Have you seen the TV show "Doomsday Preppers" ? It is on the National Geographic channel and it features people making preparations to survive various improbable collapses of our society. There is considerable debate as to whether the show is staged or real. People ask, why go to such extremes to build a secret bunker, then show it to everyone on television? And don't those contractors know where your secret bunker is? The basic premise of each show that I have seen is 1. The end is coming. 2. We have this large stockpile. 3. We have the means to protect it.
I have only watched the show a couple of times, so maybe there is more variation to it than that. It would have been nice to see someone say, "If a disaster strikes, I can help a lot of my neighbors for a few days or even a week until help arrives." Now there is something worth prepping for.
Of course we could all have that same attitude, every day. I was in Chicago this past week on a vacation. As we were going from place to place, I was struck by the number of homeless that we saw. Now I am told that some of them are not homeless, but con-artists trying to make a buck. And I am sure that they concentrate in tourist areas where they are more likely to get money. I think that most of them were people genuinely in need of help. While we gave a some money to a few people, the enormity of the need was overwhelming. I have to say that as we went down the street I felt a bit like the preppers. What I have will provide for me.
It is hard to know what the "Christian" attitude should be towards the poor. The Bible tells us about caring for the least of these, but it also says that we will always have the poor among us and that those who will not work should not eat. I think that there is a big difference between can not work and will not work. Some people because of their physical or mental issues simply can't hold down a job. We want to treat poverty as a personal flaw in character of the impoverished. We want to say, if I was in that situation, I would be different. And maybe you or I would be different. Maybe. But then again, if you or I had the same personal history or the same mental afflictions, maybe we wouldn't be doing half so well. Maybe.
As Christians, I believe that we are called to seek out the needs in others and do what we can to help. We need to look for needs in our family and church and community and world, and do what we can, when we can to make things a little bit better, At one point this week I was giving a couple of dollars to one of the homeless on Michigan Avenue. I can't say why I gave some to him and not others, but as I gave I thought, "I can't solve his problems or the greater poverty problem. Not even close. All I can do is make his life a little easier today."
If we all do what we can do, maybe the world will be a little better. Maybe.
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