Twice each year, St. Monica
School has “Rice Bowl Day.” Instead of
the normal hot lunch, children are served a simple meal of rice, bread and
water and students donate the money they would have paid for hot lunch to Catholic
Relief Services. On the way to school, I was explaining the day to Jamie, our
five-year-old, and she was having trouble understanding that some people did
not have enough to eat.
“In some places in the world, a child might only get one
bowl of rice to eat each day,” I said.
“Why? Why don’t they have a refrigerator with lots of
food?”
“Because their parents don’t make a lot of money and they
can’t afford a refrigerator or electricity,” I said. “All they can afford is a
little rice.”
“But we have a refrigerator.”
“Yes.”
“And a lot of rice. We should give our rice to them.”
I agreed and told Jamie we were also donating some money
to help buy rice. I dropped her off at school and she left the minivan
satisfied, thinking probably that the problem was solved. As I drove off, I
couldn’t help but reflect on the instinctive sense of justice that children
have—we have food; you don’t; we’ll share ours. To Jamie, there was nothing
complex about the idea of food distribution. It didn’t occur to her to question
whether or not our family had responsibility to feed children we had never met.
She recognized that we were accountable for the simple reason that we had food
and they did not.
Helping children to move beyond their immediate circle in
response to Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor,” requires parents to lead
the way. Our children take our cue in all things—but perhaps most of all in
terms of determining how they see themselves in relationship to others. A girl in my son’s class recently told him
that she believed poor people were lazy—“If they’d just work harder, like my
dad does, they’d have enough money,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to help
them.” I very much doubt that this
little girl came to her opinion about poor people on her own. Rather, she was
either directly instructed by her parents or picked up bits and pieces of
enough conversations to draw this conclusion.
In either case, I feel sorry for her—sorry that she was robbed of a
generosity that comes naturally to children; sorry that she was robbed of a
compassionate world view; sorry that she will grow to connect suffering with
personal fault.
Even among parents who do feel a call to see all people
as “neighbor,” however, it can be difficult to stretch children’s vision. For a
while, our family was volunteering one Monday a month at the St. Vincent de
Paul meal program on the south side. I knew our time there was valuable for our
family. The program—filled with people of all ages and races—taught our kids
that there is no one “look” to poverty. It taught them about our belief that we
have a responsibility to serve. For Bill and me, serving at the program
provided a monthly kick in the fanny. It reminded us that we had absolutely
nothing to whine about —that as stressful as our life might seem occasionally,
our stable jobs, heated home, full pantry and functional family are out of the
reach of many. Yet, as much as I appreciated what the meal program was teaching
all of us, I am sorry to report that we no longer go regularly. Why? Often, there’s a different reason each
Monday—from sports practices to homework to general over-scheduling. And I
recognize that whether we like it or not, we are allowing these reasons not to
go to St. Vincent de Paul to quietly teach our kids that just about everything
else has priority over serving the poor.
But Jamie’s determination that there’s enough rice to go
around and my son’s classmate’s dismissal of the needs of the poor have stirred
something within me once again. I’m
looking at our family’s dry erase calendar with a little more intentionality
than I have in the past few months. I have no illusions that our family’s
service at St. Vincent de Paul is going to change anything substantial in the
lives of those we come into contact with on our Mondays there. Indeed, the best
we can hope for is that guests of the program will feel that there are six more
people in our city who think it’s important that they get a scoop of stew and a
glass of cold milk that evening. The substantive change I’m going for is the
one that happens in the hearts of those who serve. Every ladleful of corn given
out, every piece of bread buttered, every cup of coffee poured is one more
opportunity for my children to consider who they are, what they’ve been given,
and what they’re called to do for the greater world. Just as participating in
school sports lays the groundwork valuing exercise as an adult, I have to
believe this program lays the groundwork for adult choices that could indeed
bring about true change. Eventually, the goal is a shorter and shorter line at
St. Vincent de Paul and other meal programs around the city. But for the
leaders of tomorrow to make this happen, they first need to see the problem as
children. One Monday a month. Easier said than done. But we’re going to try
again.
