trash theology

Okay, this is going to get a little weird, a little deep ... but go with me, okay?

Today's work at Carl & Lolly's was finish-up/clean-up tasks. Finish the roof (yay! two roofs done! and this one was a tricky little devil ... ask Ken!) and then ... haul the trash. Bags and bags and heaps and heaps of trash ... messy, smelly, been sittin' there a while, tore-out-like-crazy-people-and-now-we're-rebuilding TRASH. So all the Kentucky Kids haul it ... to the truck ... which Kim had to arrange to use ... which she drives to the dump ... and comes back ... for another load. Their house totally and completely comes apart in a hurricane of record proportions and their city doesn't even pick up their trash.

Meanwhile, over at Candy's, catfish is frying for lunch (did I mention this saint-of-a-woman feeds us - and whatever neighbors wander through - EVERY DAY? - and not pb&j, people, serious full-on MEALS). And we are sanding, mudding, painting, screening, installing deadbolts (3rd day's try is the charm, thanks Jim!), sanding a hearth and laying tile (guess what I learned to do, Mom!), hanging burglar bars and getting every odd and end we can accomplished.

And the trash collectors come by. Yay! The trash truck comes! But wait.

It takes the two trash cans (the wheeled kind you sit at your curb) and dumps them into the truck -- in the process dumping half the contents of one can back onto the ground. Puts the cans down, drives away.

LEAVING the bags and bags and heaps and heaps of trash ... messy, smelly, been sittin' there a while, tore-out-like-crazy-people-and-now-we're-rebuilding TRASH. LEFT IT THERE. This is a trash heap that covers ... hmm ... imagine standing in your front yard, facing the street. From the sidewalk to the pavement, from the left end of your property to the right end of your property, about waist high. That kind of trash heap. They left. it. there.

Who's supposed to tend to that? Who picks that up? Not the city, evidently. And not anyone else, evidently. So now what will she do? Frankly, I don't know.

But it drives me to disraction that the 'nice' neighborhoods, like the one where our friends at First Christian hosted us to dinner last night, don't have a speck of trash in sight, let alone a HEAP. Their homes were damaged. A few still have trees down. There are some "FEMA Blue" tarps here and there. But no trash. No smell. No health hazard for people walking by, or children enjoying a sunny afternoon.

Which led me to admit that we do what's easy ... we pay attention, and give attention, and give time and effort, when someone's watching, or when we perceive it's 'worthwhile,' or it's not inconvenient for us ... won't interrupt our home, our vacation, our work, our comfort.

Otherwise? We come by when we can, we take care of whatever happens to land in the truck on the first toss, and then we drive away.

I love mission trips because I get to see people face to face, hear their stories, be part of their lives, share their meals and their hopes and dreams and frustrations ... the hardest part is to drive away, like we will tomorrow, carrying their faces and stories and dreams with me ... wondering if someone else will drive up next week, or the week after, or the next storm, or next year.

Will someone come? Will you?