Cereal or Eggs?

“Morning by morning new mercies I see.” That line from the hymn written in the 1920s, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” summarizes not only the Christian life but the way some beaten-down humans suffering homelessness come to believe that God can change their lives — or at least they can improve their own lives by moving from cereal (morning by morning) to bacon and eggs.

“Bird by bird, buddy.” In the 1990s, Annie Lamott wrote Bird by Bird, a book about becoming a writer. The title comes from the time her ten-year-old brother fought frustration while trying to finish a report on birds that he’d struggled over for three months. “My father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'”

Prayer by prayer. Our Father in Heaven puts His arm around the shoulders of some long-term homeless humans whose problems, some experts say, are intractable. Yes, the process of change is “wicked hard,” as one Christian who’s been assisting in it for years acknowledged. But nothing is impossible with God.

Those who are homeless, like all of us, can change. Giving up on any person is wrong. Thunderously challenging a person with ingrown toenails and an ingrown psychology to make a massive choice immediately (choose man or God) is rarely helpful. Offering a smaller choice may set in motion a previously-baked brain.

I’ve thought about cereal and eggs since spending time at Springs Rescue Mission last year and writing about it earlier this year. A reminder for diligent readers: At 7 a.m. the dining hall serves hot breakfasts, including bacon and eggs, for those enrolled in the Hope Program, SRM’s pathway out of homelessness. At 8 a.m. the transients shuffle into the dining hall for a cold breakfast of milk and cereal. While they eat, staff members move the beds and sub in the chairs that allow 100+ men and women to spend their days slumped before two big screen televisions showing crime dramas.

In other words, everyone who comes through the SRM gates can choose between cereal and eggs. They can decide whether to stay in an everyone-welcome, do-nothing shelter, or enter a tiered program in which those who want to escape addiction and poverty can make step-by-step progress. At 7:15 a.m. those not in the Hope Program can paw through their belongings in one of 195 numbered trash bins sitting next to the barracks. They have access for half an hour in the morning and similarly brief access in the afternoon. Those who join the Hope Program gain lockers they can access any time.

SRM works that way throughout: People can make little choices that help them get a better life, or they can sink into their own misery. Importantly, the better breakfast does not require a profession of faith, for that would create what in China became known as “rice Christians,” people who would pretend to change their beliefs so as to fill their bellies. Everyone at SRM gets nutritious food and a bed. But is it evil “manipulation” to provide incentives to change?

I think not, in part because all of life involves some manipulation. A government official or business manager offers salaries so employees get up in the morning rather than stay in bed. The book of Proverbs describes spiritual rewards for perseverance: “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4). Those who refuse to be “manipulated” reap material consequences: “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (Proverbs 21:25).

Manipulation can be evil, if the goal is to control others in sneaky ways, but manipulative techniques have a crucial role in osteopathy, the correction of abnormalities that cause disease and inhibit recovery from what’s gone wrong. Adam thought he could do wrong and then hide, but God told him, “…by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” Many people who are homeless give up when the sweat pours down, as many of us might, but good programs apply some heat. They call for perseverance, which builds character and pushes us toward hope.