Reflection 8

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."
George Washington Carver

Not the Full Story

BY GAIL PERRY JOHNSTON

It’s so easy to serve if you live in a big city. In my four years in Manhattan, I occasionally volunteered to stay overnight in various homeless shelters that were within walking distance of my apartment. My duties involved greeting the homeless as they arrived and helping them choose their beds and put on the sheets. I also put out fresh bread, donated by another volunteer, and offered everyone a spread of peanut butter from a humongous jar of Jiffy. It wasn’t a tough job, but I am rich with memories of those nights.

My favorite shelter was housed in the basement of an old church. It was cold and damp, and mice scurried about. But it had beautiful architectural features and a wonderful sense of history with low arches and picturesque tiles in curious places. This particular shelter was for the exceptional homeless person. I was told that only those who had proven clear of any drug or alcohol addictions were welcome. Only twelve people were accepted on any given night. With such a small, decent crowd, we were all able to visit around a large, solid wood table that had the markings of a hundred years. The conversation was light, but every now and then, something significant would be shared. One evening a man told us his story. “I used to have a family and a good-paying job,” he said. “But then I had a car accident, and everyone in my family died except for me. I couldn’t go on after that.”

Because of this man’s story, which still moves me today, I am determined never to judge a homeless person—or anyone in need, for that matter. When serving, there is no place for judgment. Later, when it comes time to vote on a particular bill, we can apply our analytical brains and determine what might be right or wrong for society. But when we are in the field, it’s best to put all of that aside and just try to meet the needs before us, knowing full well that we don’t know the full story.

An area where there tends to be a great deal of judgment is that of the mom on welfare who gets pregnant yet again. What’s her problem?! But even here, we don’t know the full story. Maybe the mom just wants more money from the government, but maybe not. I know of a person I'll rename Janet. Janet was raised by a woman who did not believe evil existed. “Evil is just a matter of wrong thinking,” her mom would tell her. When Janet was raped as a young teen, her mother did not provide an ounce of comfort and even denied the reality of it. With no recognition of the crime from her own mother, Janet never spoke of the incident again and could not find healing from it. She ended up with little, self-worth. From then on, Janet let herself be taken advantage of by one man after another. She eventually lived on welfare with four kids, each one having a different and distant father. I do not approve of Janet’s choices, but knowing about the hurt she experienced as a teen and the lack of adult help through it, I feel compassion for her. I bring her story to mind when I’m tempted to judge another.

I love Carver’s words at the beginning of this reflection. If you haven’t taken the time to meditate on them, I encourage you to do so. If you are young, you may not be able to imagine yourself as weak, but someday you will be. It may not look exactly like the weakness you see in a homeless person, but you will, on occasion, be in one state of need or another.

When we experience life’s hardships, we often grow in leaps and bounds in empathy and maturity. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we possessed compassion for the needy even if we haven’t been in their shoes, even if we can’t relate one bit to their weakness? Not knowing their full story, not needing to know their full story, we extend ourselves, without passing judgment, but with gratefulness that we are in a position to help.