Thursday, December 7, 2000

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

When I read this liberation text from Luke's Gospel, I think about disposable people the poor, the captive, the oppressed, the blind...the old, the young, the abused, the mentally disabled, the physically challenged, the systemically impoverished. These are our "throw aways" discarded because we don't care, or because they scare us, or because their suffering makes us uncomfortable. The precariousness of their lives makes awkwardly conspicuous the security of ours. So we blind ourselves to these folks. They are invisible, disposable people.

I recently read Nora Gallagher's autobiographical book, "Things Seen and Unseen" in which she talks about her work in a church soup kitchen and the struggle to get enough of everything, enough of anything.

"We scrounged for a living. We begged bread from local bakeries; from butchers, we begged the chicken breast bones left after most of the breast is removed; from traveling executives, we accepted soaps and shampoos collected in hotels. On the bottom rungs, scrounging is a craft, a way of life. The men we served in the Kitchen sifted through wastebaskets at the end of the day, finding a box of gold hairpins, half-smoked cigarettes, two paper clips. Everything is useful, nothing is wasted. I came to believe that 'scrounge' is one of God's verbs. A pregnant, unmarried woman; tax collectors, blind beggars, a son conceived out of wedlock. God uses what is useless, what is discarded, 'things low and contemptible, mere nothings, to overthrow the existing order.'"

Everything is useful, nothing is wasted...Christmas reminds us that God scrounges for all our throw-aways. Thanks be to God! --AD

PRAYER : "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things." (The Magnificat of Mary, Luke 1:46-55, selected verses)

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