We volunteer at the local Ministerial Alliance in the town where we live. A ministerial alliance consists of more than one thing. It is an alliance of churches and their ministers who want to help those in need. Perhaps these churches and ministries feel that the collective need is greater than any one church can fulfill. Physically, there is usually a site, a building, where much of this ministry is carried out. The location in our town in on a side street just off of one of the main north/south thorofares. It is a rather plain metal building with a metal roof that might have housed a plumbing or other business if it was not used for the purposes that currently occupy its time and its space. There is no evidence that it is a religious building except a painted sign on the front with a small lamb. It is non-denominational so all who enter its doors are welcomed without fear of judgment.

These buildings all across America are so much more than just a physical space. They are a beacon to those at the extreme bottom end of the economic scale. Our particular alliance attracts those who, all to often, really have no place else to go for temporary shelter against the difficulties and the storms of life. No one is allowed to stay over night there, however, from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon, food and conversation and love are distributed there in about equal amounts. There are only two full time employees there and they work only from eight until one. Their combined salaries are about equal to twenty five thousand dollars a year but, still yet, this is the only full time job that either one of them have so they are not all that far above the line of those whom they both love and provide service.

It is hot in our town this time of year and so many who come to the Ministerial Alliance seek not only sustenance but, also, to escape from the oppressive heat because the building is at least air conditioned. And we must tell you that even though it hot in southern Illinois now, the threat of the extreme cold that comes from the sometimes harsh winters for those on the street to face is never all that far from their minds. They can dress down for the summers but one can only put on so many pieces of often donated clothing to face those long winter nights trying to escape the brutal wind and the accompanying cold as they often huddle on the sidewalks against the sides of buildings. One or two of those that come to the Ministerial Alliance have figured out that one church in town has an open twenty four hour chapel where they can find shelter against the heat and the cold. Another told me yesterday that he reports to the police every week because of a brush with the law and that they ask him his current address and he usually tells them “the streets.� There is a homeless shelter in town but it is full this time of year as people seek relief from the heat and the oppressive southern Illinois humidity. If one has had any brushes with the law they are not welcome in the homeless shelter as they protect the mothers and their children who so often end up residing there. It is so easy to have brushes with the law in this socioeconomic class because law enforcement is not really very tolerant of them and the only place that they really have to turn for resolutions to their domestic disputes is so often the local police force. Reputations are made and so many doors are slammed shut on them because they do not have any money or influential friends or attorneys to help and to defend them from the often unfair setups that they find themselves cast into so often.

So often, truth and fiction are so difficult to separate and one has to remember that is an inherent problem among this class of people. Still yet, they help one another out and they love not only one another but, also, practically all of mankind in their own humble and precious way. They will accept your help as long as you understand that they have a certain pride and that the only way that they will ever be able to repay you is with their undying love and a simple thank you.

The Ministerial Alliance is a place where judgments are not easily passed because it is really the only place where they can gather with their own on a somewhat equal footing. There is a cast of regulars who are there practically every day and those who come and go. There are always some new souls who have made it into town using the very last resources that they have in gas and food just to arrive at this new place of hope in a long line of other places that they travel to in the hopes that they might find a decent and more stable life. So often, these souls end up living in their automobiles. For so many others, the thought of an automobile is an unobtainable dream. The Ministerial Alliance has been out of monetary funds to help these souls for a while now as the economy is pinching from both ends. Donations are down and the need just continues to grow and grow as more and more are slipping out of the lower middle class and into this new and so often risky unfamiliar way of life and existence. Some of them drive newer cars that may be paid for or, more likely, are about to be repossessed. There are some who look at the Ministerial Alliance and repeat the so often quoted myth that these people are driving better cars they who pay the taxes that supposedly support them and their ner’ do well ways. Forty six percent of the people in this nation pay no tax at all and so many of those who make that claim may very well be among that group. Most of the souls who come to the Ministerial Alliance come on foot and most of the nice automobiles that those who pass judgment see are from the loving volunteers who drive over to help to cook and serve the only hot meal that the rest may receive on what ever particular day that it might be. The Alliance serves a hot if very plain course of fare to anyone who might want to partake of it, no matter what their economic class might be. There are the few who come to make sure that they get their share, whether it be a hot meal or the monthly food basket that the Alliance hands out to those who register to receive them. So many are so weak that they need help in carrying those food baskets away to where ever it might be that they call home. There are always the willing hands there to help them to accomplish that task. So many want to help these souls and that is the great upside and hope that we see in all of this. We know that there are those who give more than they can afford and as in the biblical story of the Widows mite where the humble widow gave all that she had at the temple in Jerusalem, we know that God’s blessings are especially with them. It is summertime and the bounty of the garden harvests are abundant right now, and, the Ministerial Alliance gets its daily share from those who know that that is one way that they can help their fellow souls on this earth.

