homeless men and women who frequented Yale’s campus when I attended in the 1990s. I worked for the graduate School of Music all four years, and one of my first and primary duties was walking the entire campus, distributing or hanging concert flyers and posters at various buildings, businesses, and kiosks. I made the rounds at least once a week; as a result, I saw the local homeless frequently, and they saw me.

During my first year, one man, in particular, kept his eyes open for my brown leather ballcap and black poster portfolio. He was an older fellow, creased and grimy from years on the street, with lank and thinning gray hair, well-worn workman’s clothing, and the unmistakable aroma of body odor and booze. Whenever he saw me, his pale eyes would pull into focus, and his mouth would break into a smile that was equal parts crooked yellow teeth and no teeth at all. He would rise (if seated), reach out to shake my hand, and start the same conversation.

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Wednesday Witness: Hard Choices

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The coldest I have ever been was during a late-season, black-powder deer hunt. I was sitting atop a ladder stand in the dark in January. The morning was bitterly cold following a storm that dropped more than two feet of fluffy snow, leaving clear skies and wind in its wake.

I had dressed for a long, cold sit while a friend attempted to push deer toward me from the other side of the section. I had not dressed for the half-mile march through knee-deep snow and buried brush that preceded my climbing the stand. By the time I was settled, I was also sweating, and once I was stationary, I shivered beneath my layers.

Even after sunrise, the air was frigid. My fingers ached as I held my rifle, and I clenched and unclenched my toes inside my boots, trying to maintain some semblance of feeling. (It was weeks before they lost the pin-prickly feeling from that morning.)

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Wednesday Witness: Charity by the Numbers

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

You’ve all heard the adage, “Bad things come in threes.” It seems to play out time and again—one thing leads to another and another. Of course, once the seed is planted, we look for three, and when we identify the third event, we restart the counter. Sure enough, three more catastrophes are coming if we wait long enough.

But I can’t dismiss the old wisdom entirely. In my time working with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, I have yet to encounter a neighbor who wasn’t juggling multiple problems—a cluster of issues snowballing into a crisis.

Sometimes it’s bad luck. Sometimes, poor planning. Sometimes it’s a series of personal choices we wish they could take back. Sometimes it’s systemic—problems often seem to progress faster than solutions. And sometimes it’s generational poverty, addiction, and sin taking its toll, rippling out to touch everyone in an ever-widening circle.

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Wednesday Witness: Let Yourself Be Loved

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We are blessed to be hosting two young women from the NET team leading retreats for our St. Michael Catholic School middle-level students this week. It’s a wonderful opportunity to practice hospitality in our own home, underscoring the wisdom of the old saying, “It’s better to give than to receive.” We feel very blessed to open our home, to share our food, to visit and pray with people who are making themselves available to our daughter Lily and her classmates in such a beautiful, faith-filled way.

But the gift of giving is not what this column is about. Instead, I want to focus on the gift of receiving.

These two young women came into our home not knowing at all what to expect. We have a large and overfriendly dog and a house that comprises a wide array of half-finished renovations. We had a supper plan made independently of them. We knew nothing about them and wanted them to be comfortable, so we asked questions, provided options, and generally talked their ears off.

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