666 – The Number that got us chatting

 

 

 

 We live in a small town.  There are good points and bad points associated with this fact.  The good stuff is that we live safely, have lots of room, good schools, loads of mates, plenty to do outside, etc.  The bad side is that people can get very bored if they don’t make an effort to entertain themselves.  A result of bored young people is vandalism (resulting in bored adults who are criminals later on in life).  Recently, a pack of savages decided that spraying graffiti all over public buildings would be a great way to leave their mark.  Obviously it is illegal, and what is more rewarding when breaking the law than irritating people in the process.

 

So we had a situation where these wonderful members of society sprayed the number 666 all over the place.  At Rising River Youth we have a strong sense that we are put here on earth to be a help and not a pain to those around us.  So we decided to do something about it.  We got a packet of sugar soap, a couple of brushes and some lacquer thinners (in case the sugar soap didn’t work).  We started with the switching station on the Baptist green which had a huge silver triple six painted on the side.  We soon discovered that sugar soap is very handy for removing spray paint!  But it does require a lot of elbow grease.

 

One of the benefits of doing something like this is that people LOVE seeing you do it.  We had 2 cars stop and ask who we were and why we were doing it and an old dear who was walking her little scruffy dog came and said “It is so wonderful seeing someone take charge and DO something about the things that irritate us all”.   She went on to say that people used to really take responsibility for the whole town, not just their little garden or verge.  She got us wondering what it was that has changed so much that has made people stop bothering. 

 

·         Is it crime?  - Don’t think so.  How dangerous is it to pick up a piece of litter on the street?

·         Is it that we are all just busy? – People have always been busy – Just look at Jesus life.  He never had a spare second and that was 2000 years ago!

·         Is it an image thing? – It might be… It’s just not “cool” these days to be a servant to others for no reward. 

 

The world is looking to be paid for it’s time and effort and people will simply continue to complain about the state of things than get out there and start fixing them.  In Howick we are blessed that there are folk out there who take an interest and give of themselves to help others.  We have all of the elderly support centers, FreeMe for the wild animals, SPCA for all the domestic ones, businesses that help out cleaning up sections of town, concerned citizens groups, the scouts, schools etc.  It is surprising how many groups we are willing to support in THEIR good work, yet how resistant we are to actually go and DO the work ourselves.

 

Back to the scrubbing!  So we removed the “666” from the wall of the switching station (which, thankfully, is still clear) and we moved onto another place. This time it was on a painted electrical box.  We tried the sugar soap but that didn’t work so we tried the lacquer thinners!  Wow is it easy to get graffiti off the thinners!  So that was really simple. 

 

We were thinking about trying to go back to the switching station and get the rest of the wall clean (there’s plenty of work left there if any ones keen) but we had run out of time.

 

We were chatting about only doing half the job and not really cleaning up the whole wall (and the other three) and whether it was a bad thing or not.  And…..we honestly feel OK about only doing the 666 and noting else… and here’s why.

 

We did what we could do in the time we had.  That’s it. 

 

We do not need to be a full time dedicated clean up crew that scours the streets every day looking for ways to help others.  No-one can commit to that level of dedication.  What we can ALL do is just the simple things that get the ball rolling.  You don’t have to carry a bag around and pick up all the litter you see, just the stuff near your house or school or classroom or work place.  You don’t have to help every person you come across, just the ones you feel led to help.  By keeping our civic commitments light and free and not making massive dedications of time etc, we are all free to feel good when we do something great and not feel terrible about ourselves when we don’t.  Hopefully it is the example we set that will be followed by others and start changing the way society acts towards each other. 

 

So what started out as a small civic service, actually ended up as a great life lesson in how to actually be a USEFUL Christian in today’s day and age.  It was early days for the youth and we three leader sonly had one “youth” pitch up.  Just imagine what we could have done with the crowd we’ve got now!! J Matthew, You rock!!

the guys at work scrubbing off the 666