lunch break lesson: love knows

last monday i happened to walk by just as the grocery cart that the guy who drums outside nico's pizza uses to carry his worldly possessions around in was run into, we will say accidently in the name of HOPE, by another guy also familiar to the streets whose ill health has him moving through the world on a sort of motorized wheelchair.
the drummer came up ready to fight, loud and belligerent and without thinking at all i just reached out and touched his arm and called out "hey warren, let him go, its not even worth it. there is a better use of you today." i didn't stop or even slow down, just kept on through the door to pick up my lunch order.  i wondered a little bit about coming in to buy myself 8 dollars worth of lunch when i usually only put a dollar or two into warren's tip bucket, next to the plastic daisy that i always mean to ask him about. i left about the same amount in the tip jar at the counter, which meant i had no cash to thank warren for his daily dose of rhythm, but the frazzled girl behind behind the counter was not the girl i know and she was in her own kind of need that day.  it felt like the right choice.

on my way out warren was settled into his familiar shape behind his duct tape covered djembe and was setting the beat of the downtown air, no trace of the tension and frustration that had so affected his cadence earlier.  as i passed he took the glove off his right hand and called me out by name to stop.  he reached out and shook my hand and said "thank you for that earlier.  i was ready to make a big mistake, i am thankful your vibes were here for me today. because no matter what i had a right to do...you were right, its not me.  not who i wanna be, casey."  we had just the briefest discussion of race and hate and carelessness and hurt.  of how all we get for impacting the world is what we choose to do with who and how we are, no matter what we have the justification to do.  we said friendly "see you laters" and "take cares" and i headed out of the sun into the florescent lit world where i supposedly do "the work" of a helping profession.  and i know i do.  but i was super aware that what could have been a really unpleasant and explosive situation was averted in that moment, not because i did or said anything so helpful or profound, but because i know warren.  i know him by name.  he listened to me, but probably not because he knew i was right.  he listened because he knew me, and i knew him.

this radical loving of the world thing that i think so many of us are trying at, its not fixing, changing, or even helping as much as it is KNOWING. knowing is the path to loving well.  maybe if i put my energy into knowing people, their lives, their views, their hurts, their fears, their stories, and in really wanting to know....then i won't have to wonder what to do so often.  i will just know.