Who Is the Guest At Our Table?
Dr. Mary Lamb Shelden
“As I thought back to that moment . . . I knew exactly why I looked away. I was so afraid of my own need, I couldn’t look need in the eye.”
~ Brené Brown, Rising Strong
A few days after Thanksgiving this year, an old high school friend reported on an interaction he’d had with a stranger, a black man, on Chicago’s South Side. The man had approached him saying, twice – “I’m not robbing you, but I’m desperate for money.” My friend, a white guy, a tradesman working in the area, gave him the $20 he had in his wallet, and was now processing the event on Facebook, trying to figure out whether this was “a new kind of scam.” With alarming speed, the discussion thread turned to weapons for self-defense. Few were the voices urging mercy and compassion – though when we emerged, I think we gently rounded off the discussion. I hope we helped others on the thread re-think their positions, but I have my doubts.
This stranger who approached my high school friend has been much on my mind this holiday season. I have come to think of him as one of the guests at my table.
I know the Guest At Your Table boxes you took home this season back in November – or maybe left in the church at their usual stations – may have become invisible to you by now. I know because this has sometimes happened to me during this season. It is a truism among UUs that, as Emerson warned, repeated rituals can become “dead forms.” But there is another opportunity in ritual practice that I hope we consider. As we daily or nightly light our chalice or menorah or kinara, I hope that by the candlelight we can see this little box as a placeholder for the very real people desperate for our help.
Who is the guest at my table? It is the man who sits outside the Evanston Athletic Center, with his daily greeting and request for aid. I have generally walked by him, explaining that I don’t have my wallet, which is true. But a couple of weeks ago, after I had passed him in the usual way, another woman came behind me with a folded bill in hand. “Thank you for remembering me,” he said, and she replied, “I always have something for you.” And in a moment, I realized that I had been so concerned about being suckered, that I had forgotten to be concerned about being hardhearted. The guest at my table is also the guy outside the CVS, where I go only a couple of times a month, always noticing that he is faithfully at his station – so that I have come to ask, what am I doing so faithfully as he, and is it worth doing? The other day, I picked up two Panera gift cards and a couple of packs of handwarmers, for the EAC guy and the CVS guy, whose names I do not know – Margie’s idea that I felt was a good one. When I gave this little gift package to the CVS guy, he was clearly touched – but it was the difference it made to me that I want to share with you. I was aware that this gift was insufficient. I began to think, though, then about the larger difference I might make if I could make such a contribution – which was well within our means – a regular practice. I was feeling pretty good about this Idea while I was parking at the club – and then the guy I had expected to see there wasn’t at his usual station. He has been much on my mind since then. Today will be my first opportunity since to deliver his little package. I hope he is well. I hope I will see him, as it has turned colder. Or that he is someplace warmer.
Who is the guest at your table? Have you seen the men I’ve described here? Or the woman who sits outside the Jewel on Chicago Avenue? Who do you walk by as you go about your dailiness? Are they in your thoughts and prayers? Might you make room for them there? Might you make their well being a practice in your own life?
Tulsidas Ramayan tells us that when Hanuman, servant of the god Rama, was asked what he was, man or beast, he answered quietly: “When I don’t know who I am, I serve you; but when I know who I am, I am you.” The guest at our table, friends, is us.
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (https://www.uusc.org/) – the legacy of the organization that we learned about during our visit from the General Assembly Chalice, that helped so many immigrants escape the Nazis—is our UUA organization assisting those around the world most desperate for our help. This holy week—as our congregation has affirmed that we stand ready to protect the immigrant strangers in our midst, as we remember that ancient holy family, escaping Herod’s wrath and treachery—I invite you to keep those most desperate in mind, to stay awake to their need, and to your means of answering it. May our flame of aid and assistance burn brightly in this dark season. May we be of service. May it be so.