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As I left church today, a woman was sitting outside the door. I braced myself for what would surely be a request for money. "Sir," she said as I walked past her quickly, "please buy me something to eat." My reflexes spit out all the usual responses in my mind:
- You can't help everyone who asks. (Last night, three people asked me for money, all within as many blocks of the same street.)
- They only want alcohol.
- It will only encourage them to return and make it their post.
But as I continued on my way, her words echoed in my mind: "Please buy me something to eat." And I heard sincere desperation in her tone. This was honestly the first time in 30 years of living in DC that someone had asked me for food rather than money. She was not after alcohol, and she wasn't trying to scam me; she was hungry, plain and simple. And this wasn't the kind of hunger that makes you blurt out happily, "I'm starving!" on the way to the restaurant on 14th Street that's the new hot place for brunch. This was the kind of aching, gnawing, all-consuming hunger that is not satisfied on a consistent basis. We all know what it's like to be hungry, but we also know that it is within our own power and usually timing to ameliorate it.
This was something I could do, and easily. I was headed to Whole Foods, anyway. Heck, it didn't even have to be a sacrifice, since I could buy this woman lunch and eat what I had at home instead. I weighed the time required to walk back and tell her, against the time it would take to just keep going and return. Even if I asked her to wait, there was no guarantee she would believe me and stay...so I picked up my pace and kept going.
In Acts 9, after seeing the Lord on the road to Damascus, "something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again." As I neared Whole Foods, I suddenly saw things more clearly. That I had just bought a lemon-ginger dark chocolate bar for myself, on a whim. That I was going to Whole Foods to buy white birch firewood because it burns better than standard hardwood in the fireplace in my "luxury condo." That I could buy lunch for someone else and not even think twice about the cost, and that I would be doing so instead of going to a nice restaurant for brunch with friends - as I did almost every Sunday, again, without even considering what I might spend. I was astounded and excited in my reset perspective and worried about getting back to church before the woman left.
Unfortunately, she had, by the time I got back. I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda...and now I have a sandwich and drink for tomorrow. Sometimes you just have to act rather than overthinking it, to do as the Spirit moves you. Damn this need to analyze and be sure all the time!
I will hope and pray she returns next week, and if she does, God help me, I won't hesitate this time.
People jaywalk all the time. Everyone knows that. I myself jaywalk - but only when it doesn't inconvenience any driver, and only when I am responsible for myself and not anyone with me.
Tourists in DC push jaywalking to the extreme, as if they have some invisible force field around them, making them impervious to cars going 35, headed straight towards them. The larger their numbers, the more they believe in their safety and right to stop traffic.
But this year's prize goes to the woman who crossed against the signal at the Lincoln Memorial this afternoon, looking straight at me and playing chicken with me and several other fast approaching drivers - while she pulled her small children along with her.
Can someone tell me what kind of fucked-up thinking makes it worth using your own small children as human shields so you won't have to wait thirty seconds for the light to change?
It wasn't like we were several blocks away (which would still not have made it right); we were less than a block's distance from her when she started across the street. This was at the northwest corner of the Lincoln Memorial, a stretch of roadway where there is rarely a break in the traffic coming from or headed towards the Memorial Bridge, a major artery across the Potomac connecting Virginia and DC. After decades of dangerous situations involving tourists coming out of caravans of buses parked illegally on the opposite side of the road, a traffic light was finally installed. There is no vehicular cross traffic at this light - no intersection exists - so there is no other reason to stop traffic. Of course, this dumb-shit mother couldn't be expected to understand that that light was put there solely for her safety.
The only reasonable explanation for her breathtaking stupidity was arrogance - the belief that her time, even thirty seconds of it, was worth far more than mine or that of all the other drivers around me, and that therefore, she had the right to stop all traffic, regardless of the signal. This is really the height of arrogance. Not surprising in this city, though it's not what you would expect from a tourist (which makes me postulate that she was a local. I think most tourists know when they're being stupid, even while behaving stupidly.)
Should I have stopped? Probably. Was it stupid to keep driving right past her as she reached the median? Probably. Was it worth the risk of hitting someone just for the sake of making a point? No. I'm sure that while I was thinking she couldn't possibly be stupid enough to actually keep walking, she was thinking I couldn't possibly be stupid enough to keep driving.
But let's not forget, she created the situation of her own free will. This was not like NYC, where every day, masses of working people jaywalk with hostile drivers barreling down on them. If you're going to play chicken with your own life and assume all personal risk, go ahead. But don't take anyone with you, especially not children. And certainly not your own.
