living my ideology

There is this weird stigma that people do not like being approached by homeless people or whoever and asked for money or food. For those that live in large cities I realize it can be pretty common and just a regular everyday occurrence, for me it is not. Our city is small and the homeless population is not that large or overt even though I am aware it exists and see folks every now and then.

My point is after working way to many hours today I was tired and I talked Carlos into going to Wendy's for dinner. The entire time we are eating I was completely distracted by the man at the next booth. For several reasons I was questioning his situation. First, he walked in and did not buy food just found a booth and sat down. Secondly, he pulled a piece of bread out of his pocket and was eating it. Third, after another family left he walked across the restaurant to go get the crackers left on the table and sat back down to eat them. I can also add that his appearance only seemed to affirm my questioning. So throughout my meal I was trying to figure out how to casually strike up a conversation with the man sitting on the other side of our booth without coming across like I thought he needed help of some kind. So as we were getting ready to leave and I was trying to tell if I could make eye contact enough to say hello and and start a conversation a who had come in later walks over with a tray of food and sits down. It is obvious they knew each other and were planning this meeting.

I asked Carlos if he noticed any of this, which I am not sure that he did until I mentioned it. Then I said you know, people complain when others ask for money or food but realistically unless you already know them or they do ask how would people know. You certainly can't just walk up and ask.

In the long run I know it all comes back to relationships. No maybe I can't ask if I could buy him some chili or whatever, but I can say hi, how are you and see where it leads. I like to believe that I would have done this had the woman not sat down, I like to believe I would have suddenly had this great rapport with this man and he would have told me his life story. More likely he would have thought I was freak and been annoyed or said hello and went back to ripping up the little cardboard squares he was tearing. Who knows really. I just know that at least Jesus would have said hello, would I have?