Why I Love Working In The City

Once again, you never know what you are going to experience when you answer the doorbell here at the Garden. It could be a package full of garbage, it could be someone you are supposed to meet with tomorrow according to your calendar, it could be anything at all.

Today it was a man who needed help, needed cash to do something, I have already forgot, because what ensued after was quite, moving? disturbing? not sure what yet.

Anyway, I opened the door and here was a man needing money for whatever it was. After ten minutes of talking I was drunk from the alcohol on his breath. So we wandered down to the nearest bar and... just kidding.

I couldn't help him as I had no cash and he did not want a check, he probably just needed money for some more alcohol. After we talked for a while, slurring our words and everything he suddenly got very emotional.

I mean REALLY emotional.

Not in a mean emotional kind of way, just a the world is so damn heavy and I can't take it anymore kind of way.

He started sobbing, crying and blubbering and fell on his knees, the whole time, dragging me with him.

Now it may sound as if we just fell down, but it was about a five minute process of falling, my legs are killing me right now.

He was rubbing my arms, my legs, giving me these big hugs and saying thank you thank you thank you. It was quite the experience. It reminded me once again, how easy it is to make people on the fringes of our culture invisible. As we knelt at the door to the church, him on my front and the door putting painful pressure on my calves, many people walked by without so much as a glance.

I couldn't help this man financially, and probbly wouldn't have if I had had the money to do it, but all he really needed was someone to listen to him, and someone to hold him.

As I drove away an hour or so later to a meeting I had, I saw him on one of the corners on our block. He nodded to me, smiled and turned away, walking on to the next thing, whatever it would be.

Be well,
A+

Comments

JKSk8terboy said…
You know that story makes me think of a woman I see a lot around the city. She is usually sitting on a bench or somewhere screaming about God and Sin and people having eyes in the back of their heads. Nothing she ever says is completely coharent nor is it the normal loud preaching about Christianity done on a street corner, but what makes it interesting is to watch the expressions and body language of people around her.
10:26 AM
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