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Drawmack
Guest
I apologize for continuing the debate where it had no place as well!But, if you’d like to start another thread
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I apologize for continuing the debate where it had no place as well!But, if you’d like to start another thread
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StillWondering
Guest
That’s a horrible thing to do. I mean if you will be too emotionally distraught to answer her phone call or email, I can understand holding off a few days to get prepared. But if you mean that definitively, that’s horrible. Why would you not answer your own mother? You can answer in love and charity!
Do not even think of even replying in essence “oh you do not know, my mom can be pretty crazy” or “she does not deserve my attention”. First, crazy mom or no crazy mom, it is hard to imagine not showing her respect. I have been witness to crazy events. Until your mom has actually threw knives at you or your siblings, don’t even start. And if “she does not deserve your attention”, be afraid that you will lose God’s forgiveness. Remember the parable Jesus spoke of when he talked about debtors?
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Drawmack
Guest
When my mother yells at me. I respond with, I will speak with you when you stop yelling at me and then I either walk away or hang up the phone or whatever depending on the type of communication being used.
This is extremely off topic and that comment was taken completely out of context.
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petr
Guest
I just finished the book in topic. Under the Overpass by Mike Yankowski undertheoverpass.com/uop/home.php
It was a fascinating read that provokes some rather simple, but profound questions. The mention of denomination is left out of the book (I think), although I have the impression that these two were Baptists.
They sought out all churches. They lived on the streets and had to find a meal anywhere one was offered, including The Church.
Do you people think that the church has it “taken care of” and you don’t feel the need to help further? I’m not sure how I feel about doing something more on a personal level. My opinion is that giving money to panhandlers is not a way to help. I’ve been moved to volunteer time at the local kitchen in the meantime while I figure it out.
My personal bias is that I am Vet and I see this problem advancing upon us like a tidal wave. Here’s a pic that sums up what I have seen.
http://usera.imagecave.com/petr/HomelessVetWorthlessBum.jpg
It was a fascinating read that provokes some rather simple, but profound questions. The mention of denomination is left out of the book (I think), although I have the impression that these two were Baptists.
They sought out all churches. They lived on the streets and had to find a meal anywhere one was offered, including The Church.
Do you people think that the church has it “taken care of” and you don’t feel the need to help further? I’m not sure how I feel about doing something more on a personal level. My opinion is that giving money to panhandlers is not a way to help. I’ve been moved to volunteer time at the local kitchen in the meantime while I figure it out.
My personal bias is that I am Vet and I see this problem advancing upon us like a tidal wave. Here’s a pic that sums up what I have seen.
http://usera.imagecave.com/petr/HomelessVetWorthlessBum.jpg
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oldblueknight
Guest
As a young man I always wondered why in this great and wealthy nation we ever had any homeless. Being a Catholic convert who was rasied by a Baptist minister made no difference in my views. However, after 30 years in law enforcement I have witnessed almost every aspect of the homeless. There are actually some folks who prefer to live this way to avoid living by common rules of society. There are many homeless who suffer mental illness, and are left behind by this nation due to budget constraints. There are homeless now in many cases simply because if there is not a local well advertised shelter they were raised without being taught about the love of Jesus Christ and who do not realize the Church is here for them. Currently I see more and more young people who lack this teaching and knowledge as our great nation has taken prayer and any religious teaching from schools and social services. When I was child in the 50’s we were taught aboubt the love of God and Jesus Christ in public schools. Many children I encounter today who have little or no knowledege of the bible’s teaching and the love of Christ, display an almost unquenchable thirst for this knowledge when introduced to Jesus love for us. I truly believe in the old addage it takes a whole village to raise a child, however many times we do not even know our neighbors. Christianity is under attack in America, and it comes from many different directions, and the battle rages on. As for the homeless, if we all could, as my Dad taught me to, look at every beggar or homeless person as if it were Jesus in disguise. Maybe if we just close our eyes for moment and picture ourself as that person!!!
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petr
Guest
I wonder what evidence do you base this on? Many of these people are qualified under medicare under social security. They are paid monthly and the facility is also paid handsomely for daily services. I would contend that many of these people bounce from facility to facility because they are simply unstable and do not want help.
You make an interesting point, but in reality I don’t see it as valid. I should also add that I don’t know about past policies, just what I’ve seen in the last 5 years in my work.
