The Little Match Girl

The Little Match Girl

By Bobby Neal Winters

It’s getting colder as is normal for this time of year.  We are going into the holiday season: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years to mention the ones most of us pay attention to. Those of us who God has blessed have to worry about eating too much.  

Some folks take this time of year to think about giving to others.  This has been going on a long time.  In a Christmas Carol, you may recall, Scrooge was visited by gentlemen who were trying to raise money for the less fortunate. Recently I received a call from a fellow Rotarian who was raising money for the Lord’s Diner.

It’s hard to turn down a fellow Rotarian, especially when he’s volunteered for something you’ve decided to skip.

But there are other things to do.  I’ve signed up to ring bells for the Salvation Army through Rotary.  We do it at Ron’s. It’s good, inside work with no heavy lifting.

We do it this time of year because those of us who are Christian’s mark Jesus’ birth by giving gifts.  Jesus was a gift to us.  It’s not difficult to pair giving a gift for the use of the poor with giving a gift to Jesus.  I am not overstating this.  He actually said, “Whatever you have done for the least of these you’ve done for me.”

He included food, clothing, and visiting people in prison in this: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”

We often hear of “the deserving poor,” but as I scan through these, I don’t see any indication that they have to be nice, clean, or particularly deserving.  The uniting theme seems to be need.

Christianity can be a radical faith.  While some balk at the notion of a man rising from the dead, someone turning water into wine, someone causing five loaves and two fishes to be turned into enough to feed five thousand people, all of those pale in believability next to the ideas that we should forgive each other and help the needed.

Some writers have the ability to tap into our sentiments in order to help us follow these radical beliefs.  I’d mentioned “A Christmas Carol” written by Charles Dickens.  There is also the story “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen.

The little girl is out in the cold trying to sell matches and is afraid to go home because she hasn’t sold any and because of that will be beaten.  But she’s so cold...

So she strikes a match.

The match provides a little warmth for a little while.  A little light for a little while.

There have been radicals over the years who would like to eliminate poverty.  I guess we all would in some sense, but this can be a monkey’s paw type wish: You eliminate the poor by rounding them up and shooting them all in a Stalinesque fashion. 

While I am an ivory tower academic, in my time I have seen some of the world.  I’ve spoken with the poor and the homeless.  

There are some of the poor who if given a million dollars today would be in the exact same place--or even worse off--tomorrow.  There are those among the homeless who truly want to be as they are.

Do we let them starve? Do we let them freeze? Do we let their clothing rot off their bodies? 

No. 

We feed them; we try to provide some means where they can stay warm when it is bitterly cold; we give them clothing.

At least that is what my religion says.

We light a match.

We try to provide a little light and a little warmth for a little while.  We are not going to cure poverty; we are not going to end homelessness.

We are going to try to be the “salt of the Earth,” something that makes the simple act of living palatable.

So as it gets colder and darker and you get achier and grumpier. Try to do a little something for someone else.

Light a match.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.