Family
Life
Seeing people in need
By SUSAN V. VOGT
So what’s so holy about
mackerel? As a child I remember wondering about that expression as adults
around me kept exclaiming, “Holy mackerel!” when they were excited,
upset or awed. I do think there’s something holy about fish and fishing
and not just because Jesus and the apostles spent a lot of time in boats. You
may be familiar with the adage, “Give a person a fish, he eats for a day.
Teach a person to fish, he eats for a year.” Some have added the
dimension, “Find out who owns the river.”
I think this analogy can be helpful to families who are trying to
become holy because “holy” doesn’t just happen in church. Most
often it happens within the walls of our home as we try to live out the gospel
imperatives to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick.
So how do faith, families and fishing fit together? On numerous
occasions Jesus reminds us that salvation has to do with love, and love impels
us to care for our neighbors. Our closest neighbors, of course, are the people
in our family, but we also know that Jesus put no limits on how far our family
extends. Indeed, it extends to all corners of the earth. If we are to love our
neighbor not just in theory and prayer, but also in practice and service, it
brings us back to fishing. Let’s look at how families might serve fish to
those in need, teach them how to catch their own fish, and make the river
accessible to all those who want to fish. In other words, how can families live
out their faith on the days between Sundays with the people in their own
backyard and those who are yards away. To put it in parenting language, service
is the natural consequence of following Jesus who called us to love.
Creating the desire to serve
Confirmation classes and scouting usually require it. College
admissions officers like to see generous amounts of it. Employers and
politicians like the good press it brings them. But not everyone is naturally
drawn to service.
As commendable as the trend toward service projects are in our
schools, I sometimes hear young people talk as though service is something to
be endured rather than it being a source of inspiration. Sometimes service is
meaningless busywork rather than an experience that can touch one’s soul.
When this happens it often means a step is missing -- motivation. Perhaps we
started with the need for service hours rather than the need.
So how does one instill motivation? Usually it starts with
awareness: seeing people in need. When the need is evident, people will
generally want to help. When our children saw the people at our local soup
kitchen, they were touched. When they saw the dilapidated house our community
planned to fix up for a low-income family, they knew how hard it would be for a
family to live in that house the way it was. They weren’t trying to
accumulate service hours, they were responding to a need. I found it ironic
that the service hours of many of their peers were often spent doing bulk
mailings for a school fundraiser or setting up tables for bingo. Not that these
tasks aren’t good and necessary but they don’t put our young people
in the presence of others whose lives might prick their conscience.
Perhaps awareness comes from a movie that opens a child’s
eyes to the needs of people on the other side of the world. Perhaps it comes
from a bus ride downtown that opens their hearts to the lives of people who
have no choice but to take the bus. On the way they might see neighborhoods
different from their own.
But there are limitations to becoming aware. Seeing pictures of
starving children in Afghanistan, Haiti or even an urban slum in the United
States doesn’t put food on their table. We can pray for them, of course,
but we can also take a step beyond awareness to solidarity. Solidarity might
take the form of simplifying one of our own meals or fasting for a time.
Actions of solidarity will still not directly fill bellies but
they might soften our hearts. Sometimes awareness and solidarity do more to
change us than to change the person in need, but that is often a crucial step
in stirring the will to do something bigger. Of course it could also prompt a
child to break open a piggy bank and the parents their wallets to send a
monetary donation.
Many people like to do direct service. It feels good to know
you’ve helped someone in a tangible way, fed somebody even if it
isn’t fish, helped them build a home as with Habitat for Humanity,
entertained folks at a local nursing home, and so on. These are good things,
and most parents would like to provide opportunities for their children to help
others. Assuming that the groundwork has been laid and the family is motivated
to help, there are several obstacles that still might get in the way: lack of
time; lack of appropriate service that young children or a whole family can do
together; lack of enthusiasm by some children or a spouse.
Nobody has enough time. Most families feel stretched trying to
balance job and family responsibilities. Adding community service, as laudable
as it sounds, may just feel like it’s too much, at least right now. A
family may have two wage earners, leaving little discretionary family time. A
family may be taking care of elderly relatives or be head of the parish council
and already serve on more committees than days of the week. A family might
consist of a single parent struggling to make ends meet. Sometimes it may be
irresponsible to spend time saving the world when one’s home commitments
need attention.