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WillieWonka
Guest
One reason we have homeless in this great and wealthy nation is that in the Seventies social activists and do-gooders managed to get most of the inmates at state mental institutions released onto the streets. They had great ideas about how these folks would be absorbed into society.
It was a dismal failure, so many for whom care was once provided now squat on heating grates looking for a handout. And when the program failed, the caring folks with superior moral compasses turned their attention somewhere else where they could practice love and social justice.
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rinnie
Guest
I was always taught you treat them with respect and you go by the golden rule. Treat others the way you would expect them to treat you!
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Sheeniac
Guest
Yes, I remember some of this as well happening in the 80s. Of course, it was Reagan’s fault according to the social activists. These people had rights which included that they not be locked up.
Of course, there’s some truth to it, but I don’t think that people who have an inability to be rational should decide whether to take medicine or not.
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TheBussards
Guest
I would have hot dogs days Oklahoma City Ok do it, 
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StillWondering
Guest
That is so horrible. I relate well with mental illness (both personally and throughout my family) and I always wondered why our society can abandon these people in need. I arrived in America in the late 80’s so I never saw this first hand, but it sounds like this is the Devil’s work in disguise.
Remember the oracle that followed Peter and the other disciples while they were preaching the Gospel. Peter rebuked this person and drove him/her away even though he/she was saying, in paraphrase, “listen to this man, he has a truth about God”. Well it would seem odd for Peter to banish this person from his site if he is phrasing the Good news and announcing to others to follow Peter. The truth is in the wording of the oracle. He claims “a truth” not “the truth”. This is an example of the Devil’s work in disguise leading people into thinking the Good News is great but it’s not the only one. There are others, maybe even my own truth. This mode of thinking, well that may be true but so is this random thought I have. The Truth and the Lie then can change place in a person’s mind.
Thinking about how wretched the conditions of the mentally ill being scattered out into society that is not, does not and have no interesting in relating to the sufferers brings tears to my cheeks.
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StillWondering
Guest
I added the bold in dispute.
I feel the need to reply to this because those that are unstable may act like they do not “want help” but how could one know if they are unstable. In fact many who get help and change their lives talk about how wonderful it is and how appreciative they are of people that would not give up.
I know for a fact many people who are mental ill lack the mental capacity to understand they need help or even those that do understand lack the capability to ask for help.
The loving Christian thing to do is to seek what is best for another.
Speaking form personal experience, there have been a period in my life where I would shun the people around me. Crawl under my bed sheets and pretend the problems I have do not exists. Sure when people ask me, I would tell them I’m fine and do not want others to insult me thinking I need help. But inside me my soul wails for the love of another – for someone to give me their hand.
I am very lucky that people took that fifth look because during the first four I am very convincing that I am doing exactly what I want and need no attention. I cried the day that one of my professors tracked me down at a campus function and spoke with me. He told me he does not understand what is going on with me, but he trusts that I want things to be different. I did not know how to reply to him, I was scared, I was angry, and I was confused. He told me something so simple, but it was his heart that spoke clearer than any words. He told me he wants the best for me and he will wait for me to go get help then continue with my degree.
My problems are minor compared to many out there, but this minor problem was enough to devastate my life, effect my faith, cause great great strife within my family (four out of six of us in the family have serious mental illness and the remaining two, my eldest sister and father, exhibit social problems.) I cannot imagine how terrible it must be for some of those with mental problems that then become homeless. At this point, I do not think it is fair to say they “do not want help.” We cannot even know what they truly want till they can use full human mental functions. My conclusion is that the only Christian thing to do is to help and continue helping whether they act like they want help or not as long as we do not harm their body nor soul.
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petr
Guest
SW -
I admire your kindness and Catholic mind.
I have worked in mental health treating these patients. Reality is much harsher. Maybe I am jaded as well. My community clinic treats up to 225 people per day as outpatients.
In the end, I cannot make any of these patients do anything they do want to do unless they threaten others or themselves.
I admire your kindness and Catholic mind.
I have worked in mental health treating these patients. Reality is much harsher. Maybe I am jaded as well. My community clinic treats up to 225 people per day as outpatients.
In the end, I cannot make any of these patients do anything they do want to do unless they threaten others or themselves.
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StillWondering
Guest
Thank you for your love.
While I do not work at one and so am coming from an easier to adhere standpoint, my brother has been hospitalized and if anyone knew of my mother while we were young, we would have been taking away by child protective services. These all all due to mental illnesses.
It is true that as an institution, there are serious social and legal limits. I do hope that all institutions will do their best but I understand their are limits.
