A gentleman cabbie Samaritan

Today at ICPM, Pastor Quinn told us the story of the Prodigal Son so beautifully that the tears rolled down my cheeks. How blessed are we to have a God who loves us so unconditionally?!

But when I was passing out lunches after the service, it was another of the characters from Christ's parables who actually showed up... or so it seemed...

It began when I handed a lunch to a woman who told me her sister wasn't feeling well. "She's having a hard time breathing." She pointed to where her sister stood swaying on the sidewalk with eyes closed and a chalk white face. My heart hurt to look at her.

Photo by Adrien Ledoux on Unsplash

"Should I call an ambulance?"

"Could you call a cab instead? And can we use the washroom?"

"Yes to both questions. Can someone give me a cab company phone number off the top of their head?" 

A fellow piped up with a number, and I placed the call as I shooed the women into the building and toward the washroom. Pastor Quinn grabbed them some clean clothes, and the dispatcher told me the cab would arrive within ten minutes.

Four minutes later, a cab pulled up across the street, and my phone rang. I assured the driver that his passengers would be just a few minutes, and left my post at the sandwich table to knock on the washroom door and tell the women their cab was already waiting.

Ten minutes later, the cabbie called again, so I walked across the street to his car to explain the situation, saying, "They are just changing clothes so they will be clean in your car."

"Oh no no no no no," he said. English was likely one of several alternate languages for him, so I tried to explain again using different words.

"My work is hard," he said. "These people have troubles, yes. But I need to make living. I can't have dirty people. I can't have people who not pay. They not pay me. I have struggles from them. My work is hard."

"I am sure it is," I said, my heart hurting for him, too. "I know you are doing your best. These ladies need your help. If I had money in my pocket, I would pay you," I told him. "But my pockets are empty, and they need a ride to the hospital."

He softened a bit. "You not pay," he said. "You not ride."

But as the two passengers came to the cab, it seemed that changing clothing in such a hurry meant that one was falling out of her newly supplied sweatpants.

"No no no no no," the driver pleaded with me. "I cannot have her in my car." To her, he said, "You not dressed right. You not covered enough. And who pay me?"

"I will," she said. "We're not feeling well. Please, we need a doctor."

"She's wearing clean clothes," I assured him, and turned to adjust her waistband so it sat properly. "There, that's better, right?" 

The cabbie sighed, put on his mask, and got out of his vehicle. 

"Please," he said to the women, "Put things in my trunk." They complied, and as they helped each other into the car, I hurried back to the sandwich line. I hope everything worked out for the best.

At the end of the morning, on my way home, I found myself praying:

Creator,

be with those two sisters

as they receive the help they need

at the hospital.

Bless the hospital staff 

with patience and compassion

to help them feel better.

And please, 

please

bless the hesitant gentleman cabbie who, 

in the end,

was a Good Samaritan

of sorts.

Bless all cab drivers who,

out of compassion, 

take on fares 

and end up without pay

when faced 

with people

who so badly need help.

Thank you 

for being 

our prodigal God,

loving us no matter what.

Help us all to love like you,

and to be Good Samaritans

whenever we can --

without counting the cost.

Amen.

Share the journey

Lent is here again. While we should always be caring for those among us who are in need, Lent seems to be the time when we make a more concerted effort. And here's one way...

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has chosen to focus on migrants and refugees this Lent, inviting us to Share the Journey of those who are displaced by forced migration due to war, famine, poverty and natural disasters. Climate change is the latest threat as our world warms to record temperatures, forcing many people in drought-stricken regions from their homes.

The fear of migrants overtaking our homelands and bringing terrorism -- so often raised by media reports (and the President of the United States) -- is unsubstantiated. In my involvement with L'Arche, I have met many people who are immigrants. Most of them would prefer to be in their own countries rather than Canada (especially in the cold we've been experiencing this winter!), and all of them want to be contributing citizens. They didn't choose to leave Syria or Burundi or other places that were home to them, but they had no choice if they wanted to live.

The video below is a good summary of the issue of forced migration, and offers Canadians a way to help, even if we've never met a migrant or refugee. And the Share Lent website can be accessed by clicking here. It offers more information and places to donate.

As we begin Lent, let's do what we can to help our faraway family members who are forced to flee their homes. After all, humanity is one big family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVofjg1WhuI

Helping the Rohingya

Sometimes, I'm a bit slow on the uptake. After months of hearing about the Rohingya refugee crisis, I finally made a donation to help them this afternoon.

