I sat this morning outside Philz Coffee on Polk Street in San Francisco, drinking a blend they call, honest-to-goodness, “Ambrosia: Coffee of God.” You can tell that Philz is a trendy San Francisco spot by the name. The way they’ve replaced the ’s’ with a sassy ‘z’ and by their irreverent disregard for the apostrophic imperative. I spent my $3.50 on God’s coffee and decided it was worth it. But I could hear Grandpa Ferrell’s voice in my head, “You paid three dollars and fifty cents for coffee? What? D’you buy seven of ‘em?” (Because he would never pay more than 50 cents for a cuppa. And then he’d tell me what kind of sale Kroger’s Grocery was having on #10 cans of Folger’s or Maxwell House and how many cups of brew I could get out of that.) [All that said, anyone who knows me knows I'd sooner have a McDonald's coffee if one was walk-able from my apartment.]
But I set that aside and just tried to enjoy this divinely inspired roast as I scribbled in the small notebook I carry in my jacket pocket to keep track of interesting tidbits of overheard conversations of passers-by and the addresses of houses I think look like the wicked step-sisters of San Francisco’s famous Painted Ladies at Alamo Square.
This morning though, there was something more pressing than my random musings playing out. More than the regular overheard conversations. A young man, in his late twenties, I guess. Clearly homeless or, as they say, marginally-housed, sat on a bench about ten yards away from me and asked patrons passing into the coffee house for a cup of coffee. He must’ve asked twenty, twenty-five people. No takers. I’m not sure any one of them even acknowledged the man. There seems to be a certain sort of numbness that comes with living in the City. I notice it in myself, I see it in others. A coldness toward the indigent, the Other.
I resisted getting involved, (after all, I wasn't asked) but watched from a safe distance. And after a while he did the strangest thing. He started singing to himself. From where I was I couldn’t make out the song, but it was most definitely a children’s tune. Almost a lullabye. And the most heart-wrenching thought pierced my mind. I remembered reading about a (terrible and unethical) study conducted in the 1940s in which physical and emotional affection was withheld from infants and half of them died. And I thought, this is someone’s child. Someone held this child. Someone loved this child. As evidenced by his being here, having survived to adulthood, someone has cared for this person. Something has gone wrong in his life. As the poet Michel Quoist would put it, “love has failed him.”
The man’s shoes were untied and I noticed he had no socks. Grandma Flo would have been so upset at the state of his shoes. His legs were swollen and I remembered how her legs swelled because of the diabetes and how they ached til she couldn’t walk. I watched as he gave up trying to win anybody's charity and eventually hobbled across the street in frustration.
He came back moments later, a meth pipe in hand. He sat back down on the same bright yellow bench in the midst of all the yuppies in their yoga pants and gym clothes and he tried to light up. Finally someone saw him. A man walking by with his dog yelled, “Really, guy? Right here? Take that **** out to the alley.” The young man half-yelled something back but I could just feel the shame and embarrassment. Maybe it seems strange to think that a man smoking meth in public could be embarrassed, but I swear I felt it. He stumbled back across the street and again I assumed that was the last I’d see of him. I finished my coffee and collected my dog and made for home. But before I got very far, he was back again. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
As I threw away my cup, he asked me to buy him some coffee. I asked how he took it. Because, I mean, when you want some coffee, you want your coffee like you like your coffee, right? I got his name, Ryan, and asked if he wanted a sandwich. (I could just hear my dad, “Dag! Give the brother something to eat!”) I realized that they probably weren’t going to let him in to pick it up, so I waited and then took it out to him; and we parted ways with no more interaction than that. I wished I’d had a pair of socks to give him.
This is not a story about how great I am for buying this guy a cup of coffee. In fact I’m embarrassed to tell it. I’m embarrassed that I sat there for 20 minutes and watched as the whole scene played out. In fact, I think it would be less embarrassing just to tell the story as an observer from afar, as if there were nothing I could have done. It would be easier to embellish the story and attribute his singing to mental illness, or to reflect on how sad his drug use in public. Or, to focus on how unfortunate it is that there aren’t more social services or that people like Ryan don’t take advantage of what’s available to them. But in reality I’m ashamed for the hundreds- probably thousands of people like Ryan I’ve passed by and turned to look away.
As I reflect on my experience with him today, on my reticence to get “involved.” What was I worried about? Was I worried that he was high and might make a scene? Was I worried that he would somehow embarrass me in front of these yuppie strangers whose opinions I don’t honestly give a damn about anyway? Was I worried about his mental stability? Well, I’ve done my time in the psych ward; he might just as well be worried about mine.
You see all kinds of “crazy” and “high” people talking to themselves on the street. “Crazy” and “high” are convenient ways of writing off people we don’t want to engage with. It’s the easiest way to make ourselves feel better about not reaching out, telling ourselves it wasn’t safe to do so. But this man wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t high. He was just invisible.
Our culture tells us not to “get involved” but we’re all so ready to tell people how put-off we are by their opinions; how our sensibilities are offended by the words they use or whatever is en vogue at the moment to be enraged about. And this is not to say that those things don’t matter. But why is it that it’s so easy to “get involved” in a culture war or political argument and so hard to see the humanity of another person who is suffering and step outside of ourselves for two seconds and get involved lifting someone up? We don’t have to start new programs or build nonprofits, just look into someone’s eyes once in a while.
That study back in the 1940s, with the babies, found another thing. Each of the infants that died shared one thing in common- they all reached a point in the days leading up to their death when they stopped trying to engage their caregivers, they stopped crying and stopped changing facial expressions. They gave up.
I’m grateful for Ryan and his lullabye this morning. I’m grateful that he came back three times and that he didn’t give up. I learned something from him. He reminded me of my own humanity in a way. He broke my heart and convicted me.
The Michel Quoist poem I alluded to earlier, “You’re discouraged because somewhere in your life, or in the lives of others, love has failed. If you want to recover, you must try offering a loving gesture. It will put you back on the road to hope, and life. For a failed love is like death, and love itself is life.”
The hardest lesson the past year has taught me has been that I’ve spent too much of my life acting like I don’t need anybody’s help. Because of course I do. Everybody does. I think the thing that really lets us see others and be in relationship is learning to be vulnerable; to stop fighting. To stop heading out into the world like it is a battlefield. The world is not a battlefield. And we can’t really say that we’ve stopped fighting until we’ve laid down our swords and our shields.
I don't know what all this means really, practically. I tend to go on rants and raves and write these long diatribes without knowing what to do with them in the end. The result of being a preacher without a pulpit, I suppose. God help me. But I'll take this that someone somewhere said, “The good news is there is a Savior, the best news is: it ain't you.” I suppose I'll just find cheaper coffee with less grandiose claims of divinity and start carrying an extra pair of socks in my backpack.