Pedaling Fast to NoWhere

I'm in my home and I hear a knock on the door. Boyfriend is in the back of the house and I am closest to the door. I open it. In front of me is a man about 60. Long shoulder length hair. His hair is gray and it's not been combed in a very long time. He has big eyes. Too big and wide for his face. His nose is swollen. He has thick lips. He is standing very humbly in front of me. A practiced stand. It immediately makes me feel ashamed for some reason. He is very dirty. His pants are sweat pants that were cut off just below the knees, and this was done a very long time ago. It's been many days, weeks? since they have been washed. His threadbare now-gray shirt limply hangs on his torso and I can see it use to be a men's white t-shirt. In his out stretched hand he is presenting me with some change. He asks me something and I can not hear him at first. My senses are overwhelmed with all that I am taking in. there are several surprises in my view; directly behind him is a boy's sized bike, sprawled on my lawn. It lays in the way a bike will when a boy will crash into his yard and keep running into the house. The pedals still swirling in the air. Perpetual motion. And in the foreground again, this man. Whom I've never seen before. In front of me and my house. Very chaotic view.

He asks again and now I clearly hear him: "Can I buy a cigarette from you?" I'm shocked! I suddenly get what I am seeing! A homeless person has come to my door! I live in a family neighborhood. I've never seen a homeless person in this area.

"No!" I say. "Nobody here smokes!" I spit out the answer with disrespect and pride. And shut the door in his face. My face flushes with shame for responding to him that way. I watch him pick up the bike off my lawn and peddle frantically away from my door. Weaving from side to side. Is he afraid I'm going to call the police? Is he embarrassed? Or is he just really in need of a smoke? I assume the later as he hardly gets warmed up before he stops next door to talk to the college guys.

His visit to my house has put a crack in my little world. A homeless person came to my door and is making his way door to door. Real life crashing into my little street. My little part of the world.

I DO NOT want a stranger coming to my door. That really upset me. But then, for some reason, I spontaneously remember my grandmother telling me that my great grandmother (her mom) would routinely have homeless men into their home at dinner. They were allowed to wash up and sit at the family table for dinner. She would then give them some food wrapped up to take with them. She gave them respect and a moment to sit with a family and rest. I think that she asked them to do little chores, but I never got the impression these were chores that my great grandmother couldn't do. And that memory changed my anger to shame. How could I be so hard on the guy?

So I remembered that I have an ancestor who did this quite regularly before, during and after the depression. I never heard one story that any of these men were a problem to my grandmother or my family.

Suddenly I was worried. Would he come back for food? I would HAVE to feed him. What would my great grandmother say if I turned him away? More importantly, what would Jesus say? I would HAVE to feed him. I willed him away with all my shameful might because I am afraid. If he got one meal from me, he'd be back and probably bring friends. I mean really, my worries were real probabilities. What would I be getting myself into?

The boyfriend told me NOT to feed him if he came to the door. That we would figure something out if he needed food. He said he would handle it away from the house by giving him food but not in a way that would have him coming back to my door. My boyfriend is kind and generous. Overly generous. I know he was trying to figure out the safest way to handle my concern, if it became a reality, but at the same time keeping me safe. I could tell we were on the same line of thought...didn't want him coming back especially when the boyfriend wasn't there and/or with friends. But he never came back (can't blame him after the way I spoke to him!)

Now, I see him regularly. Each day he peddles past my house. He pedals fast for the speed he's going. It's like his bike is in a gear that causes him to peddle in spin cycle. The bike is too small for him. He's all around this neighborhood, pedaling around the lake. Spinning down one block and in front of traffic. Darting down another road and disappearing over a hill. He dive bombs cars and he daringly darts through the merry go round of traffic circling the lake. I vacillate from wanting him to go away to worrying that he'll be hit one day.

The other day, I saw him gingerly feeding the ducks with some scraps in his hand. He appeared to be concerned about being fair and ensuring each bird was treated fairly. He was gentle. They ate from his hand. He becomes more real to me everyday even though he still frightens me. I've never talked with him except that one day (and that really wasn't talking. It was a combination of him begging and me being rude) But I do know some things for certain:

He's somebody's son. Two somebodies. Likely both have passed away but they probably experienced the same as most parents - happy for the birth of their son and unless his circumstance was unfortunate, their plans for his life and success did not include homelessness and begging
He was raised with at least minimal manners
He never grew up dreaming of the day he would be in this situation
He cares about the hungry birds
He gets more exercise in a day than I do in a week
He cares about fairness and watches out for the underdog
He found a good neighborhood to hang out in

But as I watch him pedal frantically back and forth, I wonder what the end of the story will be? Will he finally get so desperate for something that he breaks into a home and gets arrested? Will he get so bold as to knock on the door of someone who immediately calls the police? He peddled up to my friend the other day, a woman alone, as she stood in her driveway. He didn't notice her large dog behind the car and as he rushed up to her and started talking, her dog rushed HIM and he tore off in a panic. That could have been the moment he got some law enforcement involved. He startled her. What was he going to ask her?

