Joel called me the other night. I had a hard time understanding him exactly because phone-speak is sometimes like trying to use the bathroom at night without turning the lights on. Turned out he needed some milk for his daughter and was hoping for some help with that.
He lived on the streets in Zone 3 for years and years, and was deep in drug addiction for the majority of his 20's. It's just the normal of the street life. He and his wife have a 2 year old daughter. They live with her mother, but Joel hasn't been allowed around due to his street life habits. Joel left Zone 3 a few weeks ago and started living on another street with a collective of 10-15 folks who are in and out of the area, picking up temporary jobs here and there, many holding closely to solvents or smokes or alcohols. Joel seems to be doing better in this place. He helps park and wash cars in the evenings, and has left the addiction for only an occasional pull of something here and there. He went to a Rojos professional soccer game with Da Hood! boys and I last week; he was a pretty great Guatemalan host to the only 6 gringos in the stadium.
I parked the car and walked around the corner to find Joel and walk to the store for said milk. I, not being a father, knowest not the ways of purchasing food and drink items for humans under the age of 4, and didst need his due assistance. Joel wasn't there sitting on the sidewalk where I expected to find him. But 3 or 4 of his buddies were who I vaguely recognized from somewhere, drawing some things, rolling some things, sniffing some things. He'd left awhile back. So I told them to give Joel my greetings, and started walking away. "You wanna eat a pizza with us? We're hungry." (Translation: Buy us some pizza, we're hungry!). I didn't, I said. I was just here to help Joel out with his daughter. "Yeah but we're hungry!" They continued. But just as they were speaking, Joel appeared from around the corner. I deflected a couple more pizza requests before Joel and I were walking en route to the supermarket with another of his friends, Alex, who I'd met a couple times before. They'd just come from MegaPaca where they'd found some shoes that Joel wanted but he only had half the money he needed to buy them to replace his ragged ones.
Alex tossed away is solvent-soaked rag once he picked up on a few frustrations I was sharing about the pizza-askers. I want to help them, but if I'm buying their food so they can spend more on their habit, that's not helping all that much. We made it to the supermarket, got a bulk-sized powdered milk for $15. As we're walking back, Alex asked me, "Can we go to MegaPaca and get the shoes?" "Shoes for who?" "For Manuel. They're only 8 bucks." "Sure, lets go have a look at least."
Joel asked me how Alaina's grandma was doing. We talked about how faith fits into that. We talked about his chicken-poxed daughter and how living on the other side of town from her and his wife was pretty tough.
Long story short, I decided to get Joel the shoes. Alex saw his chance, and showed me a pair he really liked, a lot more expensive. Could I buy them for him too? He would help pay with what he had (1/5 of the price).
Pause...
It didn't feel right again. Like pizza. Like unwise giving. Like cheap.
"Give to the one who asks from you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you," rang Jesus' words in my ears. (Matthew 5:42)
"In the liturgy of abundance, there's enough for all to share and have plenty. What makes me more entitled to these dollars than he?" (But is that what it's about? There's something more precious here than the dollars in play, I think.)
He lived on the streets in Zone 3 for years and years, and was deep in drug addiction for the majority of his 20's. It's just the normal of the street life. He and his wife have a 2 year old daughter. They live with her mother, but Joel hasn't been allowed around due to his street life habits. Joel left Zone 3 a few weeks ago and started living on another street with a collective of 10-15 folks who are in and out of the area, picking up temporary jobs here and there, many holding closely to solvents or smokes or alcohols. Joel seems to be doing better in this place. He helps park and wash cars in the evenings, and has left the addiction for only an occasional pull of something here and there. He went to a Rojos professional soccer game with Da Hood! boys and I last week; he was a pretty great Guatemalan host to the only 6 gringos in the stadium.
I parked the car and walked around the corner to find Joel and walk to the store for said milk. I, not being a father, knowest not the ways of purchasing food and drink items for humans under the age of 4, and didst need his due assistance. Joel wasn't there sitting on the sidewalk where I expected to find him. But 3 or 4 of his buddies were who I vaguely recognized from somewhere, drawing some things, rolling some things, sniffing some things. He'd left awhile back. So I told them to give Joel my greetings, and started walking away. "You wanna eat a pizza with us? We're hungry." (Translation: Buy us some pizza, we're hungry!). I didn't, I said. I was just here to help Joel out with his daughter. "Yeah but we're hungry!" They continued. But just as they were speaking, Joel appeared from around the corner. I deflected a couple more pizza requests before Joel and I were walking en route to the supermarket with another of his friends, Alex, who I'd met a couple times before. They'd just come from MegaPaca where they'd found some shoes that Joel wanted but he only had half the money he needed to buy them to replace his ragged ones.
