OPINION (AN COLUN): January - the toughest month of the year
IF THERE WAS an award for the toughest or least-liked month of the year January would probably get it. Nature is dormant, the warmth and love of Christmas has been replaced with the po-faced and colourless return to work, and our bank balances are disconcerting. Even the most resilient and optimistic of us can feel the grim, grey miasma of depression beginning to gather at the back of our minds.
I have no hard evidence immediately to hand to back this up but I would guess that bad finances are the greatest cause of concern for people at this time of year. I read a report this morning that there's been a surge in demand at food banks across the country because the cost of living crisis is proving too much for many. The report quoted the Director of the Feed Cork food bank who said there was a doubling in demand for their services over the last year and a fresh surge in demand since the New Year. He pointed out that last year the food bank provided half a million meals in Cork city, adding that the food bank is now experiencing a surge in demand for services from people facing heavy post-Christmas burdens of debt “with many owing money to high interest loan sharks”.
The report added that what's being reported by Feed Cork is not different from what's being experienced by other food banks across the country. “Despite the supports put in place in the Budget,” continued the report, “large numbers of households in Cork city were forced to go to loan sharks to get the cash to provide their children and families with a decent Christmas.” Food bank services across the country say they are being pushed to breaking point.
When we think of Food Banks we think of long queues of people and being handed parcels of food at a hatchway or a counter, mumbling a thank you and heading homewards. Feed Cork has risen beautifully above that image, humanising the experience and bringing the warmth of Christian love into a potentially bleak and unpleasant undertaking. They are an inspiration and are showing the way it can and should be done. Two mornings a week, every week, hundreds come in through the doors of their premises. It's the city's only food bank. There are a number of things about it which are different from a typical food bank: people attending aren't handed a pre-packed hamper; instead they can choose what they need for their family and pack their own shopping bags. They can sit down and enjoy a hot drink and sweet treat in one of two cafés. Families sit and chat over cups of coffee, children play and laugh. It's part of a more enlightened shopping experience which Feed Cork founder Hamp Sirmans says is crucial in bringing an atmosphere of dignity and respect when helping people. Hamp is a Pastor at Cork Church, a small evangelical church on Lower Oliver Plunkett Street.
The words “evangelical” or “church” may worry some people. In fact they need not worry, because while Feed Cork is headed by a pastor and is located inside the church, the food bank's mission has always been to help those in need, rather than as an outlet to preach the gospel. The mission is to help everyone of all belief systems, not to proselytise.
Things like Feed Cork remind us during this bleak month of January that while there is much that is awful, cynical and cruel about our world, the beautiful, charitable instinct remains strong.
January gets its name from the Roman God Janus. I used to think Janus represented two-faced people and therefore evoked yet more negative connotations in connection with the month (yes there are lots of unpleasant, two-faced people out there!) however Janus is in fact the god of beginnings, gateways, transitions between the old and the new. One of his faces is looking back on the old year, the other is looking out at the year to come.
Looking back we perhaps see our mistakes and failures, our achievements and successes; looking forward we perhaps feel fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, or a sense of resilience and determination to remain fixed in our faith come what may.
For the ancient Romans Janus represented the middle ground between major, life-changing dualities such as beginning/end, youth/adulthood, life/death, rural/urban, war/peace, and barbarism/civilisation. He also holds a key in his right hand, which symbolises his protection of doors, gates, thresholds, and other separations or openings between spatial boundaries. In ancient Rome, the symbol of the key also signified that a traveller had come to find safe harbour or trade goods in peace. Roman myth also says that Janus was the first (among the gods or humans) to mint coins, representing a major shift from a more barbarous situation to a more civilised one.
As we look back on 2022 we perhaps feel appalled by the innumerable instances of terrible human behaviour. Some of these instances might have been too close for comfort. Is it any wonder then that looking forward we may be feeling fearful? You are not alone in this feeling and it's been pointed out countless times in literature. For example, JD Salinger (who, ironically, was no angel himself) once wrote: “You're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”