20th December

Written by David Walker

Good King Wenceslas

“Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”

A famous actor is reputed to have said, ‘I’ve been poor, and I’ve been rich, and I know which I prefer’.

Well, it’s a ‘no brainer’ to use modern parlance, nobody wants to be poor but it’s a fact of life that so many people are. Apparently, I was poor, but I didn’t know it until someone on London-centric TV (back in the 50s) referred to the provincial poor latch-key kids: the children who on arriving home from school would let themselves into an empty house whilst their parents were at work. How dare they! I come from a very loving and warm-hearted family; that trumps any inference to the contrary. How dare they say I’m poor! And that’s the rub: the word poor only conveys a paucity of financial worth and excludes the richness of spirit.

In the carol Good King Wenceslas went with his servant to provide food and firewood to a peasant struggling against the harsh winter conditions. An act of charity beyond the normal expectations of a medieval aristocrat. An altruistic act that still resonates today. It is said, ‘it is better to give, than to receive’. Unless of course your circumstances dictate that you are indeed in need.

When I was ten years old, everyone in my neighbourhood was more-or- less of the same financial level. But you couldn’t really point a finger and say they were poor, because we all were. And the same applies today. Despite our much higher-level living conditions compared to the 1950s there are many in need of help, but they’re not always easy to identify. If that’s not the case, why are there so many food banks?

Although we don’t know whom we help when we donate food from our pantries each week, we do know that we are blessed to be able to do so.