Holiday Guilt

Around Thanksgiving, I began to notice an interesting phenomenon. I used to half-jokingly refer to it as “Holiday Guilt.” Among the excesses and commercialism of the holidays, some volunteer groups feel compelled to give more generously of their time and resources. Large groups of volunteers flooded the shelter, fixing elaborate meals. And rather than making us line up to get our own food, the holiday volunteers had us remain seated and brought our meals to us. Since I normally sat close to the kitchen door, and I hate waiting for food, that arrangement suited me just fine.

The week before Christmas, the volunteers starting showing up with gift bags for us. There were some variations, but for the most part they all contained the same things. Warm hats, gloves, toiletries, and socks were all included. Lots and lots of socks. We joked about being “sock rich,” having the luxury of changing socks once—hell, even twice a day. There were so many matching pairs of socks floating around the homeless community that it was like some sort of secret club. I’d see someone on the bus wearing cheap but warm grey socks and think, “I bet those came in a gift bag with a card attached that read ‘Jesus loves you!’…”

I always had a soft spot for the kids that came with the volunteers. Occasionally, one or two clearly showed that they wanted to be anywhere but there, but that was the exception rather than the rule. More common were the well-spoken, polite ones that reminded me of a younger version of myself. In an on-going attempt to teach me compassion, Joan and The Captain used to take me to volunteer at a nursing home in our town. I was, for the most part, a pretty compliant kid so I went along with the program. My parents, the rest of our church group, and I would spend a few hours on Saturdays with the nursing home residents. We’d pass out care packages of homemade cookies and sugar free candies, sing hymns, and doing arts and crafts. I used to look at the residents and wonder what it must be like to be that dependent on the generosity of strangers for companionship or basic human needs. I had no way of knowing that time and hard living would one day answer that question for me.

One of my favorite groups visited us Thanksgiving evening and spent a few hours with us. It was a group of Hispanic Seventh Day Adventists and they were one of the first groups I encountered that did anything more than feed us and leave. The food they did serve was amazing: roast turkey prepared pulled-pork style, spicy Spanish rice, and servings of some of the best caramel flan I’d ever tasted. Other churches and restaurants were having special meals for the homeless, so some guys just weren’t hungry. Others, being unfamiliar with Hispanic cooking, passed on the trays. I made out like a bandit that night. Two guys handed their trays over to me, and I was only too glad to devour multiple servings of delicious food. I also copped four servings of caramel flan from guys put off by the look. In a way, it turned out to be a more traditional Thanksgiving than I’d expected. I was thinking I’d be depressed since I wasn’t with my family, but it turns out several helpings of tryptophan will do wonders for one’s sense of contentment, regardless of the surroundings.

After serving us, some of the volunteers lined up against the wall of the tv room and sang for us. They strummed a guitar and sang contemporary Christian songs while I ate like a king. Their singing didn’t seem like an attempt at recruiting, just an honest expression of the love of God they wanted to share with us. After singing some, they broke off into smaller groups, having earnest conversations and getting to know some of the residents of the shelter. Again, it never felt like they were looking for us to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, they just wanted us to know that God loved us, and in a way, they did too. They looked us in the eyes, smiling genuinely, and making casual conversation about everything from sports to guys’ plans to get out of the shelter.

The Siete Dia Adventists, as I began to call them, visited a few more times while I was staying at the shelter. Each visit, they were the same genuine, kind people they’d been on Thanksgiving night. I don’t know how many souls they saved in all those visits, but I do know they were regular reminders that not everyone looked down on the homeless.