Yesterday I had the opportunity to volunteer my time and serve beverages at a local Soup Kitchen. This was my first endeavor of ever serving at a Soup Kitchen. I participated with a few of my colleagues as we ventured to the Urban Ministry and served Iced Tea and Lemonade. For a person with hypocritical views of homelessness and drug addiction I must say that I was deeply humbled and enlightened as to who they are and who I am.
Growing up in the South Bronx I came across all facets of life except the filthy rich. We had our middle class poor, who owned homes and whose children attended Catholic school. We also had the destitute poor and those who were in the middle. My family fell in the middle. We didn’t own a home or shopped at Macy’s. Being in the middle made me envy and at the same time aspire to be like the middle class poor. My feelings for the destitute were not as congenial.
I’ve always looked down on addicts and bums (that is what we called them in the 70s). The term homeless found its way sometime in the 80s. The philosophy that was instilled in me regarding these individuals was, they are able bodies and choose to destroy their lives. They deserve no pity from me and I wouldn’t give a dime to help them. They were the true ills of society and in particular they condemned my race. As I got older and explored my history and innate racism that has been perpetrated I was able to see that the issue with these individuals is not as clear as laziness but perhaps as a result of post traumatic slavery coupled with oppression. Although I was able to make this correlation and sincerely believe it, I still within my inner self despised these types of people. I would defend them to no end to anybody outside of my race but deep down I had such a resentment towards them. I knew I was being hypocritical but as long as nobody knew what did I really care.
As I walked through the Urban Ministry feelings of Oh Lord what did I get myself into erupted. Here I’m trying to do the civil thing and volunteer, help those less fortunate, blah, blah, blah, but yet feelings of superiority were within me. The Director not sure if she sensed any of my feelings was kind enough to give us a tour of the facility. The tour somewhat relaxed my mind but more importantly expanded my perceived thoughts on the homeless. After the tour we were instructed that it was time to start serving the beverages. I decided in my South Bronx girl attitude not to punk out and get out there and start serving. As I started to serve each individual I thought it best to make eye contact and to address each individual as Sir or Madam (that’s just the manners in me:)). While serving I had the most enjoyable conversation with alot of these people. One of the most entertaining conversations was from a man named Larry who told us about the antics of his friend Chilly Willy. Larry was content with who he was. Something alot of us cannot say about ourselves. Most of these people were the kindest you’ll ever meet. They were appreciative and more importantly I realized they were HUMAN! I was happy to serve them. I thought I would be making them happy but instead they made me happy. I laughed, sympathized, looked at some of them directly in their eyes and that’s when it happened. I had a revelation of “Who did I think I was to judge these people?” Looking directly into their soul was an unspoken connection that I will always treasure.
I thank the Urban Ministry for making me realize these outcasts that we look down on are humans, despite their circumstances. I doubt they woke up one morning and said I want to be a drug addict, I want to be homeless. True, some may have irresponsibly ventured into this lifestyle, but I have no doubt that they ever thought it would mount to this. We preach addiction is a disease yet we treat it as a cankerous sore. Yesterday I realized these people deserve a kind word, a kind look; an understanding that they may have fell victim to prey.
Prior to yesterday I thought I had permission being from the South Bronx to address these types of circumstances in any manner I thought fitting. These people who I thought were less than me are actually better than me. They’re real with their situation no matter how unfortunate it may be. I thank them for allowing me into their world for the short 2 hours that it was and not judge me! How about that!?!?!
No longer do I view addiction and homelessness as being the pariah of all social ills. I’m sure it has its place, however, I would never forget that the pundits of these ills are humans that deserve respect and kindness. As India Arie said “it doesn’t cost to smile”. After yesterday I hope to smile a little more and try to make others smile as I continue to volunteer my service.
