day twenty-five: (re)phil

I'm beginning to think that I shouldn't even make a calendar for these next couple of weeks. Every time I update it, it changes again.

I didn't want it to today. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to keep driving. I just wanted to keep going on my way, to eat lunch at my in-laws and go for a quick run before making some visits.

But there was Phil, again (we had given him a sandwich on day three), standing beside the road next to Stax's, holding a sign that simply read "Hungry." I really didn't want to, but I couldn't not stop.

After a brief chat in the parking lot, during which I (re)introduced myself, I invited Phil to join me for lunch inside. He was reluctant, but eventually he agreed to sit down with me for a meal. It was really hard to talk at first. I felt like it wasn't just a table that separated us, and the distance between us seemed infinitely greater than width of the booth.

Our lives are so different. I don't even know if we operate on the same terms. When I asked him where he was living, Phil told me and said, "Well, I don't really 'live' out there. I exist. Know what I mean?"

I didn't. My life is so unlike his existence.

As we settled into our seats, though, the distance between us shrunk. The more we talked, the more I realized that while we have very different lives/existences, we share common human experiences - family drama, deep emotional pain, humor and laughter. In fact, I found out that his birthday was just a week ago (only a few days after mine), and the restaurant manager brought us a piece of birthday cake leftover from his daughter's party earlier in the day...a nice coincidence (providence?).

When we finished, I redeemed my Stax's loyalty card, full and ready to be used.

Spend $150, get $15 free.

It seems like I am always having to replenish these cards. But that's the whole idea. You fill it up, empty it, then refill it...much like our struggle against hunger, poverty, and injustice.

Jesus once spoke to some "blessed" ones and said, "For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink..." (Mt 25:35). Jesus speaks in the past tense. The feeding, giving, etc. has already been done. And it had with Phil, too. I had already given food to Phil once before.

But I wasn't done...and I don't know if I ever will be. In the service of others, we are always moving from the present tense of Phil's sign ("[I am] Hungry") to the past tense of Jesus' words ("I was hungry"). We are making a present need a past reality as we move into God's future. We are offering a refill.

day seventeen: pay it backward

"I don't know."

This short phrase can be an admission of ignorance, an apathetic mumble offered with a shrug, or the greatest statement of faith that we can offer.

In regards to today's activity, all I can say is, "I don't know."

Today started with me not knowing what to have for breakfast. I opened the fridge and this is what I found:

That reminds me: we need to throw out that casserole from two weeks ago on the bottom shelf.

As I pulled in to Dunkin' Donuts, I was all ready for today's culinary care. I was going to pull up to the window, pay for my order, and give some extra money to the cashier to pay for the person behind me in line. A different way to "pay it forward" (pay it backward?).

But when I turned the corner of the building, there was no one in line, and no one pulling in behind me. Not a very good sign. Luckily, as I got to the window, a car came up behind me.

The rearview mirror

My total was $9.70, so I handed the guy a $20 bill. I told him to keep the change and use it to pay for the person behind me. After I got my food, I pulled away slowly to watch what would happen. The car pulled up to the window, the driver extended his arm to hand the cashier his money, and...

...the cashier took it!

I drove away, pissed! Then I thought...maybe the cashier realized what he was doing and gave the money back to the driver; maybe the driver was better off than me and didn't even need the money, passing it on to someone behind him; maybe the cashier needed the extra money himself, or maybe he just wanted to pocket it. I don't know.

Later in the day, while visiting the Greenville Rescue Mission to find out how our church could support their work. While there, one of the counselors started talking about a guy that has never wanted to live at the mission. The counselor would occasionally see him, they'd have a meal together, and the counselor would extend the invitation to the mission again, but the guy always preferred to live in the woods. This homeless man's name was Phil...the Phil we met on day three!

I don't know where he is. I don't know what happened to him after we saw him. I don't know if he will ever find a place to stay. There's so much I don't know, so much I can't know, not just about Phil or the driver behind me but in everything we do. I just don't know.

I'd like to, though. But if I'm learning a lesson through these 40 days, it's that I can't, I won't, and I really don't need to. (I grit my teeth as I type this, fighting every keystroke). I can't know and I can't control how others respond to what I am doing. I may not ever know if anything that we've done is helpful or meaningful to anyone. All I can do is offer what I can, and trust and hope that some good may come out of it.

There's lots of different ways to translate Romans 8:28a, but here's the way I read it: "But we know that in all things God works together with those who love God for good."

If nothing else, I do know that.

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.