It can be hard to know how to donate, but it's only procrastination that kept me from it until now. I always have complete confidence in giving to Caritas Canada (also known as Development and Peace)  because it offers clear ways to assist partner organizations in areas affected by injustice and disasters. This summer my 23-year-old daughter had the experience of meeting with partners working in Bolivia, and she came back more committed to D&P than ever. The stories she tells are enough to convince anybody about the importance of Caritas' work!

D&P's partner organizations are staffed by people who are best able to serve the needy because they come from the same place, speak the same languages, and understand the difficulties that brought about the crises as well as potential solutions. The workers in Caritas Bangladesh are on the ground where the refugees are, already doing what can be done, and a donation to Caritas Canada helps their work in providing shelter, hygiene kits and sanitation facilities, and protection for children. Donations made before November 28th will be matched by the Canadian government.

To learn more about our brothers and sisters fleeing persecution in Myanmar, click here, and if you are able, send Caritas Bangladesh some financial assistance. It's the least we can do. And, perhaps, the best.

Book Review: When the Moon is Low

For all the reading I do, I don't leave enough book reviews in these moodlings. But When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi (ISBN 9780062369574) is a book that needs to be shared here. It's written by an Afghan-American pediatrician who tells a fictional story of an Afghan family trying to find its way from a country being destroyed by the Taliban to freedom in England in the 1990s.

I suspect that author Nadia Hashimi has drawn from some of the life experiences of her extended family to tell the story of Fereiba, a young Afghani mother whose engineer husband, responsible for water facilities in their city, is taken away one night by the Taliban. Her son, Saleem, is only 14, and not yet considered manly enough (according to Taliban rule) to accompany his mother on errands around Kabul. Life becomes impossible for Fereiba and her three children. She sells everything and relies on human smugglers to get to Iran, as most of her family left earlier, when the trouble began in their hometown of Kabul.

Thanks to falsified Belgian passports on which much of their money is spent, Fereiba's family makes it through Turkey to Greece, but it is there that Saleem tries to sell some of Fereiba's jewelry to pay for the remaining part of the journey and is caught by immigration police who ship him back to Turkey. Because of her baby's heart condition, Fereiba has no choice but to continue on with the little one and her daughter, hoping against hope that Saleem will somehow manage to make his way to England and rejoin his family.

Saleem's journey as an unaccompanied minor among refugees, farm labourers, human traffickers and contraband smugglers is a harrowing one. It's chilling to wonder how many kids are in the same boat, how many parents have been separated from their children, how many people have died while riding under trucks crossing borders, and related human costs. Nadia Hashimi has offered us, in our relatively peaceful and secure lives in North America, what is probably a fairly sanitized version of what many refugees must go through to reach better places than the war-ravaged countries they were forced to leave behind, and introduces us to compelling characters in Fereiba and Saleem. I would love to know people like them.

When the Moon is Low is worth a read simply to give fortunate North Americans an idea of the challenges faced by refugees and why we need to open our hearts and borders to those being displaced by human-made disasters and conflicts. I didn't realize that, after Syrians, Afghans are still the most numerous people in refugee camps twenty years after their exodus began, and heaven knows there are many other people who need homes because they are unable to return to their own. The news tells us snippets of their stories from places like Lesbos in Greece and Lampedusa in Italy, but since many other European countries have closed their doors to refugees, the patience of the Greek and Italian people who receive so many is wearing thin and it seems the tide of feeling about rescuing people from the rickety boats crossing the Mediterranean might be shifting...

But we are one human family. Nadia Hashimi's story of ordinary people -- with hopes and dreams like our own -- trying to survive extraordinary times is worth a read, if only to remind us of the needs of our sisters and brothers around the world. Everyone needs a home where they belong, and if the tables were turned, we would hope and pray for help just as they do. It's incumbent on us to be their source of help and hope. I can't recommend this book enough, especially if it moves us to get involved by giving what help we can...

#49... Volunteer

Pick a cause, any cause! Because...

It's just too easy to get caught up in our own little lives and forget that there are many people and situations that could use a few spare hours of our time. A few friends of mine work with the Big Brother/Big Sister organization as mentors for children of single parents. My neighbour is a faithful canvasser for the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation. One couple I know is quite involved with Development and Peace, which I've moodled about in the past. A girlfriend donates blood on a regular basis, and often reminds her friends to do the same. Another friend who retired quite a few years back has offered English language lessons to some of our assistants in L'Arche Edmonton. And we have ten L'Arche board members who give generously of their time to our community.

Churches, schools, and social agencies, seniors' homes, hospitals and other organizations that aren't jumping into my mind at the moment will rarely turn away volunteers. I know this is nothing new, but I thought I'd include volunteerism in my Simple Suggestions because I believe that part of living simply and happily is making sure that there is time and space in our lives to offer our talents and energies in the service of others.

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.