Cynicism and Hope

I believe in the healing power of homemade soup.

And conversation.

And friendship.

And dear, praying people who chop onions and cry so you won’t have to.

A friend who was once homeless sends me this memory:

When my older daughter was little and my younger one was a baby, we went to the Haitian office on Lunt when other food pantries would not help us. They were only supposed to give assistance to Haitians. The old lady took one look at us and gave us diapers, formula, and food, and offered me money as well (which I did not take). She said we are all mothers. I have never forgotten her kindness.

Says my neighbor who spends her days walking, “By your house is always clean. You know I many walk. Thank you.” Then she beckons me to the unshoveled section where the alley crosses the sidewalk. Saying “Please,” she motions for me to shovel there too. I do, and I enjoy her gratitude.

That’s what Julio Diaz of New York City did.

We don’t know what became of the mugger, but do we need to know?

For Diaz, the equation is elementary: “I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Jeremy had that look on his face this morning. His shoulders were slumped, his face was frozen, and when he turned to me his face crumpled into pain.

A month ago we’d started – really he’d started – to strip the paint from our fireplace mantle and later the brick. Eighty years of paint – we counted 20 layers – was proving a stubborn adversary. And it was taking its toll on my husband.

I walked into the living room and looked over the mess – the top of the mantle, which he’d dismantled earlier in the week, was half resting on the rubble on top of the brick, half lying in the hallway. The bricks were at various states of having been attacked – I saw green, white, blue, pink, some raw brick. The closer I got to the fireplace, the stronger the fumes of the environmentally friendly paint stripper got.

And that’s when the words from last night came echoing back to me. I’d even been the one to quote my mom last night – after Suk Maya, a friend from Bhutan, insisted we read Matthew 6.

My mother used to look me in the eye and say with a stern voice and her finger wagging, “God gave everyone a gift to share with others. Are you going to pretend you don’t have a need – pretend you don’t have a hole that needs to be filled – and ROB that person of their opportunity to give to you? How dare you prevent them from giving by refusing to receive!”

And so I called Suman and Nathaniel.

There were several reasons not to. They are newly arrived refugees from Bhutan. Suman already has 2 jobs – some days he works 16 hour shifts. He supports his wife, his mother and his 3 sisters. They all live in the same 2 bedroom apartment a couple of blocks away. Nathaniel has relatives arriving tonight from Nepal (his mom is Suk Maya from last night’s storytelling group).

But the look on my husband’s face – he’s an extrovert who gets energy from being with people, and doing this huge project alone was killing him – made me call anyway.

Nathaniel wasn’t sure what stripping paint from brick meant but I asked him to come over to take a look. He came. Suman showed up just a few minutes later. They put on the jumpsuits Jeremy gave them and soon paint chips were flying everywhere.

A couple of hours later Suman had to go to work, so the three men stopped for the day. Jeremy offered money but Suman said,

“You shouldn’t even offer. Aren’t we friends?”

Yes, of course! Jeremy replied.  We’ve shared meals and so much tea, brought them gifts, visited and told stories in the evenings in a sweaty one-bedroom apartment crammed with the whole extended family.

“Don’t you help me?” Suman said.

We did help him move about a month ago. We’d gotten the truck and driven it because he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet. Jeremy just paused.

“Then alright,” Suman concluded, and they all said good-bye.

Today was a rough day. It was a rough day before I got stuck for a half hour in stopped traffic on Lower Wacker—a half hour of breathing fumes. It was a rough day before I had to ditch the children at the dentist’s office (at which we arrived late because of wacky Wacker), and run over to the computer shop because the software I had them install so I can run my indexing software conked out on me within a week of installation.

It was a rough day before I was rummaging through a software box for a disk that wasn’t there.

Finally I confessed that I was a bit flustered because I’d had a rough day. The proprietor, Nabih, checked with his wife and coworker, Esther, about their evening schedule, then said he could work on the computer this evening if I could run home and get the missing disks.

When I returned to the shop an hour later after retrieving the children from the dentist, running them through McDonald’s drive-through, and stopping in the house to exchange children for software, I thanked Nabih and Esther for their kindness. I said that it meant a lot to me on a challenging day.

“People are for each other,” Nabih said. Then while he attended to another customer, Esther offered me a cup of tea and asked after my family.

Do you know what a blessing such kindness is on a day like today? It reminds me that God is good, and God is here, and I am not alone.

Besides being very kind, Nabih and Esther have assembled a fine team of computer experts. If you live near Evanston, Illinois, and need to buy a computer or have one serviced, visit Nabih’s on Davis. You’ll be glad you did.

My friend who blogs at The Green Room under the pen name E. Peevie wrote a post about her daughter’s encounter with a mean girl that contains this lovely passage:

And then my baby angel peanut butter cup opened up a bit more about the MeanGirl encounter. “I’m really confused, though, Mom,” she said. “First, MeanGirl said those mean things to me, and then later, when I was helping her with her shoe, she said I was a life saver! I don’t know whether she’s my friend or not!”

“Wait a minute, M. Peevie,” I said. “First, MeanGirl said those mean things to you, and then later, you helped her with her shoe?”

“Yes,” said my hero, “she had a bad knot, and I sat down and helped her get it out, and she told me I was a life saver.” Oh, baby girl. You showed kindness to someone who treated you badly. You are living the Sermon on the Mount, and you are only eight. You convict me.

And then I kind of ruined the moment by attempting to convert it into a Life Lesson.

Yeah, E., you kinda goofed on this one. But I think it’s because you missed that M. had already served up the Life Lesson.

There are a few incidents in my children’s lives that have become our symbols for important truths, and we refer back to them to appreciate the full meaning of those truths time and again. You still have the opportunity to make that untangled shoelace just that sort of symbol.

So, rewind.

“Ah, M., I’m so proud of you! She was mean to you, and you were kind to her.”

Then you can listen for mention of MeanGirl’s name. If things turn out better with her, then the untangled shoelace becomes a symbol for the truth that kindness in response to unkindness can be a first step toward reconciliation.

And if MeanGirl stays mean, the untangled shoelace can become a symbol for the truth that kindness can’t always turn unkindness around, but that God calls us to kindness anyway. And that, yeah, that’s a difficult truth.

I’d like to think that that’s how I would handle it. But maybe I wouldn’t be so clear-headed if someone was saying mean things to my daughter.