On George Bailey's Redeemed Life

by Carl Mazza

"I am guilty of dehumanizing homelessness. It's not until you put a face and body to the homeless does it become real..." - Rev. Alan Bosmeny Pastor, Elkton First Assembly of God

"The biggest challenge of the day is how to bring about a revolution of the heart." - Dorothy Day, founder, Catholic Worker Movement.

In the last month of 2006, the Meeting Ground community began to come around to a new realization. A quiet revival has begun to call more and more persons together in mutual work with and among persons and families experiencing homelessness. It has been quite remarkable, amazing actually.

To date, 23 churches have opened their doors or supplied substantial numbers of volunteers to provide winter shelter. The persons attending training events number in the hundreds. Volunteers at our traditional Community Thanksgiving Dinner asked if they could do the same on Christmas Day this year, and even more showed up then to provide an extravagant meal to any and all who walked through the door.

We went out on a limb this holiday season to promise that every family in need who asked for help with gifts for their kids would be assisted. The generosity of donors was incredible. Toys and holiday trimmings were provided for every one of the 150 families who asked, over 500 children, with lots to spare! Gifts and food for everyone were in abundance this holiday time, as was the spirit of renewal, redemption and hope at meetings. The bounty we experienced followed the mandate of St. Francis of Assisi:

"On one day the friars were talking about the prohibition to eat meat, since Christmas was on a Friday ("Dies Veneris!"). Francis answered to Brother Morico: 'You make a mistake Brother, if you call Friday the day the Holy Child was born. On a day like this I want everybody to eat meat; even the walls should do it, and if this is impossible, let them be spread with meat! On that day God wants all the poor people and the beggars to eat like the rich...' "
- St. Francis' Crib

It was on Christmas night at Clairvaux Farm when I gained a deeper perspective on what was happening. Forty adults were gathered in the community building to give and open gifts together. When all that had been done, everyone talked. Cynthia led the group in a discussion around the topic of "rescue," using the scene from the classic holiday movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." The story relates the redemption of everyman George Bailey whose life was transformed when he saved his kid brother from drowning as a child. When we know we have been rescued in life, or when we rescue another, things change permanently for us. Redemption is a possibility for us all, and once realized, forever makes us revolutionaries for good.

The discussion was spontaneous and moving. One after another spoke about their restored hope, and looked forward to a better year ahead. Several said that it was the best Christmas of their lives, and never to be forgotten. The generosity expressed in material giving had been received by the measure of the soul, and its meaning was expressed as the energy of new life.

In that meeting I began to see more clearly how much we, as a people, desire a union of fellowship expressed in how we live together. We do not want barriers: rich/poor; black/white; haves/have-nots, homeless/housed, and so on. More than ever before we understand the significance of who we are, and how little separates us from each other.

Yet, there is a difference from how this has been perceived in the past. Among us the spirit moves that this no longer be a wishful thought, expressed whist-fully every Christmas, but rather a desire - a hunger deep enough to move us to action. We want the world to be different. We are willing to act to make it so. We feel the possibility of change is within our power, and we will work together to achieve it. The Spirit is awakening us to a new thing. Among us desire is moving, and we actually believe what we do can make a difference: Not just ordinary change, but a participation in no less than God's own plan of rescue.

Perhaps it is too far-fetched to believe enough to hope for a work as great as the redemption of the world. But if our faith is not yet sufficient for that, maybe we can bring ourselves to accept that it can be true for our own back yard. And, remarkably, if enough believe that, and act on it, the greater work we so desire will soon be done.