Alex tossed away is solvent-soaked rag once he picked up on a few frustrations I was sharing about the pizza-askers. I want to help them, but if I'm buying their food so they can spend more on their habit, that's not helping all that much. We made it to the supermarket, got a bulk-sized powdered milk for $15. As we're walking back, Alex asked me, "Can we go to MegaPaca and get the shoes?" "Shoes for who?" "For Manuel. They're only 8 bucks." "Sure, lets go have a look at least."
Joel asked me how Alaina's grandma was doing. We talked about how faith fits into that. We talked about his chicken-poxed daughter and how living on the other side of town from her and his wife was pretty tough.
Long story short, I decided to get Joel the shoes. Alex saw his chance, and showed me a pair he really liked, a lot more expensive. Could I buy them for him too? He would help pay with what he had (1/5 of the price).
Pause...
It didn't feel right again. Like pizza. Like unwise giving. Like cheap.
"Give to the one who asks from you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you," rang Jesus' words in my ears. (Matthew 5:42)
"In the liturgy of abundance, there's enough for all to share and have plenty. What makes me more entitled to these dollars than he?" (But is that what it's about? There's something more precious here than the dollars in play, I think.)
Alex asked a good 8 times more as I kept rejecting his requests more firmly, now more due to annoyance than anything. It felt mostly right and wise but also kind of mean and stingy and not-Jesus-like. We went to the register and bought Joel the shoes, and walked outside. Alex, now silent, kept walking indignantly as I invited him to grab some lunch with us from a street vendor outside. I told Joel to stay put and went to talk to Alex one-on-one. "How do you feel right now?" I asked.
"I'm sad because if I liked those shoes and I need to be well-dressed if I'm going to see my daughter, otherwise they won't let me see her." Of course, his disposition was both shallower and deeper than that, but I got the picture. Sure, it don't feel good to be the little brother walking through Kohl's while Mom buys older brother all his birthday presents. But here's the thing that made me feel different about buying for Joel than for Alex yesterday. Joel called me, we talked the day before, he was a little bashful about asking for anything. We'd known each other for 6 months and he'd never asked for anything before. But it's not that he had "earned his gift," but, as I told Alex, I don't want a relationship based on me being a benefactor. I want to walk along with you through the process of faith and struggle and change, and me and Joel have been doing that already, so me buying him shoes doesn't change that foundation. If I buy you shoes, that's not going to change anything, it won't make you a better father to your kid, and it starts our relationship on a basis of material things and money, and I don't want that. If you start to change your person, your habits, and your heart, you'll actually be a better father, not just look like one, and that's what I'm more interested in. The fact that, leaving MegaPaca, you were so focused on the fact that you didn't get shoes that you didn't want to spend any time with Joel and I eating lunch just shows me that you don't really care about relationship. I don't want to spoil the chance at real relationship with you putting stuff and money at the start and the center of it. You're welcome to come have lunch with Joel and I if you want.
I walked to the food vendor. He walked back to the street.
It wasn't about spending not being willing 20 bucks more for shoes. I think (and hope) it was about preserving the foundation of a potentially more meaningful relationship (that may never be, I suppose) and not doing cheap and maybe toxic charity. I hope it was worth it cause it flies in the face of what seems like a pretty straightforward command Jesus gives (cited earlier). People ask me for money and things and food all the time, cause I'm a gringo ya know, a walking jackpot. I know that I say no wrongly sometimes and I say yes unwisely sometimes. Alex wasn't all that bad, really. But because I know I'll see him again, know I'll sit down across from him again, it needed a little extra caution. Caution and wisdom feel stingy and mean sometimes, and in those times (like yesterday) I just hope it was right or that God will make it right. In His time. In His goodness. In His generosity and grace.
I saw Alex again today. He looked me in the eye and said he was sorry for his attitude yesterday. I told him I wasn't sure I did everything right either, but we're learning together. We're learning together.