I had a couple of bites of a muffin for breakfast and skipped lunch yesterday because I was really wrapped up in work and I suppose I imagined I was quite starving by the time I headed out of the office and toward home. I decided to order take out from a restaurant and just pick it up on the way home rather than cook for my son and me, because it was getting late. The restaurant had curbside service, so they came right to my car with our order when I got there, although I stayed in the car a few moments checking emails instead of driving off right away. I still had my window down when a homeless man (I assume he was homeless because he appeared to be both unwashed and a little off kilter mentally - such are our prejudices) poked his head in my car window and asked for money, saying he was hungry.
I had ordered more than enough food for my son and me so I offered him the container of adorned flatbread I'd been given that was on the top of the stack in my bag. He murmured something to himself, but he also smiled at me and said thanks, adding "it's nice of you to share your dinner". I admit that I was also a little startled that he'd just stuck his head into my open window, an approach I am not usually responsive to with strangers. I don't like to be followed to my car in the parking lot at Target by someone asking me for money (it happens a lot - usually the same person with a cart carrying small children - a woman I recognize who has panhandled near my neighborhood for about fifteen years). I don't like to be approached while I am sitting at an outdoor table enjoying a meal or a beverage with a group of friends or colleagues. Those things seem intrusive to me. And as I was driving home last night I was thinking about why I choose to view them as intrusive, because people obviously have to be quite desperate to approach you in those situations. Certainly they may be scammers, they may be lazy, they may be addicted to drugs or alcohol - but burdened by desperation nonetheless. I could see that in the man who leaned his head in through my open car window yesterday. He had no certainty about any of his meals, and the sort of hunger he was experiencing was very different from what I was experiencing just getting too wrapped up in my day to stop and eat. I don't know why that's the case, how he had come to fall through the cracks as it appeared he had. But judgment aside, it was apparent from the tint of his skin that he spent his days outdoors, from the depth of wear and soiling of his clothes and that deep down funk that results from baking in neglect day after day, that he had none of the certainties I begin my days with as a foundation. To offer him some of the food I had was the most natural gesture, the one we have to harden ourselves against not to react upon in these situations.
It was an object lesson to me in humility and kinship. At our core we are as close to the earth as every other human being and that is where humility arises, and we are all connected in a human family. The eccentricities or things that may repel us in a stranger are no different than the scale of 'otherness' we experience in our own families. The difference is, if we get this right, we embrace and console and try to heal within our families - we work to nurture and strengthen rather than cast out and neglect. And who was that man yesterday other than a member of someone's family, and by extension my own - who was not being nurtured, strengthened, embraced.
Yesterday was May 6, a day after I received a number of emails and other online solicitations from friends and colleagues for the "Big Give" - an opportunity to open our wallets and give online all day. It feels good to give a big donation. And all of these were very worthy causes. I was happy to open my wallet as wide as I could. But I am glad that the very next day I got an up close and personal reminder about what giving really means. There's an awful lot of giving along the way in time and love and thoughtfulness, and sometimes in a very tough form of love, that takes place, or in some cases doesn't, before any of us is confronted by a disheveled, dirty and confused person leaning into our comfortable cars and asking for money because he or she is hungry. I think giving means doing a lot before that happens, and to keep on doing it after. It's a marvelous thing to get your name on a plaque or an entire building or hospital or museum because you gave big, but giving is about having a heart and not being afraid to reach out and offer help even when it isn't solicited, and not making someone feel ashamed when they do ask. You don't have to give money to everyone who asks, and often you probably shouldn't, but give acknowledgment, recognize the dignity in others. In a world where we will video everyone else's misfortune or suffering, sometimes giving is doing as Chris Rock once directed and set the damn phone or camera down and step up to prevent a beating or a verbal tirade. Sometimes giving is stopping when you see someone fall and helping them get up, making sure they are okay. Sometimes giving is being the person in a group who silences derision with kindness. Sometimes giving is reminding someone of how much we love them and how much value their existence holds even when we are incredibly frustrated with them or disappointed in them. Generosity of spirit is in our nature. It is us seeing the world and others in it and not clouding that out with the shadow of our own self-importance or immediate comfort.
The reality is every day is a big give if our hearts are open, and as I held my breath against the aroma of human indifference yesterday and went with my instincts to just share what I obviously was able to share with someone else, I was humbled and someone more important was uplifted for a moment.
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