I walked into the train station this morning and was greeted by a guy looking to take a ride on the subway. I didn’t have anything left on my card so I couldn’t swipe him in, and I had no cash. So I went to the ATM, took out $40, gave him one of them. The guy made me give him a hug.
On any given day, there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll be receptive. Half that time I’ll be the big magnanimous guy and help someone out. The other half of the time I’ll tell myself I’m too busy or don’t have the money or whatever.
Funny, after years of talking about this, I still walk right by people half of the time.
My heart is so hard. Why am I so unwilling to part with resources that could help someone out? I don’t know whether that guy really needed to get on the train or not – I know he bought himself and his friend a soda first from the stand outside of the station. But I know that $20 meant a hell of a lot more to him than it did to me – enough to give a stranger a hug. It wasn’t a sarcastic act of gratitude either – the guy was genuinely thankful. And I felt terrible – terrible because I knew he just caught me on a good day. Terrible because he was talking to me as I was taking my money out of the ATM and I was mostly ignoring him. Terrible because as he was going in for the hug I thought to myself “Oh no, I bet he smells awful.”
My heart is so hard. I had no problem parting with a few hundred bucks gambling in Lake Tahoe the week prior (at least in theory – we actually took her colleagues to school.) But half the time it’s a terrible inconvenience to help out someone else. And the other half of the time I do so, but secretly hope that the transaction can take place without any exchange of eye contact, without conversation, certainly without a hug. I probably would have preferred that he were behind one of those glass walls and I sent it to him through a vacuum tube.
Paul summed up Christianity, indeed all of life, this way:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I have a lot of work to do.