The Ministerial Alliance is supported in part by the United Way contribution that it gets in four installments, one each and every quarter of the year. Other support comes from collections in the fourteen churches that make up the umbrella group. There are many other churches in town who do not contribute support but these fourteen have always done their share no matter who it might be that they are trying to help. Some churches say that they are doing their own methods of support but what we mainly see is judgments being passed on the less fortunate as to whether they can pass the muster to be members of their congregations. Most of the extra support is being done by these fourteen churches who have also opened the doors of their sanctuaries to anyone who wished to worship there regardless of what their circumstances might be. As with what is so often true of the religious right, so many have the preconceived attitudes that most of these people should follow the non existent Bible treaty that “God helps those who help themselves.� That is not in the Bible and Christ had this to say about helping others at the biblical location of Matthew 25: 31-46!

We wrote down a list of almost twenty people that we personally know who visit the Ministerial Alliance most days in search of food and the just important acceptance, fellowship and companionship that they receive there. So many others are simply faces that we have never learned their names. There is a married couple whose combined IQ’s will not exceed 200 where the wife tries to find a job even though her knee needs a replacement. And, the elderly widow who lives on about 700 a month received from social security who finally got a knee replacement after intense pain that lasted for almost a year until a kind social worker found her an equally kind surgeon who did that loving work for her. And the Vietnam veteran and his wife and their twelve year old special education son who had to give up a voucher the other day for some much needed food because the site where it was being handed out was too far--ten miles--away and their precise gas budget simply would not allow for that. And another old Vietnam vet who comes to the Alliance location each and every day even though it might be his last because he has congestive heart failure. This man will proudly tell you that he can trace his ancestry to the first settlers at Plymouth Rock in 1620 as he drives his ancient Jeep and takes care of his daughter and grandchildren. He worries what will become of them when he goes away. Then there is the woman in her late forties who once fixed hair for a living who now has a severe case of bipolar disorder whose only goal in life is to love every soul that she encounters along the way. When she comes into the door of the alliance each day, she hugs each and every person there.

These that we have mentioned and so many others just like them in our town and all across America are watching patiently and quietly as their government in Washington D.C. goes about the business that it goes about this week. And, it doesn’t really matter whether that government pays their little pittance of social security or veterans benefits or food stamps when and if they default. These people know instinctively that they are going to be badly hurt by what is happening there. It is a “the most to lose and the least to lose� situation for all of them. They really have nothing material so, in that way, they have the least to lose. But, if this situation comes about in the worst possible way, they really have the most to lose--their very lives. As one of the oldest souls who comes over to the Alliance on her walker said the other day when asked what these people who lead their government expect them to do. She replied: “They just want you to go away and die!� That might seem an extreme statement but, then, you do not really know how close to the edge so many of them already are. We remember the statement made by Abraham Lincoln about the depths of the Civil War when he said: “I fell to my knees in prayer because I had no where else to go.� And we remember the Gospel of Luke; 16, 19-31.

Regards from those above who only love each and every member of all mankind! They have learned a forgiveness that we might all be able to profit from.

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.