However, there are more than just institutions. There are individuals. You and me and so many out there. Even though I have mental difficulties of my own and a complicated story, I can still hug another human being. I can still love them, before they are lost in dispaire. For those, like my sister, who are born mentally slow, and may live her life as such, we should all open our arms and lend a helping hand. Directly or indirectly with love, charity and hope. Secondary support such as funding and encouragement for the people, places, and programs that protect her and others who carry this same cross.
(On a side note, I have a strong guess that from the agent orange, particular the 1979 batch, that were dropped on the river banks of Vietnam that is one of the source of the spike in mental illness births in 1980)
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WillieWonka
Guest
Agent Orange wasn’t used after 1971. US troops left in 1973. Saigon fell in 1975.
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StillWondering
Guest
Hehe, this is not what I heard. I could be wrong then. But I’ll look into it.
This is from wikipedia. Some of the sources are from the Vietnamese government that won the war so it should be carefully read. But I think you can find plenty of evidence that contradicts your statement.
One thing to note is that I did not know there were different colors of agents. My family speaks Vietnamese, so we refer to it with the same term.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
I might add, please look at the image on the wiki of the lady born with the defect directly linked with the chemical.
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Trader
Guest
I have both big agreement and big disagreement with your posting. Homeless people should be treated as individuals and government programs are completely unable to do that. The homeless range from criminals to the mentally ill to victims of crime. It would be insane to treat them all the same. Are you really saying that people are equipped to bring criminals and the mentally ill into their private homes and expose themselves and families, especially their children, to real physical danger? Even religiously based shelters have rules to protect the safety of their innocent residents. If you break the rules by bringing in drugs or alcohol, you have to leave.WE treat homeless persons the way we would want to be treated. With dignity, love and respect. We can feed them if they are hungry, dress them if they are naked, and shelter them if they are homeless.We can offer assistance by giving them homeless shelters that can help them, and pray for their use of what is given them in their hour of need. Other than that- what is the next question?
In 1994 I was homeless for five weeks when the woman now known as my evil ex-wife(EEW for short) filed for divorce and committed perjury by falsely swearing that I had threatened her. I was prohibited by the court from entering the home I owned free and clear before I even met EEW. I was self-employed working from that home, so I was suddenly unemployed as well as homeless. EEW also went to the bank for my business account and changed the title from “Mr or Mrs” to “Mr and Mrs” so that I could not access funds I had earned without her permission and my ATM card was automatically cancelled. When she tried to do the same thing with the brokerage account that I had before marriage, Charles Schwab rightly refused to do that without my consent or a court order. Then she took a vacation to Lake Tahoe in my timeshare and deliberately charged enough to one of my credit cards to put it overlimit. Her intention was to damage my credit. She also failed to pay the utilities that were in my name, so I had to pay for utilities in a house I was barred from entering.
Her claim was so unbelievable that her only sister and her only brother both offered to have me stay with them. Her brother and his wife had made me godfather to their daughter just a month before. Only then did I find out she had been secretly seeing a “women’s issues” therapist who believed that marriage oppressed women my holding them to the solemn promises they made in a church full of people and God himself.
I sought a therapist for myself and he got her to attend some sessions with me. I was never allowed to speak to her therapist on the grounds that the therapist could not be objective.(Huh?) At the first meeting with my therapist EEW admitted that I had not threatened her, but she wanted me out and was sure I would not leave if she just asked.
There was a lot more to the long divorce story, but if we skip ahead one year, I had another experience with a homeless man. I had a ground floor apartment one mile from where my new house was being built. It was a bitterly cold night and I called the police when I caught a man attempting to break in my back door. He did not come to the front door and ask for help, he attempted a residential burglary, which is a felony. Do you really believe I should have asked him to stay with me? Should I have put him in my bed and slept on the sofa so he would not have been bothered by the draft from the broken window?
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Sheeniac
Guest
I believe that we should try to treat all people with respect, but also to be as wise as serpents given that we don’t know the type of person we are dealing with at first glance (as the EEW story suggests).
I’ve been reading a book called The Tragedy of American Compassion which deals with this. It traces the development of moral and ideological thought from the early colonies until today (well, I’m in the early 1900’s in my reading).
At first, Christian thought was focused on the idea that man was has a sinful nature due to the Fall, that this -along with bad choices (eg choosing habits of vice over virtue, not working, etc) – was a big cause of pauperism, and that not everyone was deserving of help. It also stated explicitly that indiscriminate help would lead to more people asking for help and beginning to demand it as their “right”. Wow… sound familiar? Anyway, “before” individual societies based on one on one help just flourished.
