Be Kind

"I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind"
 - Skinny Love, by Bon Iver 


Confession: although there are many times when encounters with strangers can turn into something significant, I tend to try and avoid even basic run-ins with people I don't know. Entering a store, I often say a prayer in my head, "Please don't talk to me, please leave me alone," inwardly flinching when a sales associate asks if they can help me with anything and I have to do the whole, "No thank you, just looking," bit while they look at me looking around. Silly, right?

Then there are the times when I'm the one initiating the encounter, and wondering later how the other person felt about it.


There's a man whom I have often seen sitting on a specific street corner. His clothes are tattered and dirty. His hair is tangled and his skin is weathered. I've passed him so many times, walking and in taxis. This morning, I talked to him for the first time. I had two extra sandwiches and decided to give them to someone on the street: a performer maybe, or someone like him if he wasn't there. I had gone hiking with the Casa Gabriel boys yesterday and made a ton of sandwiches for everyone, so many I forgot about the extra ones stowed in my backpack. I had to go grocery shopping so I grabbed the sandwiches from the fridge and went looking for someone to give them to. Sure enough, the man was sitting at his usual spot on the street corner. I approached him.

"Good morning," I said in Spanish, smiling. "Would you like a sandwich? It's ham and cheese." I held out the ziplock-bagged sandwich. The man looked from me to the sandwich uncertainly, before reaching out to take it.
"Actually I have two," I said, pulling out the second one. "I had extra." He took that as well and I stood there, smiling but feeling awkward. The man's face had a large scab along his chin, his hair as tangled and his clothes as worn as ever. Yet for the first time I truly saw his eyes: they were a piercing blue. He didn't seem to be Ecuadorian. Where was he from?

"Well," I said, and I reached out to touch the sleeve of his jacket, about to say "God bless you,", when the man jerked away and said "Don't touch."
"I'm sorry, it's okay," I said, pulling back. "God bless you," I said, smiled, and crossed the street. It wasn't until I was walking away that it registered with me: the man had spoken English. Should I have switched to English? Did he understand Spanish at all - anything I had said?

As I bought groceries, I thought about the man and what, if anything, I could do in the future. I could say hi when I saw him, at least. But more than that, should I find out what language he speaks and ask if he has a Bible? If he would like one? There are others more equipped than I to reach out to him, I know. Others for whom it is safer, and to whom he may open up more, possibly.

When I passed by the street corner in a taxi, my groceries loaded in the back, the man was gone. I hope, at least, that he eats the sandwiches and is maybe less hungry today. I hope that even though he withdrew sharply from a touch on the sleeve that he was in some way touched by someone speaking kindly to him. I hope that even if I never know his story, his background, his name, that someone does who cares about him and can reach him. Encounters with strangers can be difficult, awkward, and surprising. I hope that for today, a couple of sandwiches were a good surprise for him.