Tuesday, December 7, 2010

daily grind

Most days I just go through the motions at work. Coffee. Check. Email. Check. Phone calls. Check the infinite and always growing to do list. Check. Check. Check. Sometimes I forget that I work in the third sector. I forget that what I am doing is for the greater good. I forget that I am not selling cosmetics and alcoholic beverages in a marketing firm. I forget that my work has little fiscal value and that I actually do not contribute to the GDP. I forget that I am in the business of people and this business impacts the lives of everyone involved.

On occasion I hear back from one of our volunteers or a family that is caring for children in crisis. One of my coworkers passed this along. A tiny celebration amongst the hectic holiday season.

If there is ever a time of year which points us to God’s love revealed in unexpected sources, it’s during the Christmas Season. The story of two children of poverty, homeless travelers, dependant on the fickle hospitality of strangers, they make their place in a dwelling appointed to them by God for His purposes. We still peer into that scene of sacred space in Bethlehem to see the Savior revealed in human form.

“There is a castle on a cloud, I like to go there in my sleep. Aren’t any floors for me to sweep, Not in my castle on a cloud”

A Grandmother in San Clemente, California is drawn to a bedroom in the home of her Safe Family daughter. Her daughter and husband and 3 children have opened their home to two homeless sisters, temporarily orphaned. The Grandmother is drawn by the singing of her three grandchildren. They are singing along with the CD of the opera musical Le Miserables.

“There is a room that’s full of toys, there are a hundred boys and girls, nobody shouts or talks too loud, not in my castle on a cloud.”

The two grandsons leading the singing know the musical because their sister Cosette, was named for the young girl main character in Le Miz. If not for this connection of the story to their own sisters, they would have little inclination to pay any attention to the story that Le Miserables tells. These are aggressive, rambunctious boys of 7 and 9 years singing with the young, forgotten orphaned girl on the CD also named Cosette.

“I know a place where no one’s lost, I know a place where no one cries,”

The Grandmother gently opens the door and peeks her head around the door and sees the 5 children in the a circle, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders singing as best they can with the song,

“crying at all is not allowed, not in my castle in the sky.”

Her grandchildren are singing the wordless fears and dreams of these new companions who they want to love. The Grandmother closes the door, unable to look too long on this holy scene. The purity touches too deep inside and she can not even bear to linger long outside the now closed door. Altered by the beauty, she can only mutter the prayer for God to hear, “now I know why they came, now I know why they are here”

There is a castle on a cloud….. which sometimes comes to rest and express in the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. This is the Safe Family story.