Then came schools of thought of both social darwinism and a materialist universalism. Based on my reading, I believe that we are in the throes of materialist universalism… I think we all know what social darwinism is all about, so let me explain the materialist universalism.
Briefly, it thought that poverty caused “sins” and crimes. Man was basically good, but in a bad place. Change the environment, and you would change the person. The best way to do this was through the widespread poverty programs put in by government. In effect, bad charity drove out the good. The idea that some people would not go to heaven was unthinkable and unfair, so therefore the idea that some people were poor was unthinkable as well. Spend enough money, and we can prove the silly idea that ‘we’d always have the poor with us’ wrong.
Sound familiar?
I’ve long been against government charity over private charity. Christ didn’t tell us to organize and lobby Caesar to help the poor. He said such things were our personal responsibilities.
I know that some could say that Christian thought has evolved to deal with the problems of the day, and that could be right. But when I look at it through the theological lens that this book has introduced, I wonder whether we are too grounded in the beliefs of materialist universalism and don’t even realize it.
I’ve been reading a book called The Tragedy of American Compassion which deals with this. It traces the development of moral and ideological thought from the early colonies until today (well, I’m in the early 1900’s in my reading).
At first, Christian thought was focused on the idea that man was has a sinful nature due to the Fall, that this -along with bad choices (eg choosing habits of vice over virtue, not working, etc) – was a big cause of pauperism, and that not everyone was deserving of help. It also stated explicitly that indiscriminate help would lead to more people asking for help and beginning to demand it as their “right”. Wow… sound familiar? Anyway, “before” individual societies based on one on one help just flourished.
Then came schools of thought of both social darwinism and a materialist universalism. Based on my reading, I believe that we are in the throes of materialist universalism… I think we all know what social darwinism is all about, so let me explain the materialist universalism.
Briefly, it thought that poverty caused “sins” and crimes. Man was basically good, but in a bad place. Change the environment, and you would change the person. The best way to do this was through the widespread poverty programs put in by government. In effect, bad charity drove out the good. The idea that some people would not go to heaven was unthinkable and unfair, so therefore the idea that some people were poor was unthinkable as well. Spend enough money, and we can prove the silly idea that ‘we’d always have the poor with us’ wrong.
Sound familiar?
I’ve long been against government charity over private charity. Christ didn’t tell us to organize and lobby Caesar to help the poor. He said such things were our personal responsibilities.
I know that some could say that Christian thought has evolved to deal with the problems of the day, and that could be right. But when I look at it through the theological lens that this book has introduced, I wonder whether we are too grounded in the beliefs of materialist universalism and don’t even realize it.
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WillieWonka
Guest
Lobbying has incredible value. It lets people discharge their Christian duty by getting someone else to pay for it. They can argue, agitate, and call for social justice without spending a dime of their own money. Moral exhibitionism isn’t easy.
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Genesius
Guest
Thank you for posting the link. I’ve not read it yet. I’m too busy writing my own book, but I’m sure it is an interesting read and very thought provoking. I agree with you about the vets. I am a prior service Marine myself, and a Leukemia survivor. They cut me off of Medicaid before I was qualified for Medicare. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I was a vet and was able to go through the V.A. I have since received some care that has been adequate, but mostly it has been less than adequate. I just thank the Lord that He spared my life, and that I am not homeless. I do pray for the homeless, and believe me…I know the power of prayer!
I also have helped the homeless in the past personally. I was a caseworker at the Salvation Army for a while, and I have occasionally (though not often) given to panhandlers. One day I saw a homeless man lying on the grass outside of Wal-Mart in the middle of summer when it was very hot out. Everyone was just ignoring him, and I thought, “What if he is dead, or needs an ambulance?” so I stopped to wake him up. He was drunk, so I had some shopping to do and when I came back out I set a bottle of Gatorade by him.
My father used to invite hobos in for an occasional meal and/or coffee, and play his fiddle for them on the front porch. Although, it would probably not be prudent in this day and culture, in those days you could leave your front door open and not have to worry. He died of lung cancer in 1989 (October, Friday the 13th…Spooooky!). I have no doubt he spent very little, if any ‘time’ in purgatory.
Anyway, I appreciate your comments. Godbless, and let us continue to seek & pray for a solution.
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