Gifts and callings

I wasn't very happy with my last two posts - it was like there was a word or an idea on the tip of my tongue but I couldn't articulate it. It occurred to me the other day just what it was.

You speak of "gifts." And I think what you call "gifts" I would call "a calling."

As far as I know, I have no gifts that I would attribute to the Holy Spirit. To me, the word "gift" implies something that isn't evident in non-Christians when I look around me. And I just don't see that at all.

For many years and until this day, people who are a little "off" - maybe they have mental health issues or there's something about them that doesn't fit well into the mainstream society, have been coming around my house. Maybe you would call it a gift? I have no real idea why these people feel comfortable in my house. Obviously I try to make them feel comfortable but I would do that for any guest. Even though these unexpected visits maybe don't come at the right time.

I've also had people who are outsiders come to my house and mistake me for a complete fool, presumably for having them over and getting very angry when I wouldn't get involved in things like welfare fraud, ie, wanting to use my address and my name to verify what isn't true. Won't do it. Period. Or people who end up putting you in a position where you are in danger of losing your faith for some reason. I don't feel I am obliged to do what I cannot do, what might put my own immortal soul in jeopardy. It's that avoiding temptation thing. I also have to consider those who are or might be affected by these guests.

If a person somehow causes division or confusion or might lead my husband in a direction that is clearly not a direction to go, then that person is no longer welcome. I am responsible for the souls in my house to a certain extent, just like one would or should not, even in the interests of forgiving, invite a child molester into a house with a child. So my hospitality is conditional. I might not say it, but most people, even ones without mental health issues, understand instinctively that when someone says mi casa su casa, it is not meant literally. It is conditional upon behaviour that is hardly ever spelled out (who greets guests with a long list of what is acceptable and what is not?) but still generally understood.

My parents' house is also a place for misfits to gather. Most of them have their "season," in that they aren't necessarily permanent fixtures but move on after a while.

In one way I can look at this strange attraction I have for outsiders as a "gift" but since it isn't always about good guys, bad strange people are also attracted to me often enough for me to wonder if I have "sucker" printed on my forehead. I can't ever walk down a street, even with a group of friends, and I will be the one the panhandler seeks out, or the kid selling chocolate bars for school fundraisers. I never say no.

But given that I attract con men as well as genuine hurting people, how can this be a gift? I feel I am "called" to give money to whoever asks me, in accordance with Jesus' instructions to "if he asks for your coat, give it to him." I do it because that is what I, as a Christian, am supposed to do, without worrying about where I will get another coat, as the lilies of the field.

So it's intellectual, not that I'm such a good person. Not because I hear the voice of God whispering in my ear. I give what I have, inwardly, to give, not what I don't have.

Other than one of my sisters and one of my brothers, I don't know anyone, Christian or non-Christian who not only gets approached as much as I do, but also gives. I don't worry about being mugged. That seems to be everyone who is freaked out about what I do, their main worry.

When my husband was in the hospital, and I would take breaks by sitting outside in a not very good area of town, homeless people would come around and furtively look for half-smoked cigarettes that hospital visitors had thrown away.

Cigarettes here are very expensive - more than ten dollars a pack. It bothered me, the shame I saw on the faces of many as they tried to act casual about rummaging through the ashtrays or picking cigarettes off the sidewalk. Many were Native Canadians. Tobacco is a part of their culture and religion. As well as an addiction of course.

So I would say, "Excuse me, sir/ma'am. Would you like a cigarette?" And give them whole, unsmoked cigarettes. One man asked for an extra one for his grandmother. I gave him that. These people have way bigger problems than dying of lung cancer. I assume many Christians would have a problem with me doing that, and see cigarettes as sinful.

When my husband was several hours in surgery, and I couldn't stand it any longer, I went for walks because I could not sit still. In retrospect, I think the cigarettes I had been handing out where the reason I wasn't hurt or mugged. It is not a nice area of town.

There were also a lot of people in the hospital - I spent so much time there I got to know regular faces. Some of them needed their shoes tied and nurses wouldn't stop. So I tied them. Others needed to have their wheelchairs pushed to another area, so I did that. One man who had a brain injury and couldn't speak and was in a wheelchair needed a hug. I thought so anyway. So I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek whenever I saw him. It made him feel like a man. (He was a young man. People can get starved for the touch of another human. And as sexual creatures, I think also young men who are in what this man's condition was, he wanted a woman's touch. So I touched him.

I was rather busy at the end of my husband's stay and I still think of all those people.

But this is my duty as a Christian. I wouldn't ever think of it as a gift. I never once preached Christ to them. I tried to act like Christ who touched the lepers and made the blind see, and who saw through to the emotion behind a scarlet woman anointing him with oil bought with presumably with funds earned as a prostitute. A light on a mountain can't be hidden.

I know that there are verses upon verses about gifts, but there is nothing that I read that indicates these gifts are meant for the church today. And even if they are meant for the church today, I think Paul meant "gifts" with a much smaller "g". I think he meant talents. That every person has different talents. But this is true for Christians and non-Christians alike. It is how the world functions.

These talents may include healing by doctors, Christian or not, the ability to take apart cars and put them back together in a working order, or painting wonderful paintings that make people think. Or the ability of the waitress to stand on her feet hour after hour, carrying food to the restaurant's customers. Everything works together to make the whole. Take out any one thing and there' s no society.

I'm not sure if I've explained my position any better?

Layla