Hesitation

What made me hesitate? Three times. How hard is it to ask someone if they’d like to you get them a cup of coffee and donut? I mean he definitely looked like he needed it, his skinny bird fame perched high on one of the bar stools on the food side of the convenience store—a young black kid was behind the counter, wiping down the stainless steel. 

I stepped out of line and began walking toward the man, a wool hat pulled down over his eyes, gray dirty hair and beard, clothes, hands stained with dirt folded in front of him on the narrow table top. But then I became suddenly self-conscious and stopped. What if offended him? Who am I to go offering complete strangers coffee and donuts? What if he made a fuss and my fellow convenience store shoppers became irritated with me stirring him up?

The second time I stepped out of line was to see if I could get a glimpse of his face without appearing obvious. Then I felt like he caught me staring and I jumped back in line, yet again. I noticed he was now clutching a dirty t-shirt like a security blanket. 

I am happy to say the third time I stepped out of line, I actually went over and asked the gentleman as politely as I could if I could get him some coffee and a donut, pastries, whatever. He was not at all offended or embarrassed by my offer: “No, thank you. I’d prefer a dollar if you have it.” 

He followed me outside where I retrieved a dollar from the center console. “Just having to get a start over in his business,” he stuttered and then the “business,” as he explained it to me was a few things muddled together—a hotdog-oil change-tire-cleaning shop. Then he stooped down to demonstrate, wiping out the rim of my tire with the dirty t-shirt.

I was in a hurry and stopped him from demonstrating, wishing him the best of luck in his endeavors.

In parting, he apologized: “I mean I didn’t study any marketing or anything like that.”

Inauguration Day

I’ve been in DC a lot lately for work. If Atlanta is home, then DC has found its way into my heart as my second city, second home. It’s hard to be in the nation’s capital and not at least contemplate the bigger picture, like on inauguration day where I joined thousands to stand in lines that went on for blocks and hours. 

You’d think people would get irritable after six hours in line and two hours waiting by the side of Pennsylvania Avenue, waiting for a blurred glimpse of the president, hidden behind four-inch thick glass in a well-guarded limo. While that’s why many people go—to celebrate their candidate winning—I knew in advance that I was going to see the crowds (a friend tipped me off--unless you’re a very important person, you can expect to stand in the Mall and look at big screen TVs broadcasting the ceremony, none of which will be visible to the naked eye).

This huge mass of bodies (thousands and thousands, nearly a million) becomes important on inauguration day because more than anything, I think it’s a day of national pride and it reminds us of the many virtues we try to cultivate as a country (freedom, liberty, justice, equality) and I think most people feel just that. 

In the lines, everyone spoke quietly, pleasant conversation, where we were from, how we got there, how our guys at Hartsfield airport could process two million people in half the time of the parade security guys. We took each others' hands as if we were passing peace, feeling our bond as Americans, as if our membership in a larger community were as intimate almost as our memberships in our various spiritual communities.

It was a great day but still I wish that larger community of Americans could have all heard Patricia’s sermon this morning, on Paul’s love letter to a fractious community (most often heard in weddings). But the love Paul spoke of, as Billy said at the door after the service, is the harder kind of love. Loving certainly those in your immediate church (what would be the point if you didn’t, even the ones that irritate you) but love as a selfless practice, love as the centerpiece of who we are. Love as a foundation of our Christianity. Without love, we’re nothing, Paul says (I'm paraphrasing).

I’ll quote a bit here:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.