With actions and in truth

My mind was engrossed in my computer when Kevin walked into the coffee shop.

Even without looking at him, I could tell he was different from other customers. His chin was down, eyes scanning the room, hands pulling a ragged jacket a little closer about him.

I was in the middle of editing a month’s worth of devotions due to a St. Louis publishing house in a couple of days. Given freedom to write on whatever topic interested me most, as long as I stayed within the lanes drawn by my church body, I had used many of the devotions to prod readers to notice and care for the humans around them, especially those facing life’s biggest struggles.

Four years of working the cops and courts beat at a local paper taught me a lot about the hurts that can knock a person’s life off-kilter. Many of the people who find themselves locked up or living on the street got there via one life problem layered on top of another, each challenge creating another and decreasing the chance of climbing over it all to safety.

Fixing the factors that lead to poverty and crime starts with looking past the external things that separate us and seeing the scarred, scared, longing human being on the other side.

At least, that’s my pollyannaish take on it, and that’s what I was writing about as Kevin walked in the coffee shop door.

He was poor, his clothes said that. His face said he had gotten used to it. I glanced his direction, then quickly turned away. If he saw me noticing him, he might come over and strike up a conversation, and there was no time for that.

Good grief, I chided myself, suddenly aware of my hypocrisy. How could I write about extending kindness to the struggling and then turn away from it myself?

I looked back at the man ― not Kevin to me, not yet, only a man in ratty clothes in the doorway of my coffee shop ― and waited until he looked my direction. Catching his eye, I smiled at him.

In moments, we were in the middle of what would prove to be a long and, frankly, tiring conversation.

He wasn’t homeless, but he might be soon. Recent law changes meant his landlord could kick him out, and he’d arrived home a few days before to an eviction notice. The agency trying to help him said there wasn’t much they could do. He’d fight it in court, but he didn’t have money to hire an attorney. A series of jobs hadn’t worked out, and his criminal record for a minor crime decades before didn’t help.

He wasn’t like other poor people who aggressively panhandled passing pedestrians. That was rude, he said. He didn’t like asking for help at all. It was embarrassing. But he was running out of things to try and didn't know what else to do.

What he really loved was to write poetry, said the man I now knew as Kevin, smiling. His teeth, rotted and gnarled, made his face seem even gaunter than it was. I wondered how much spare money his mom had had to take him to the dentist as a child, and whether potential employers gave him a quick pass, fearing what customers might think if they saw him.

I offered to buy him a cup of coffee. No, he said, he was OK. The workers at that shop knew him, and they gave him free coffee when he needed it. Finally, guiltily, I told him I simply had to get back to work. He thanked me for the conversation, and I gave him a little cash and a notebook, encouraging him to write more poems.

I hadn’t changed his life or fixed his problems, but I left the encounter feeling good. I saw him. I had been kind.

And then I saw Kevin again. It was a month later, maybe two. I was at the same coffee shop, same stool, once again working on a writing project, once again up against a deadline.

And there came Kevin, walking on the sidewalk outside the window where I sat.

I’m sure he could see me. The windows are big and open, right up against the sidewalk. He approached a table just on the other side of the window, turned, and sat down, his back to me.

I don’t know if he looked at me and recognized me. I don’t know if he tried to make eye contact.

I don’t know, because I kept my eyes on my computer. I knew he was there, just on the other side of the glass, and I didn’t look up.

The deadline, I told myself. I had to make the deadline. I didn’t have time for a conversation, and the little cash that was in my wallet needed to stay there because I might need it. It wasn’t like we were friends or anything, after all. He was used to being alone, maybe living on the street. He was fine, and I needed to get my work done.

But the simple fact is, I didn’t want to be kind to him, so I wasn’t.

It was a horrible thing to do.

Living generously is nice when it’s convenient. When you have the time, when you’re feeling giving, when you want to feel the warm glow of selflessness, it’s easy to show kindness, even to a stranger.

Giving when giving is tough ― that’s the real deal.

Dear children, let us love not with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. Of all the Bible verses I’ve learned, that may be the one that rattles around my head the most ― probably because I do such a rotten job of living up to it. I say I love my car, but I don’t get an oil change. I say I love my cat, but I don’t give her her eye drops. I say I love my family, but I grump when I have to put their needs first.

It’s all well and good to say, “I love you.” To really love, though, is to DO, and not just when you feel like it. I pretended to love Kevin as a fellow human being. But I sure didn’t follow through with actions and in truth. I had the chance to practice what I preach, to see him as a real, important human being, and I turned away.

I haven’t seen Kevin since then. If I do, I hope I’ll behave better, but I can’t promise it. The world is full of shining examples of people who, at least on the outside, live lovingly, giving when it’s tough and not just when it’s convenient. I want to be one of them, but I haven’t done a very good job of that thus far, and I’m hardly in a position to encourage others to do better.

I guess the best we can do is close our eyes and sigh with thanks that we are always seen, always acknowledged, always loved in action and in truth by a God who was not content with simply saying, “I love you.” A God who gave when the giving was as tough as it gets, not just for the people who live like they should but even for me, ragged and full of fault as I am.

To those of you reading this: I hope you know He loves you, too. Just as you are.

And, fully aware of my own most grievous fault, I encourage you as I encourage myself: look out the window. Be kind. Even when it's not convenient.

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