"Hey, you look nice. Will you be my friend?"
Coming out of the BART station, I turned and saw a disheveled-looking, middle-aged black man carrying a red garbage bag. I pulled my iPod out of my ears and say hi.
"My name is Lionel. I'm a student at Laney College. I don't really have any friends, but sometimes I meet nice folks like yourself here at the BART. Will you be my friend?"
I nodded and asked what he studied.
"American studies."
I wonder to myself if that's like American history, or political science, or both. America seems like an awfully broad topic to study. I smile and wonder where this conversation is headed. He doesn't seem like a pervert, or a homeless person, or a gangster. Maybe just kind of lonely or a bit mentally unwell.
"So, can I give you my phone number? My best friend Annie who I met here never calls me. I don't have her number, so I can't ever call her. I get so angry sometimes! Where do you go to school? Oh wait, it's summer, there is no school. Silly me! So will you promise to call me? Maybe we can even hang out or something. My parents let me move out here by myself and it gets awfully lonely."
Here's where I froze up and didn't quite know what to say. My parents had always instructed me to not open the door to strangers, give out my Social Security number, or tell personal information to people I don't know.
My mind raced. I could make up a name, and a number, and he would never know. I don't usually come to Lake Merritt on Wednesday mornings anyway. The good ol' faux information route. Lends false hope to the recipient and guilt to the provider.
The Christ in me pleaded with me to help him, to LOVE him. My heart broke a little bit at his eager-looking face. But how the heck was I supposed to do that, by giving him my number? By taking his, and then not calling him? I couldn't even really offer money to him, and maybe he would have even been insulted.
I felt powerless in that minute. I suppose I was saved when the shuttle pulled up a few seconds later, and he muttered to himself and sort of walked away.
Commuting in East Oakland is different from walking down the streets of Berkeley. At Berkeley, you can choose to ignore the homeless person that greets you in front of Subway. You might feel guilty, but there is comfort in knowing that there is distance between you and the person. A comfortable distance. It's rare that a homeless person with lice will sit next to you on the bus (which also happened today, on the commute home).
In this summer of commuting to The Hospital, I've gotten a real glimpse of Jesus' heart for the poor, for the unwell, for the unwanted. And the hardest part is not the heartbreak, but realizing how little I can do right now. Even all of the compassion and good will that I can eke out won't solve these people's problems. Is it hypocritical to say I have a heart for the poor, but not want to give my phone number to the man at the BART? Is it wrong to say that I like serving the homeless population but shifted my head closer to the window during the whole bus ride back? Some might say, No, stupid--it's smart that you didn't give your number to a stranger. And what good would getting lice do? Nothing. You handled it with as much tact as you could muster.
Sigh.
So I'm torn between this balance of wanting to get my hands dirty and wanting--no, continuing--to serve from a clean, contained, comfortable bubble. In my everyday dealings. Not a once-in-a-while thing, not a going-out-of-my-way-to-find-these-situations thing. These things just happen on the way to work, weekly. Really, I've never encountered anything quite like this. God must really want to show me something.
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