It is bitterly cold in North Florida this evening. We're already hovering at freezing and the temperature is expected to drop like a rock down into the low 20s or teens by morning. Because it's so cold, the city is opening the overflow shelter for the homeless: the old Belle Vue Middle School that has been closed for a couple of years now. Local churches are taking turns staffing the extra shelter for the early part of the night, and then city workers take over for overnight. I intend to volunteer for this ministry. I was going to go this evening.
But then it hit me: I'm tired. And I just couldn't bring myself to join with my fellow parishioners in this mitzvah this evening. I did help shop for easy-to-carry breakfast items to give the homeless. And, because I'm sensitive to nutrition and diet, I made sure the food stuff wasn't going to give somebody a sugar rush, and even bought a case of diabetic protein shakes (chocolate flavored, of course!).
Still, as I sit here in a house with a blanket to keep me warm, I am troubled. I couldn't bring myself to add one more item to my day, an item which I think is important (making sure the homeless have a safe, warm place to sleep at night). I have empathy for people who are living on the street. When I was a journalism student in Missouri, I wrote a feature article on the homeless shelter director in Columbia. I spent time talking to the men who had taken refuge at the shelter, some lucid veterans from the Viet Nam war, others paranoid schizophrenics who were convinced that the CIA had chopped their heads off, but they had grown a new one (that was Willy). I was apprehensive when I first encountered these characters. But after we got started in conversation, I saw their humanity. And all that truly separated me from them was circumstance. And that could change at any moment in our lives.
A couple weeks ago, my car broke down in the parking lot of the Publix shopping plaza. A kind woman stopped to give me a jump, and I drove the car to my mechanic. As I walked from the auto repair shop to my house, I encountered a homeless guy who was panhandling across from a sandwich shop. Our eyes met, and he asked for money. I knew what little I had left in my wallet needed to last for a couple days. So I opened my shopping bag and pulled out the vegetable sushi I'd bought for my lunch.
"Will you eat this?" I said, holding the tray out to him. His eyes surveyed the food; carrots, cucumbers, avocado...wrapped in rice and seaweed with a packet of soy and a dab of wasabi on the side.
"Yes, ma'am." He averted his eyes as he took the food from me. At least he was going to get something with some nutrition and protein. And as I walked on and realized that even though this was going to be my lunch, I had other food at home that I could pull together. This man had nothing but the hope that strangers would hand him a dollar or some spare change.
So for one instant, I fed the hungry. But tonight I was too tired.
I struggle with the questions of whether what I do is "enough". And why can't I just give myself over to do more? This is my dark night of the soul.
1 comment:
Our Lord, often withdrew to rest and pray, even when there were so many who could use the love, and the healing he could provide.
I expect that as you wrapped yourself in the blanket, you were in touch with God.. who understood your exhaustion and held you in his arms. Now all you need to do is forgive your humanity..
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