Misconceptions

Mom wanted me to post this, because she thought I might have given the wrong message in the post about cleaning up the school. She says there's an opinion among some people that there's no point in helping people--well, let's be brutally honest, there's an opinion among some people that there's no point in helping poor people--because they Can't Be Helped. You have to Want To Be Helped before the proceeds from the Women of the Church Auxiliary Bake Sale will do you any good. 'Wanting To Be Helped' usually entails renouncing all ties to your former culture, friends, family, and former way of life--just like emigrants at Ellis Island in the 1800's! It is the Only Way For Them To Become Good Christian Men And Women!!

That's crap.

I don't know if anybody with that opinion has read their Bible lately, but in case you didn't know, Jesus was a poor kid from the ghetto, too.

So, if writing about seeing graffiti on the bathroom walls of the elementary school made anybody think, "what's the point of painting the school if those kids are already delinquent" or whatever, that is not what I meant to say. In fact, I think seeing all the graffiti was what made me realize that the kids who go to that school need a nice building more than anything.

I know a little about child psychology, and from that I know that kids in elementary school grades are basically a reflection of what they see around them. If they see a lot of bad language on TV and hear it from their parents and older siblings, of course they're going to repeat it. To me, it was just a sign that the kids in that school needed more love than anybody.

When you really think about it, who will get more out of walking into a beautifully-painted new classroom (one that looks like a home, not a mental hospital or a prison), a rich kid or a poor kid? Probably a poor kid.

So the next time you're tempted to refuse aid to a "bad" person, take a leaf out of the Good Book:

⁹As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

¹⁰While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

¹²On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

the Gospel of Matthew, 9:9-13