I noticed him the other day as I was waiting for the light to turn green. He was looking all over, checking, double checking, triple checking and then I wondered how the other driver's were responding to him as he pressed and wriggled his bicycle into our line of traffic. I had the strangest sense that nobody else was seeing him! Was I just seeing how easily I can block out what bothers me? How can I be sure to keep myself from becoming cold and sterile to life as it happens around me?

It's as though he's learned that this perpetual motion will keep him under the radar. But it's that exact perpetual motion that makes him most visible to ME. I wonder if the end of the story will be a bike wreck? He is a very daring rider and not in the movie style - but in the scary "oh my gosh, he's going to get squashed" style! Or will he just disappear one day? Will I suddenly miss him one day? Or, if he abruptly goes away, do I even have enough heart to remember to miss him? Does anyone else miss him right now? Is there some family member somewhere that wonders everyday where he's gone, what is he up to?

So this man, pedaling fast to nowhere, crosses my mind quite a bit. But selfishly, he's making me think about the condition of me even more than him. How am I (or not) and how SHOULD I be responding to those around me in need? There are SO many! We have a lot of homeless in our town. We have two big shelters. People come here to central Fla where it is warm. I know lots of community people are unhappy about this. It is not how you imagine your town square when you go there on Saturday morning and many of the benches have single, homeless men lounging, sleeping, packing and repacking their bags. You could argue, with lots of support that they shouldn't be there. You could argue that they shouldn't be in the library. They smell. They don't "act right." They make me nervous. Honestly, when people don't act socialized, they make me nervous. They have long forgotten certain social etiquettes (don't stare, don't scratch, don't spit, don't dig in the garbage.)

But now, their lives are on a completely different plane. They need, they MUST dig in the garbage for food. They don't have a private place to go scratch or spit, so they do so when they have the need. And honestly, I sometimes wonder if they stare because they are remembering their lives from before this time when maybe THEY were walking with a woman, or friends, to their favorite restaurant, before THEIR world collapsed on them.

So, I have realized that what I want and what I need, is some confidence that I'm making some contribution to help this problem. I don't have much to give right now, but if I give what I can then it counts. Even my little gift counts.

I don't have answers to any of these social issues. You might. You may have it all figured out. But at the end of the day, my mind rests on what it must be like to suffer homelessness and loneliness today, right now. Real aloneness. And nowhere to even go to BE alone with comfort and protection. No door to close. No light to turn on, or off. No bed to crawl into. Now, I'm not even trying to evaluate whether someone is there because they are a criminal on the run, a mental patient, a person who can't fit into society, someone who lost their home and job or someone who just likes that life. I just know that this is not the life that any of those people imagined as children when they thought about what they'd be when they grew up. That's where my mind is at and that's all I'm considering. The suffering that their wrong or right choices made for them. There they are.

So I ask myself to find a way to help, and small is totally acceptable. Actually a small way to help is my only choice for me right now. I have decided that every month I'm going to take a bag full of something to one of the shelters. I'm going to go to the dollar store to make MY dollars stretch and buy either canned food or sundries or cheap sunglasses or something to make a life a little more pleasant. I can't fix the problem, but I can give a little and I can pray for the problem! Maybe I'll find a sale on tube socks. Being homeless and getting a pair of soft new socks would have to be a treat. I'm going to come up every month with something I can fill a bag with and drop off. It won't be much and won't really make a difference. But I feel this strong need to leave a little comfort FOR someone FROM someone who cares.

In the meantime, I go back to considering this pedaling man and discover he has something else to teach me.

Perpetual motion.

Pedaling fast to nowhere.

Where am I pedaling fast to nowhere?

This is one of the hardest kind of questions to ask yourself because it's the kind of question that challenges a strong decision, even a conviction in your own heart. In my heart. After all, none of us pedal fast unless we are convinced we have a really good reason to do so!

So where am I wasting energy in MY life that is taking ME nowhere? What am I fooling myself about? Is there a place, an activity, even a relationship that is weighing me down, costing me my life and the time I have to live as responsibly as possible? What am I afraid of stopping and looking at? Where am I pedaling fast to no where?

I can't thank this man for making me think but he's actually given me a huge gift in personally challenging myself. And thanks to his perpetual motion, I'm going to change and give a few practical things every month. Really, the people who receive my gifts should be thanking HIM! Isn't life full of delicious and surprising mysteries? I would never look at him and believe him to be responsible for changing someone's heart. He looks chaotic and out of control. He's filthy and disturbing. And yet, he changed me and brought two really important lessons to me.

He has way more value than he looks to have. If I want to be completely honest, he has been my teacher and I have been his student. Another lesson to take into my heart. Another blog. Reminds me again that we all have value in God's eyes and He wastes nothing if we pay attention.

But if I can slow down and discover MY false thinking, then MY pedaling will be more purposeful and I will definitely be Greener Than The Day Before! (UPDATE: by the time I finished this blog and published it, I realize I haven't seen the man recently. Apparently he has moved on.)

So maybe you'll begin to think about where YOU may be pedaling fast to nowhere. And why are YOU doing so? And what started your journey? And why haven't you arrived yet? Best wishes in your thinking and let's all check ourselves with some regularity to be certain we are pedaling in the direction of our heart with purpose and passion!