Passing Peace

I was downtown early the other morning on Marietta Street walking through the GSU campus. It was early enough that it was still quite nippy, the wind whipping through the buildings, rising up over the expressway against a clear blue sky, made brilliant by the gold on the Capitol dome. Passing me in both directions on the sidewalk, students with backpacks, groups of athletes, business people, cops. 

I was walking quickly to stay warm and because I was late for an appointment, when a small dark body came up close on my right side. As we made eye contact, he said “good morning.” I smiled. “Good morning,” I returned. The little man kept step with me, and continued, “Thank you for speaking. A lot of people don’t.”

Of course, he spoke to me first but it was nice of him to say. I stopped a moment and he told me his story—he had HIV, it was tough on the street. I had no money, not even a cash card. I gave him my hand before hurrying away on my business.

I was thinking of that this morning in church as we passed peace in the early service. How important it is to touch other people, to look them in the eye, to smile and say “peace.” You matter just because you are a human being. We don’t always know everyone at church, or know them well, and it doesn’t matter. We are practicing blessing each other and that’s what we take with us when we go out into the world.

Ok, the stranger who spoke to me that morning did not disappear from my life. Later in the afternoon, when the sun was out and I was walking through Five Points, I chanced to look back and quite unexpectedly, there he was again. I smiled in recognition, in the way that you do with people that you have connected on the level of, “we are all in this crazy life together.” This time, he smiled back.