I took a break from editing and went across the street for a cup of coffee. On my way back, I saw a man sprawled on the sidewalk. “He was just standing there and suddenly he fell over,” said a man kneeling on the frigid sidewalk by his side trying to gently rouse him.
His clothing and the coins scattered on the sidewalk next to his hand suggested that he was one of Winnipeg’s street people. A small group kept vigil, waiting for an emergency crew to arrive. It appeared that the man had died.
The woman who had called 911 knelt on the sidewalk and placed her hand over his. A security guard took off his jacket and covered him as best he could until his partner found a blanket to try to keep the man warm. I noticed how many people quickly rushed by, unaware or deliberately.
The ambulance arrived and the crew worked efficiently and gently. They placed him on a stretcher and wrapped him up to his chin in blankets, quickly gathered his coins and placed them with his things. There were no flashing lights nor sounds of a siren as they pulled away.
I’ve learned from those who minister with those living in the margins of our society that such events happen more often than most of us realize.
Are the challenges in providing solutions for poverty, homelessness, hunger, addiction, mental illness and the like so complex that solutions are impossible or improbable, or is it that we Canadians lack the political will to tackle them, shoving these challenges and the people who cope with them to the margins of our attention?
All this requires tremendous effort on the part of so many. Our feature article highlights ways that some of us are engaged with those who live in the margins through urban ministry.
Of course, many of us also do the best we can in other settings through volunteer work, providing financial resources, supporting food banks and the like. Others of us are front-line care providers and responders involved in such areas as public policy, health care, social services, policing and emergency services.
The article also reflects another type of poverty that we must deal with. Some call it “compassion fatigue.” In Living Justice: A Gospel Response to Poverty, Sr. Joan Atkinson identifies it as “emotional poverty.”
She says, “Emotional poverty may limit us but it does not prevent us from living into a deeper response of faith—a ‘yes’ to God—unless we allow it to do so.”
Kenn Ward, Editor
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