Nancy Williams: Late night indigents model kindness in action
Several weeks ago, I woke up during the night with severe leg cramps. Frantic Googling indicated hydration, electrolytes, salt, potassium and all that jazz would help. It was 1:30 a.m. and not having concentrated electrolytes on hand, I drove to the nearby convenience store and bought a sports drink. I sat in the car and sipped the drink a long time, while watching people coming and going. The place was hopping. And I had a front row seat.
The late-night crowd isn’t the same as the daytime crowd. Most of the customers appeared to be poor, pierced, tattooed, and not have the cleanest of hair or cared-for teeth. They were people you’d see and figure they had problems. Not homeless that I could tell, but definitely the underclass. What struck me — and stayed with me — was how they treated one another. One very thin man seemed weak and dropped his items while he was waiting in line. Another man picked them up and stood with the weak guy in line until time to put them on the counter, then walked with him out to his car.
Another fella in the store had bandages covering his arms and the bandages were coming unwrapped. He was trying to manage rewrapping the gauze which was covering big sores. An overweight lady in a tank top and cut-off shorts put her grocery items down and came to help him. She didn’t flinch at the sores, and rewrapped his arms. She then looked around for something to secure the bandages. Others in the store tuned in, checked their pockets. Someone else made a suggestion, then another came over and held the gauze while the lady wrapping tied it in place with one of the plastic bags you get when you check out.
People on the sidewalk and at the gas pumps paused and talked to each other. I cracked my window and heard a man telling a woman how the government is using holograms to make us think we see people who aren’t there. He was intelligent, articulate and half-convinced me. The lady was listening and giving thought to his theory.
I wish I could better explain the vibe of the place. The kindness. Unhurried people taking time to notice others around them and engage. Something so special and rare about this. Crummy cars and crummy clothes don’t lend themselves to self-importance. I couldn’t help thinking: This is church. These poor people, with their troubles and problems are tending to each other the way we are all supposed to. Their messed-up lives are more holy than many of the card-carrying religious people I know. Here at 2 a.m. in a parking lot, I am witnessing the beatitudes. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. The poor will be rich. The invisible will be noticed. The unimportant will matter.
To be fair, I’ve been on a jag about the incompatibility of living a ‘Christian’ life and having a packed schedule. I’m troubled by how busy so many of us are. Milking life for adventures and losing ourselves in the process. Dropping off a casserole here, throwing $50 or a prayer there. Telling ourselves we’re taking care of people around us, when in fact the people around us sure don’t think we are.
A friend asked me if think it’s wrong when we don’t notice someone is struggling and needs a hand? I said I don’t know. Depends on what we are doing instead. And how we view the idea “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for another.” I’ve long thought laying down a life doesn’t mean dying, but rather putting aside your plans in order to attend to someone else and theirs.
What are we so busy doing?
Our own struggles. When we have our hands full with troubles and hard times, there may not be much in the tank for others. If you simply don’t have the life force to stop and ask a question or return a call, you get a pass.
Material things. Big houses and nice yards and fine cars and campers and motorcycles and boats and trips and home décor and iPhones and fancy speakers and giant televisions and shoes and concerts and high-dollar hair. Certainly, not things the convenience store crowd has to manage. And a reason to ask do we own our stuff or does it own us? The notion that it’s harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get in to heaven is pretty darn direct.
Work. Folks have to answer for themselves if they work long hours because they need to. Or if it’s to amass more wealth. And more things. Or because it’s habit and simpler than figuring out how to offer a hand where you sense it might be needed.
Status. People who are ‘important’ get more attention for a sprained ankle than the nobodies out there who are coping with true hardship. Shame on us. Not only are we busy, when we do make time for someone, often it’s someone in the limelight. One of the people I know who seems most tuned in to others is a successful attorney. Top-notch in his field. Quietly, he sees who needs a chair and gets one. He offers a ride. He says let me help carry that box. He’s as likely to listen carefully to a nobody than to a somebody, when no one is watching. He gives me hope.
Television. I’m guilty. I used to watch about an hour of television a month. During the pandemic, I occupied myself daily with television programs. If a show has good character development, you feel like you know the people in the show. Those imaginary people take the place of real folks around us. Not good.
Family. This is the hardest one for me to articulate. We are supposed to love and prioritize our families. But same as neglecting family leads to problems, so does behaving as if family is everything. It doesn’t strike me as noble at all when there’s an over-reverence and adoration for The Family. Feels more like the mob. There’s a scripture that references you have to be willing to hate your mother and father and leave everything behind to follow Jesus. I don’t think it means you have to literally hate your family, rather it’s a caution that the worship of your family can be a deterrent to caring for others outside the family.
A man I know in his mid-80s was working with another man on the badly neglected yard of a widow. Without credit or accolade. Doing it merely because he noticed the need. Warmed my heart. Let’s do that with family. Tuning in to nonfamily vs spending time with our family doesn’t have to be an either/or. Instead of another vacation or celebration or calories-fest, let’s round up the family to pay attention and lend a hand where it’s needed. My family will revolt. Still, I’m going to give it a shot.
I’m not on a high horse, just a little horse. Preaching mostly to myself. Because the people at the convenience store at 2 a.m. shouldn’t be better models of kindness in action than those of us who have fewer problems, but are simply too busy.
This is the opinion of Nancy Williams, the coordinator of professional education at UNC Asheville. Contact her at nwilliam@unca.edu.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Nancy Williams: Late night indigents model kindness in action
