day three: phil

Today did not go as planned.

Suzy and I had initially decided that we were going to take sugar-free candy to nursing homes. Didn't happen...because we've also had some new people move into houses on our street, and we wanted to take them cookies to welcome them to the neighborhood. Didn't happen...because we met Phil.

We went to lunch at Stax's Original on Poinsett Highway, and as we were walking in we noticed a man sitting on the curb in the parking lot. You've seen the type before: beard, backpack, dirty. If we hadn't made this Lenten commitment, I doubt we would have said or done anything. We probably would have thought about talking to him or offering him a meal, but I doubt that either of us would have vocalized it, much less actually have done it. But...

A typical meal at Stax's Original

When I walked back outside, I went up to the man and asked if he was doing OK. He said, "I woke up this morning. That's better than the alternative." I chuckled and said, "That's true." But I also realized that his response might not just be a witty answer to a trite question, but a scary possibility he faces when he goes to sleep each night.

After we introduced ourselves, I asked him if he had anything for lunch and invited him to join us inside. He declined, saying that he wasn't really comfortable around crowds, so I took his "to-go" order instead. While we waited for his BLT and fries, Suzy and I talked about how we could be as relational as possible and treat Phil like a "real person." How ridiculous is it that we have to have a conversation about how to treat another human being like a human being? And even so, as we talked we realized that we were using words like "they" and "them" to describe people who are hungry or homeless or both. "They're just like us." Even with our good intentions, our hypocrisy was evident.

When I brought it back out to him, he was standing and seemed ready to leave. We chatted for a minute. I asked him where he was from.
He shrugged. "All over."
I asked where he was headed.
"You know, I don't really know where I'm going."
I asked if he had somewhere to stay tonight.
He told me he had a tent in the woods behind the Lowe's just up the road and asked me if it was going to rain. I said I didn't think it would, at least not much.

Before he walked away, I offered a simple prayer for the food and for Phil. But "giving thanks" for a meal doesn't feel the same when you're praying with someone for whom the food we're about to eat might be the only he has all day. I went back inside, Phil went back to his tent (so I assume), and I have no idea what will happen to him or where he'll go.

As Suzy and I were planning this Lenten commitment, I told her that I was worried that if we scheduled something for each day, we would not have room for more spontaneous acts. I was wrong.

None of us really knows where we're going; not if we will let ourselves be interrupted and follow the detours that God graciously offers us, detours that lead us in "roundabout ways that end up in the right direction" (as Harold Kushner translates Psalm 23).

Today certainly did not go as planned. But it did end up in the right direction. Thank God.