Skip to main content

Driving on Thanksgiving

I was on call last night. This is unlike private practice call, where you typically sleep in your own bed, answer a page or two (or none) and then get up with your family. Faculty call means I am physically in house for 24 hours. I have a call room which is about the size of my apartment as a resident, with my own bath and a TV. The bed is a king bed (?for spousal company, or other willing occupant?). In house call also means I drive home in the morning. On Thanksgiving morning the roads are mostly empty, as would be expected. I was the only car in sight.

I pass through a less than optima part of the city on my way home. At the corner of 3rd Street and Lyerly there is a KFC and a gas station, and a couple of other properties. And here I saw a man setting up a stack of newspapers to begin sales on the corner.

It is 27 degrees this morning. there is frost on the ground, the air is crystal clear. There is a light breeze. The sort of morning to walk the dog, or to drink coffee while reading a paper. Not a morning to be outside selling papers. And exactly how many people are going to buy a paper on the corner, on Thanksgiving, at 8:30 AM, when it is 27 degrees?

I could not see the man. He was wearing a grey sweatshirt with hood and a jacket over that, with gloves. He could have been a white man or a black man, thin or heavy. What I am sure of is he was poor, because no one will work selling papers under those conditions on Thanksgiving unless they really need the money.

The contrast between Newspaper Man and Wal-Mart is striking. Wal-Mart is going to be open all day for shoppers. They are doing this to increase profits, not serve customers. Tomorrow there will be a frenzy of people out between midnight and 4 AM, frantically racing about and struggling with each other to get 'deals' on unnecessary items like game systems and TVs, all bought as Christmas presents, nominally to honor the birth of Love and Hope while behaving as if shopping is a death match sport. These consumers will rack up outrageous credit card debt, stores will pour out inventory, people will work electively on a holiday meant to give thanks to God for blessings in order to serve the venial needs of those buying things to honor the birth of God.

None of these people should be working today. None of these shoppers, these consumers, should be out frantically buying. None of them have any sense of the spirituality of a holyday, a holiday. They are using their blessings to buy things instead of to be with their families.

Newspaper Man is working to eat, to live. I am sure no one sells newspapers outdoors unless they must do so to eat. Newspaper Man is out of his home, away from family, in the cold, because he has to be. There will be no bonus, no holiday overtime, nothing. Only a few dollars from exposing his body to the cold for someone to buy a sale circular from Wal-mart.

Like the woman who gave a penny instead of the Pharisee who ostentatiously gave a large gift, Newspaper Man is sacrificing his body and his comfort to live, while shoppers on this holiday are sacrificing something else. They are sacrificing their souls.

I came home to make biscuits for my family, but I know what I should have done. I should have stopped my car, and bought as many papers as I could to help that man get out of the cold. I should have stopped and said, God bless you, have a good holiday. But, like the Pharisee in the Good Samaritan, I drove by, turning onto Lyerly in my great big fancy car, leaving another person in the cold.

And I know what I am going to do right now. I have a little holiday drive I need to make before I watch football. I need to help a man out of the cold and get him something to eat.

Ted

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Forgiveness

 In doing years of medical teaching, I have told students that teaching and learning are not directly related. I can teach and teach, but you may never learn. Conversely, you may learn continuously without me teaching you a thing. 'I teach' and 'you learn' are two separate, active processes that may overlap or coincide. The same is true of forgiveness. I am an unforgiving man. I am the very opposite of God, who is slow to anger and of great kindness. I am quick to anger and very slow to forgive. I'm kind and insightful with people generally, but when mistreated or insulted I am not kind at all, nor do I forget, or forgive.  The Bible tells us to do something else. We are told to forgive. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother's sin. The Jewish standard was three times. Like the young man in the story of the Samaritan, who asks who his brother is in order to know to whom he should be loving, Peter appears to be asking for guida...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Broken Tooth

 I broke a tooth today. I've done that before; I inherited my mother's horrible teeth, and if not for crowns I would have the smile of any drug-addicted homeless man in the street. But the tooth broke, rather than the crown coming off. I've had that happen a couple of times, and it's nothing. After all, the tooth is just fake, held on by cements similar to the ones I use for my models. This time, however, I have to have the root extracted so I can get the modern version of a bridge. And this new dental experience has reduced to me to jelly, this not helped by the condescending, sexist comments of the dental assistant. I have a long, longe memory, my first recollections coming from age 2. I have well-developed, detailed memories from age 3 onward. I vividly recall being at the dentiswt as a child, when it was fashionable to fill baby teeth. I can recall being left there by my mother as a 14 year old, on the day I was paid for working as 'the 5th ace' at Camp Maga...
1 comment
Read more

Politically Correct Dishonor

The Biblical prophets warned aloud that devastation would come to those who were unclean. Those that profaned God and the house of God, those who were drunken, fornicators, idolators, those that cheated, that gave unclean offerings. Israel was warned of the consequences of their behavior. And God did not punish Israel. Rather, by walking away from God, Israel simply suffered the consequences of its behavior and choices. I chose, I chose , to live, to receive a transplant. I struggled to have the surgery that prolonged my life, I accepted the gift of a kidney from a whole person that I might live. I was convinced by family and friends that I had some role in the world, something I might contribute. And I believed that. My idea of contribution was to teach, to give to others what I had learned to do. But I have lived to see injustice. To see self-interest and greed triumph over not merely right but reason as well. I see incompetence passed off as expertise, the mundane as the s...
2 comments
Read more