But then again, a family might be busy about the wrong things, or
at least unimportant things. The challenge is to honestly look at one’s
commitments and review priorities. Do the children really need to play soccer,
basketball and baseball? Do you as parent have to coach, organize the
rummage sale and chair the Parent-Teacher Organization? Suffice it to
say that some families may be spending so much time trying to get ahead that
they don’t have time to head in the right direction. Stop and assess.
Busy families can overcome some of this time crunch, however, by
turning some family time into service time. For example, the family wants to go
camping. Why not pick up litter as you hike. All families have to eat. Perhaps
you could invite a neighbor who lives alone to join you some evenings, or fix a
little extra and have your child join you in taking it to that family that just
had a hospitalization or a death.
When some of our children were between 5 and 10 they were too
young to do serious work at the local Habitat for Humanity house that we had
committed to help build. They could, however, do serious dirt. It was time to
prepare the pathway to the front door, and there was no bulldozer. Our human
bulldozers reveled in moving dirt from one piece of ground to another. It was
their thing, and they were very good at it. It took a little longer, but every
time we drive by the house, they know they had a hand in its foundation. It may
take a little creativity, but finding projects that children can do with their
parents is worth the trouble.
Lack of enthusiasm can be addressed by the four “F”
words.
Find the right cause. As an adult you might feel that a
crucial issue in your community is cleaning up pornography outlets. Your child,
however, might be into babies. Maybe collecting baby items for a crisis
pregnancy center or volunteering child-care for parent meetings is the place to
start. For beginners it’s usually best to start with concrete actions that
have visible results. Picking up trash at a local park is easy for even
toddlers to participate in, and the result can be readily seen. Teens may want
to work for the prevention of sweatshop labor by their peers in other
countries. Don’t just study the issue; personalize it by checking the
origin of the clothes in your own closets. Go with your child’s natural
enthusiasms if you want service to be more than a one-night stand, even if it
means organizing a loud and raucous rock concert to raise money for the latest
world calamity or to cure a disease.
Do it with friends. Friends not only make the work go
faster, they also make it fun. When our children started balking at some of the
outings we proposed, like standing for an hour prayerfully protesting the cross
that the Klan had put up in downtown Cincinnati, it made it more palatable when
we said, “Your friend, Luke, will be coming too with his parents.” Of
course Luke’s parents were saying, “Your friend, Aaron, will be
coming too.” As they got older, we parents became more invisible and
trusted youth ministers and other, usually younger adults to gather them for
outings that often involved large groups and many miles in a bus.
Make it fun. Sure, we hope eventually that our children
will embrace service for its own sake and because it is the right thing to do,
but all of us come with impure motivations. If pizza and an overnight can make
it more appealing, go for it. When we realized we were asking our children to
stretch beyond their comfort zone, we also agreed to stretch beyond ours by
adding, “Oh, yes, and afterwards we thought we’d go to that new
horror movie you’ve been asking about.” Bribery? Maybe, but then few
of us operate out of completely altruistic motives.
Include food. Jesus used bread and wine to help his
apostles understand the mystery of his death and resurrection and asked them to
repeat the ritual of the last supper. He knew that eating was something we had
to do often and regularly. When we eat together, we stop, and, I hope, talk.
But even if food didn’t carry this dimension, it reinforces the fun
quotient of an activity. Most of our family service outings ended with a trip
to the bakery.
Parents too hard on themselves
As rewarding as direct service can be, there comes a time when the
thoughtful person wonders if such a Band-Aid approach is enough. Maybe
there’s a way to teach people to fish for themselves. Youngsters learn
this when they move from being the “baby” to being the big brother or
sister who now has to show what it means to share or teach a younger sibling
how to tie shoes. When teens move from working at a soup kitchen to teaching an
unemployed person computer skills or volunteering as a peer mediator at their
school, they are helping to stop the cycle of poverty or fighting, not just to
fix a problem for a day.
