New Eyes

I decided as part of my experience here in DC that I would try to take advantage of just about any opportunity that was presented to me, even if I didn't really feel like it. Because otherwise the temptation to just stay in my apartment and read would keep me from ever making friends.

So last week, a member of my ward mentioned that once a month she helped feed breakfast to the homeless and that they needed more volunteers. I volunteered.

This meant that last Wednesday I woke up at 5 am, got out of my warm, comfortable bed, blearily splashed my face with water, put on as many layers of clothing as possible, and headed out into the snow. I scrunched up my face against the freezing wind while I waited for the bus. I sat silently, groggily on the bus while avoiding eye contact with anyone else. I joined the (surprisingly large, given the hour) crowd on the metro. One of a thousand nameless people, without a story. I trudged from the metro to the little brick church. Vaguely annoyed that my feet were already wet and cold, and would get wetter and colder before I could head home again.

In my zombie walk I went to the wrong end of the church. Sighing, hunching my shoulders, I spun in place and headed to the other side. My thoughts went out silently to the universe, darkly hoping that someone out there was noting the enormous sacrifice I was making. Snow, wind, wet feet, tired eyes, foggy brain, all of these were stacking up, on the bill that the universe owed me. I made sure to note every difficulty. And why was I doing it? For what?

"It's a beautiful morning!" He said. I was startled to find myself standing in front of a large man with a matching smile on his face. He seemed not to notice the snow or the cold. "It's a good day to be alive." I tried to smile cheerfully back, pretending I hadn't just been thinking those thoughts. In one sweeping motion he pointed out the door and invited me to walk through it, past him. I found myself in a crowded room, not much warmer than the street I had just left. Round tables and plastic chairs were surrounded by a smattering of people. A vague mass of dirty gray and brown. Most faces seemed to reflect my own feelings. They stood around with steaming styrofoam cups in their hands, talking quietly among themselves. I weaved my way through them, feeling out of place, finding my way to the kitchen. I was quickly given an apron, a hat, a bucket of oranges and a juicer. I found myself next to a fellow BYU grad, cheerfully washing and slicing oranges while asking about my family. Here I was in my element. I warmed up and got to work, chatting away, forgetting the cold.

Too soon, I was whisked away and placed in the serving line. With one hand I ladled out applesauce, with the other I handed out fruit smoothies in paper cups. The first person got to me. From the mass of brown and gray she appeared, and I noticed a tired face, and matted hair, but animated green eyes and a tye-dyed shirt under her oversized coat. She smiled the smallest of smiles at me as I handed over her tray, and then she was gone. One by one they passed in front of me, and I was faced with the reality of each person. They all had smiles for me. They asked me my name. They said thank you. They wished me a good day. They asked how I felt about the snow. Each had different hair, eyes, smiles, hands. Each person's being told the story of a struggle.

My friend who had greeted me first, outside the church, showed up in line, followed by a young boy too timid to speak. He only pointed. My friend grinned widely at me and asked for extra applesauce. "Chelsie" he said, reading my name tag. "Mmmmhmmm that's a beautiful name." He winked and walked merrily away. I wondered about their fascination for knowing my name. I wondered if it had to do with a need for identity themselves. Maybe names become cherished to people who spend their days being passed on the street, by people who never ask for theirs. A professor at Princeton found that sometimes our brains process images of people who are poor or homeless not as people, but as things. I'd like to think that I don't do that, that I always think of people as human, but I wondered as I served each one that morning. I felt like I was seeing them as people for the first time. They were becoming real to me.

I thought of how I imagined my personal struggle as I walked to the church that morning. But after I finished serving at the church, I was going to go home. I would take off my wet boots and socks, and put them on the heater. I would eat food that I had bought myself. I would get on my new laptop and start work at the job I had waiting for me. Later that night I would go out with friends. I would talk to my family, hundreds of miles away, on my iphone. I would send meaningless texts. I would take time to paint, free from the fear of what tomorrow will bring.

Those people, who so cheerfully accepted the breakfast that I had served them, where would they go?

There's not a lot I can do about what their lives are, as opposed to mine. I can serve them breakfast. I can look them in the eyes and smile. But I was impressed, as I watched and talked to them, by how well they are living out the life they've been given. When it is all over, and our lives are measured by how grateful we were for the things we were given, and for how we treated our fellow human beings, it will turn out that they have lived better than I did. Some of those people opened my eyes to the miracle that life is. That it is not a competition or a race. That it is not about who owes who what. That more of us, in the end, will be safe and sound than we perhaps thought. That we will all be gathered into the Savior's arms. That each of us are people, with stories and purpose and potential. That we were born to interact with each other. To know each other's names. To thank each other for the little things that we do. To brighten each other's days.

We were born for moments like this. When one of us serves the other one, and each of us look each other in the eyes and we smile. We ask each other's name. We thank each other; one, for his service, the other, for her existing to be served. Another time, the roles will be switched. This is life.