The poster shows a young girl, obviously street-involved, huddled in a doorway. She is wrapped in a twenty dollar bill the size of a blanket. The bold lettering beside the picture proclaims, “WE CAN’T HELP STREET KIDS WITHOUT YOU.”
There is at least one other poster in this series, this time it is a young man sleeping on the side walk beneath the shelter of a giant credit card that is leaning against the wall and stopping the rain from getting to him.
It’s series of ads for Covenant House.
I feel like we’re selling indulgences. We’ve given up on the general public actually caring about homeless kids, so we just try to get to their wallets. They may feel a twinge of guilt every now and again but it’s not enough to make them do anything… but it could be enough to get them to throw a couple dollars our way – especially with the help of a few eye-catching ads.
The slogan, at least, is true. We can’t help street kids without you. But it’s not your money that will make the difference. It’s you, your physical presence, that will make the difference. These kids need love, a listening ear, some sort of positive relationship. At the drop-in we would see 180-250 kids every day. There would be 5 staff to work with those kids. And we would try hard to love those kids, we would try hard to journey with them, to hear their stories, to get to know them all. But the odds were too overwhelming. The majority of the time you just end up doing damage control, making sure the place stays safe. It’s sort of like being the catcher in the rye… only there’s a stampede headed your way. We really can’t help street kids without you.
I mean, these kids are dying. When we pass them on the street we’re looking at a dying kid. Some die fast and others die slow but most of them never really have a chance.
Scene change: imagine yourself at the beach. You notice that there’s a fierce undertow, the water’s sort of choppy and it’s okay for the adults but you notice an unattended toddler has wandered into the surf. The child is drowning. What do you do? Pack your bags, write a cheque to help make the beach safer and then get the hell out of there? Of course not. If you see a baby drowning and don’t reach out and pull it out of the water you actually share in the responsibility for that child’s death.
It’s no different with street kids. Stop giving money to make yourself feel better. Start learning what it means to love. Start learning what it means to be a Christian.
“What are your multiple sacrifices to me?” says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed cattle. And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats… Bring your worthless offerings no longer… they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer I will hide my eyes from you, yes, even though you multiply prayers I will not listen. Your hands are covered in blood.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from my sight.
Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
– Isaiah 1.10-17

I was on the south side of the Seine, a little to the West of L’Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame de Paris, where the streets connect at strange angles and just before broad thoroughfares disperse and narrow in the depths of Montparnasse and the Latin Quarters. I was tired from walking all day, my left shoulder was bothering me and my knee was swollen – and I was hungry, but after scanning the menus of the nearest brasseries I was looking for something cheaper. Night was already wrapping the city in grays and blacks. The street lights casting reflections from shop windows and the water that glistened on the cobblestones. One block south of the river I slipped into a McDonald’s and was engulfed in a neon glow. I felt like I had walked out of history and became a character in a video game. And yes, John Travolta’s character in “Pulp Fiction” was right, they do call a Big Mac a Royale with cheese. I sat by the window and tried not to notice the rotating posters attached to the locked-up newstand just outside. The French version of Maxim has no problem showing naked women, and the French, apparently have no problem putting those naked women on billboards. As I devoured my meal I noticed the girl sitting in the corner. She had her back to the window, maybe the same age as me, her hair down to her chin. She was crying, crying hard but trying just as hard not to show it. He shoulders shook every now and again and she deliberately tilted her head so that her hair hung in front of her face, her hands clutched in front of her mouth. I think the fellow across from her was breaking-up with her, or maybe she had discovered his infidelity. Once he tried – tentatively – to take her hand, and holding it, pull it away from her face. She jerked away from his touch. A second time he touched her cheek with his fingers, wiping the tears away. She didn’t move. She wouldn’t acknowledge his touch.
I remember feeling that way once, when the world seems to shatter and break and I no longer recognized landscapes that once seemed so familiar. I remember longing for such a touch and also not being able to respond to it when it came, knowing it wasn’t the same – the touch was no longer intimate, it was apologetic, not passionate.
When I left the girl was still crying, still sitting bolt upright, and the guy was still looking sorry, looking like he wished he could fix everything but knowing he couldn’t.
Paris, they say, is for lovers. A city full of beauty and romance. I guess the harsh neon lights of a McDonald’s end up being an appropriate setting for heartbreak. There you don’t see cathedrals and statues, parks and old winding streets lined with apartments that seem to lean toward each other. There you only have tiles and sticky table tops, bright colored uniforms and glossy ads for coffee and salads – and garbages that are in constant need of changing.
That night I sat for a long time on the Pont Neuf watching the river carve a black path through the heart of the city.

It all goes back to an experience I had late last December.
I had taken the bus back from London, where I had spent a few days with my family. The bus got in early in the evening but winter was full-blown and the darkness of the night had already settled around the city. I decided to walk home, since I was still living downtown at that time. I started walking on Dundas street passed lighted restaurants and Christmas decorations that hadn’t been taken down yet. Over Christmas I had spent a lot of time thinking about the glory of that moment, of what it meant to have God break into history in that manner. I had spent a lot of time longing that God would break-in again in the same way. That another exodus would occur. The verses I couldn’t get away from were in Isaiah 63 and 64:
Look down from heaven and see from your holy and glorious habitation; where are your zeal and your mighty deeds? The stirrings of your heart and your compassion are restrained towards me. For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name. Why, O LORD, do you cause us to stray from your ways and harden our heart from fearing you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage. Your holy people possessed your sanctuary for a little while, our adversaries have trodden it down. We have become like those over whom you have never ruled, like those who were not called by your name. Oh that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence – as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations might tremble at your presence. When you did awesome things which we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a god beside you, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for him. you meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name who arouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
But now, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; and all of us are the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD, nor remember iniquity forever; behold, look now, all of us are your people, your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful hose, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire; and all our precious things have become a ruin. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD? Will you keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?
Powerful words. Words that I felt (and still feel) define our experience as the people of God today in Toronto (in Canada, and even North America).
As I neared my home I walked passed the housing projects at Dundas and Spadina. As I was passing them I noticed a fire breaking-out on the sidewalk about twenty feet in front of me. I quickened my pace and discovered a cardboard box stuffed with paper. It had only just started to burn and was only really getting going by the time I stood beside it. So, I stomped it out and kept on walking.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was strange that a box would be burning in the middle of the sidewalk. It was especially strange that I didn’t see anybody light the fire and then run away – I was close enough that I should have seen somebody. I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was trying to teach me something.
It wasn’t until a few hours later when I was sitting at home on the couch that everything clicked. The key was the story of Moses and the burning bush. I started thinking: what if Moses had reacted differently? What if, instead of approaching reverently, Moses had spent all of his time trying to extinguish the fire? He would have missed God’s presence, he would have been so preoccupied in doing the right thing, doing damage control (who knows, maybe that fire could have spread and damaged his flocks or their grazing lands…) that he would have missed what God was doing. And then I thought about how I had just stomped the fire out and kept on walking feeling like I was being a good citizen – look at me, putting out fires. That’s when I came to a realization: I was so preoccupied with thinking about exile that I just couldn’t see God’s presence at all. And that’s when it hit me, that’s when something huge clicked:
God goes into exile with his people.
And that, well, that changes everything.