Tales from Last Week, Part 1
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"Can you spare me eighty cents? Please?"
She got right in my face, this tiny woman standing between me and the revolving door of Bloomingdale's. Pleadingly, she zeroed in on me, picked me out of the crowd that afternoon on that very busy street, and asked again: "I need eighty cents. Please, can you give me eighty cents?"
Later, I was discussing this encounter with Other Equal Half. "What an ingenious way to panhandle!" I said. "Nobody is going to take the time to dig through their change to find exactly eighty cents-- if somebody is going to give you money, you're sure to get at least a buck by doing it that way!"
By the looks of her (which clearly is a superficial way to think about it, but in a split second encounter, the visual may be all you have of somebody) eighty cents was not going to change her life in any perceptible way. It was going to take a lot of eighty-cent encounters to get her even a cup of coffee on that street. Many, many more to get her anything else she might have been trying to get.
Yet, of all the panhandlers and "luggage stewards" I encountered that week, she is the one I remember. She didn't sit against the wall, rattling a cup or sing the blues with her guitar case open. She got as close as she possibly could to me, stood between me and the potential pair of shoes I was looking for at Bloomies, looked me square in the eye, and asked for something specific.
How often are we that specific when we ask somebody for something? I remember when I was much younger, with two young kids in the house, often, when I was especially flustered by being stuck in a very small house in bad weather, repeatedly muttering under my breath, "Could I just get some HELP around here?" And I remember the OEH, equally younger, almost looking right through me, trying to figure out what it was I was asking for. Years have taught me better. I am usually able to be much more specific now, but not always.
How often do we ask someone we clearly see in distress, "What can I do for you?" Wouldn't it be so much better if the person responded with a specific task, a secific thing we can actually DO that would not only help the other person, but would take away that impotent feeling we have?
Even the One who knows us and knew what we would really need before we ever came to be, don't you think She wants us to just once in awhile get very specific? If we need fifty dollars to help make the electric bill, do we ask Him for that?
It just makes me think...
She got right in my face, this tiny woman standing between me and the revolving door of Bloomingdale's. Pleadingly, she zeroed in on me, picked me out of the crowd that afternoon on that very busy street, and asked again: "I need eighty cents. Please, can you give me eighty cents?"
Later, I was discussing this encounter with Other Equal Half. "What an ingenious way to panhandle!" I said. "Nobody is going to take the time to dig through their change to find exactly eighty cents-- if somebody is going to give you money, you're sure to get at least a buck by doing it that way!"
By the looks of her (which clearly is a superficial way to think about it, but in a split second encounter, the visual may be all you have of somebody) eighty cents was not going to change her life in any perceptible way. It was going to take a lot of eighty-cent encounters to get her even a cup of coffee on that street. Many, many more to get her anything else she might have been trying to get.
Yet, of all the panhandlers and "luggage stewards" I encountered that week, she is the one I remember. She didn't sit against the wall, rattling a cup or sing the blues with her guitar case open. She got as close as she possibly could to me, stood between me and the potential pair of shoes I was looking for at Bloomies, looked me square in the eye, and asked for something specific.
How often are we that specific when we ask somebody for something? I remember when I was much younger, with two young kids in the house, often, when I was especially flustered by being stuck in a very small house in bad weather, repeatedly muttering under my breath, "Could I just get some HELP around here?" And I remember the OEH, equally younger, almost looking right through me, trying to figure out what it was I was asking for. Years have taught me better. I am usually able to be much more specific now, but not always.
How often do we ask someone we clearly see in distress, "What can I do for you?" Wouldn't it be so much better if the person responded with a specific task, a secific thing we can actually DO that would not only help the other person, but would take away that impotent feeling we have?
Even the One who knows us and knew what we would really need before we ever came to be, don't you think She wants us to just once in awhile get very specific? If we need fifty dollars to help make the electric bill, do we ask Him for that?
It just makes me think...
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