Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Family, Parenting and Religion
On a Helpless Day

On a Helpless Day

Last updated on: November 27, 2024 at 8:26 pm by Mary Pezzulo

0 Comments

On a Helpless Day 2024-11-27T20:26:13-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

On Monday morning, I took the Lady of LaBelle to get her weekly food box at the pantry downtown.

The Lady of LaBelle, you might recall, is the grandmother and matriarch of an army of children and grandchildren who live with her in a rental on the corner, the ones I call the Baker Street Irregulars. She calls half the people on the block her nieces and nephews because it’s easier than explaining who’s a blood relative and who’s adopted family. I took her to the food pantry, and I took one such niece who’s even poorer than the Lady, and I took myself. I haven’t needed the pantry very much this year, but I still legally qualify because Ohio’s limit for food pantries is much higher than its limit for EBT benefits. We were having a tight week ahead of the holiday. X/Twitter’s algorithm had collapsed right after the election, and part of my paycheck comes from being seen by my readers on social media. I got a box of cans to stretch out our grocery budget. We’ll bounce back up and have another good month soon enough. Soon I’ll never need the pantry again.

When we were packing up Sacre Bleu, the Lady of LaBelle surprised me and said I could have her box as well.

That’s legal because these are donated cans from local grocery stores, not government commodities that have to be eaten by the exact person they’re given to. I once did the same to help the Lost Girl. The Lady of LaBelle explained that she had enough food for the next few days and then her food stamps would renew right after Thanksgiving. She heard that we’ve had trouble making ends meet. This month, she was richer than me. The food was mine.

“There’s steak in it and everything!” beamed the Lady of LaBelle.

She is always like that.

I took the box home, and fried up the package of minute steaks.

On Monday night, the mother of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Lady of LaBelle’s daughter, brought me the smallest turkey I’ve ever seen. She’d been shopping again for all her Thanksgiving supplies. There was a huge sale on the remaining turkeys, a great reduction in price per pound, which meant the eleven-pound bird was five dollars, and she just couldn’t help herself. If I had another Thanksgiving turkey already, I could keep this one in the freezer for Christmas. I thanked her a thousand times.

On Tuesday, the Mother texted me that the Man Called Dad was bringing us a sweet potato pie as well, so we’d be all set for a great holiday no matter what, and I thanked them again.

The Baker Street Irregulars are always like that. They are the most generous people I know.

Today, Wednesday, I took the Mother to her doctor’s appointment. When she got out, she was anxiously texting on her phone, because there had been a catastrophe.

I am fictionalizing identifying details of the people involved, to protect the privacy of the children. But this situation is real.

The niece I had met on Monday lives in a house with another family, and the family is on drugs. She has to live there because she’s very poor and they split the cost of rent. She desperately wants to get out, because that family sometimes hit her, but she can’t find a cheap rental. She is a caregiver for her own children as well as that other family’s children. Last night, the other family’s toddler came down with an infection and was life-flighted to a hospital an hour from here, and Niece went with the baby because she was sitting for them. She’s been stuck there unable to get a change of clothes for 24 hours. Today, she found out that the toddler tested positive for drugs. They must have accidentally eaten something the parents left out while crawling around the house. The hospital called social services, who swept the house and confiscated ALL the children: not only the other family’s children, but Niece’s as well. And it’s the day before Thanksgiving.

I didn’t know what to do except reassure the Baker Street Irregulars’ mother so she could reassure Niece over the phone. I promised to be with them if they wanted a grown-up sounding voice to talk to the social workers on Monday. I said this probably meant the social workers would help Niece get her own place more quickly. I observed that maybe her horrible housemates would end up going to jail over this which would serve them right. But I don’t think Niece calmed down at all.

I went home to clean my kitchen and get ready for the holiday, feeling helpless.

I looked around my food pantry box, and the things I had in the cupboard, to see if I could at least make the Baker Street Irregulars some sweet corn muffins or something, to thank them for the help and to say I was sorry that Niece’s family was in a mess. It’s all I could do. The only thing I know how to do in a situation like this is cook.

There are people on this earth with hundreds of billions of dollars. They have more money than they could possibly spend, no matter how hard they tried. If they set fire to dollar bills, they could keep warm until they died of natural causes and never go broke. They use that money to manipulate social media to influence elections because they can, and build rocket ships for fun. Meanwhile, this network of marvelous people I know here in LaBelle are trapped in the direst poverty, and the law picks on THEM. And there’s nothing I can do.

All I want is for good people to be happy, but I can’t make them happy. I don’t have anything to share, except the occasional ride to run errands. I’m not a lawyer or a social worker. I don’t have any money. I need help from friends far more often than I like to think about.

I thought again of that daydream I’ve had a million times: of winning the lottery or the Publisher’s Clearinghouse, paying off my student debt, and buying LaBelle. I would make a deal with every landlord. I would buy the derelict houses from the city as well. I would tear down the houses that couldn’t be salvaged. I would fix up the houses that people lived in, make them nice, fit them out with solar panels to save money and be better for the earth. And then I’d sell them back to their tenants on some kind of no-interest rent-to-own scheme. Meanwhile, I’d fill the vacant lots with orchards and community gardens and micro-prairies, tiny urban apiaries, houses for the songbirds and the bats. I’d build safe playgrounds for neighborhood children. I would hire a private guard to chase off the drug dealers and pay to send the addicts to a nice safe quality rehab. I would make this place into an Eden so that everyone could be happy.

But I can’t do any of that.

There’s any number of hopeful ways I could end this post. It’s nearly Advent. I should be saying something about the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph setting off on that stupid donkey with nothing, for the census, and what that tells us about how God loves the poor. But I am so bewildered, I don’t know how to go into my hopeful voice.

That’s not a very good way to start the holiday season, but here I am.

Pray for the poor, and after you pray, help make it a more just world.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

Family, Parenting and Religion

Food and Religion

Previous Post

November 25, 2024

You Say I Am A King

Next Post

November 29, 2024 The Good You Can Do

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Thank you for bringing so much goodness into the lives of so many children.Ran across ..."

alwayspuzzled

The Passion of the Red Oak

"This current administration has had me reflecting on the Nuremberg trials and the like, for ..."

axelbeingcivil

On Traditionalist Bullies, and the Death ..."

"You're talking about supercessionism, the idea that Christians "replace" the covenant that the Jewish people ..."

Alex

Yes, the Old Testament is About ..."

"Oh I'm sure it did."

Mary

A Televised Execution is a Moral, ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What fruit did Adam and Eve eat in the Garden of Eden?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Forbidden fruit Lemon Grape Banana