Perspective: Faith community must answer cry of the poor
Perspective From The Olympian October 30, 2010
By Selena Kilmoyer
When I was 10, a member of our faith community suggested that I begin volunteering at the local Lighthouse for the Blind. Her staunch Presbyterian wisdom: “It would do you some good!”
So, every Saturday morning for two years, I walked the mile and a half to and from the Lighthouse, where I was assigned to “work” with the small blind children, assisting in crafts or games. I did not have the language to describe the experience’s effect.
Today, I would say that as I played fondly and easily with the younger children, I soon forgot their physical limitations and myself. I was developing a spiritual practice. Compassionate action allowed me, even as a child, to begin to glean the importance of “walking one’s talk” of our faith tradition’s tenets by being of service in our greater community.
The psalmist continues to invite us to respond to the cry of the poor. Yet, in this uniquely paradoxical time, when the lines of ‘those needing charity (a word I loathe) and those giving’, become more obscure, it’s often difficult to determine who might be the poor to whose cry we respond. Compounding economic stressors are rendering many without work; homes in foreclosure; bankruptcy; general fiscal insecurity.
We of the faith community must become a stronger first-response network. It is our responsibility to discern more efficient and creative ways of meeting the expanding myriad community needs. It is essential that we join together in our response to the cry of the poor.
The Thurston Faith Network was created to serve as a concrete communication vine connecting faith communities, being a liaison between them and the greater community, providing a vehicle for planners and funders to access the ‘voice of the faith community’ on vital issues affecting the poor – chronically or acutely – of our county. Is your faith community a part of this simple e-mail distribution list that is available to grow a more effective, real-time communication network? Please
In Bellevue, a group of members of various faith communities perceived the redundancy and inefficiency of several agencies and faith communities trying to provide assistance to those in need. A centralized assistance program was established.
In my daily walk, as a family shelter coordinator, I hear really good alternative housing options being mentioned – get your idea to me at the Thurston Faith Network. I can present it on our e-mail list. Other like-minded, solution-oriented folks may resonate with the idea. Change could happen. A new (or re-visited) temporary housing alternative might come into being.
Local organizations as well can contact the Thurston Faith Network with specific, immediate needs requests. Our spiritual mandate requires that we mindfully, discerningly respond. One way in which we can authentically respond is to comprehend the actual needs; not a historically held thought about what may have been appropriate in the past or may have been an annual sharing.
You may want to think outside the box in terms of how we share with marginalized members of our community during the holidays. Do you have an alternate you might like to share with others? Contact the Thurston Faith Network. The possibilities of uses in growing a solid, unified network responding to the myriad cries of the poor and marginalized are boundless.
If we, you and I, do not take the concrete action to more effectively live our spiritual mandate of serving those in need, then who will respond?
Selena Kilmoyer is moderator of the Thurston Faith Network. Contact the group at 360-951-0326, online at ThurstonFaithNetwork.org, or
Thurston Faith Network is a function of Bread & Roses, a local 501(c)3 organization. Perspective is coordinated by Interfaith Works in cooperation with The Olympian.