I have always depended on the kindness of strangers-
Blanche DuBois, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire
I’m a big loser.
It’s a standing family joke that, when I visit, I’ll leave
behind a pillow, my phone, a pair of shoes. In the last few months, I’ve
misplaced my iPad, and most recently, my wallet.
And while I don’t advocate such behavior, it usually turns
out to be a moment of grace, an opportunity to experience goodness, AKA, God. These
experiences make me stop and think about what is really necessary and always yield touching encounters.
The most recent test case took place Friday--Halloween. Out to a Greek cafe for lunch, I spotted some
kids in costume and excitedly asked if they wanted stickers I had for
trick-or-treaters. Yes, they shouted, they wanted the Dora the Explorer and
Monsters U! stickers! Somewhere in the happy chaos that ensued between us, I
failed to put my wallet back in my purse after leaving the restaurant counter.
It wasn’t until I was back on the bus, approaching the stop
by my office, that I realized I didn’t have my wallet. A young woman sitting next to me asked if I’d
checked all my pockets. She started
worrying for me. I told her she
shouldn’t worry, and I wasn’t too concerned because I live a charmed life. She said she understood because she does,
too, and offered me luck.
Back in town, after not finding the wallet at the
restaurant, I went to put a hold on my bank account. A man was speaking loudly and crassly to the
bank teller because she wasn’t able to give him the Euro exchange rate he
expected. I tried to console her and she
did the same for me. I told her I really thought I’d find the wallet because I
was doing a nice thing for kids when I lost it. “Well, that’s exactly what the
enemy wants you to think (that it’s not worth doing good), so you just keep
doing nice things,” she told me. There we were, in the cold financial building,
giving each other spiritual support. Such grace!
Later that night, as I sat in the cold drizzly rain outdoors
to give Halloween pencils and play dough to trick-or-treaters, a woman
approached me. She asked if I knew where 2711 Brownsville was. I told her it
was right there, where she was standing—my apartment building. She said she was there to deliver a wallet
her boyfriend found in town. It was mine! I hugged her—probably too
uncomfortably long for her, and said “God bless you” multiple times, forcing
some Halloween treats for her boyfriend’s kids into her hands before she walked
away.
What’s the moral? If you’re my parents, or anyone else who
loves me, you’re probably hoping that I’ll learn to keep a closer eye on my
belongings. And it’s true that such occasions are a good reminder to ask myself
if I couldn’t be more careful, and shouldn’t take a hard look at how I’m spending
my time. But for better and for worse, I probably can’t stop being a loser
entirely. If you follow the enneagram, one of my character traits is living in
a little disarray. Mentally, I’ve passed the test for ADHD. Ramping up my
prayer life and yoga slow the frequency of this behavior. But loss, large and
small, will happen. It happens to us all. And it is the “enemy,” as my bank teller said, that can keep us from
believing in goodness at these times.
But it is when we walk in grace, like an Indian striding calmly through
a monsoon, that we come to rely on the God in others, and that we are asked to
depend on God, or what some call the kindness of strangers.