If empowering others is harder than just feeding someone a fish
sandwich, changing the system or doing advocacy work may be even harder. It
takes a fair amount of sophistication to work in the political arena and to
influence unjust systems so that the river will not be polluted and anyone with
the will to fish will have access to the public waterways. Advocacy work for
the disenfranchised may be beyond the expertise of many families, but even
small children can sign a letter to the editor with their parents. The
questions we must ask are: Why is an injustice happening? What needs to change
to make this more fair? What can my family and I do to make a difference?
While the kind of service I’ve been describing is often
prompted by religious conviction, certainly there are many generous, loving
people who do significant works of service and sacrifice yet espouse no faith,
at least in the sense of organized religion. They do the gospel while not
naming or claiming it. Are they holy people? I would say yes, even if they
reject the term. It reminds me of the story Jesus told about the father who
asked his two sons to go out and work in the vineyard. One said no but then
went out and did the work anyway. The other said, “Certainly, sir,”
but did not go. Who did the will of the father? (Matthew 21:28-31).
On the other hand, there are many people of faith who also would
be hesitant to call their families “holy.” They may not be heavily
involved in the kinds of service I’ve described, nor do anything more than
the standard religious practices such as Sunday Mass, grace before dinner, and
bedtime prayer. I think they sell themselves short.
The one thing that most surprised me in the research I did for
Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference was how hard parents were on
themselves. Most of the families I interviewed were religious. Indeed, many
were Catholic and serious about their faith. But many wondered whether their
children would keep, or return to, the faith and if they would really make a
significant difference in our world. They all said that deep down they knew
their kids had good hearts and sound values but they didn’t look like holy
cards of the “Holy Family” and their children had not become priests
or nuns. They wondered if they had done enough.
Several parents fretted that their parenting was substandard
because their children had trouble in school and looked as if they were headed
for a career in video game testing. Yet I knew these were men and women who had
poured themselves out for their children, learning how to nurture a child with
attention deficit disorder or a learning disability. They spent long hours
monitoring homework or wringing their hands over their child’s
impulsiveness. (“My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried
your father and I have been”: Luke 2:48.)
I listened to stories of divorced parents who weren’t sure
they still had a place in the church and feared their divorce might hinder
their child’s ability to be faithful to a future marriage commitment.
(“Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at
her”: John 8:7.)
One mother explained regretfully that she couldn’t take the
time to contribute a quote to my book because she was pressed with job
deadlines and volunteering at her children’s schools. This, from a wife
and mother of nine who organized peace camps in her spare time. (Mary, Joseph
and Jesus spent almost 30 years doing their jobs and taking care of daily life
before Jesus took on a public ministry -- “My hour has not yet come”:
John 2:4.)
Another wondered whether her homosexual son would find a home in
the church she loved or would he feel rejected. (“And a sword will pierce
your heart”: Luke 2:35.)
Most families spend many hours working miracles with a kiss and a
Band-Aid, feeding multitudes with too little food or money, nursing sick
children and sometimes helplessly watching as a son or daughter dies a tragic
death from an accident or a long illness. (“Near the cross of Jesus stood
his mother”: John 19:12.)
Some families didn’t even consider themselves families
because they didn’t have children and, therefore, felt they didn’t
belong. (“ ‘Look, your mother and brothers and sisters are outside
asking for you.’ Jesus replied, ‘Who are my mother and my
brothers?’ And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is
my brother and sister and mother’ ”: Mark 3:32-35.)
I was talking to some of the holiest people I knew. They sang,
danced and drank at weddings, as at Cana. They worked hard like Martha and wept
like Mary at the deaths of family members like Lazarus. They were people who
had sacrificed time, money, convenience, careers or health in the care of their
children and their neighbor’s children, trying to make this world a better
place. They did all these things because they believed the words,
“Whatsoever you do for the least of my people, that you do unto
me.”
And they don’t think they’re holy? Holy mackerel!
Susan Vogt is a wife, mother of four children and director of
family ministry for the diocese of Covington, Ky. Her most recent book is,
Raising Kids Who Will Make a Difference (Loyola Press).
National Catholic Reporter, November 15,
2002
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