Christmas Worship
I went with my children into downtown Boston tonight, to look at the lights and the store window displays (which were lame–bring back Filene’s!!) The streets were nearly empty, just us and a few happy Chinese- and Hindi-speaking families and the occasional Beacon Hill Brahmins out for a post-parandial stroll. And the homeless people.
I was worried that my sheltered, suburb-raised children would be upset by seeing the homeless men’s obvious suffering–I dug through my pockets looking for change in case it seemed right to answer a plea for money. But they were quiet–no one even asked for change. Many of them were asleep, or chemically oblivious to their surroundings. After seeing a couple of the men sleeping, Louisa started keeping a lookout. Whenever she saw someone sitting or lying on the sidewalk ahead, she’d turn and shush us–”shhhhh!! He might be sleeping.” And she’d tiptoe past, looking carefully at each one, whispering “Merry Christmas” to the ones who looked back, trying not to wake the others.
Lullaby, lullaby…
Your kids are going to be amazing people when they grow up, Kristine.
Yesterday morning my stepdaughter and I were making an unnecessary last-minute run to Best Buy (”Maybe this time they’ll have a PS3!”). As we drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, while stopped at a light we glimpsed a remarkable scene. A homeless woman pushing a shopping cart had stopped in front of an even more disheveled homeless man slouched in a doorway. She appeared to give him some change. Then she moved on, as did we.
This was a gift to us. Kate, ever sensitive, wanted to cry. We had a conversation about our many blessings and how helping other people is the most important thing we can do when we have been given so much. We talked about her future career options and ways she might help others and earn a living at the same time. It was beautiful, and led into the nicest family Christmas Eve in years. I don’t remember ever feeling more thankful.
Thanks for this post. I hope all the interesting people here in the Bloggernacle had a good Christmas!
Comment by MikeInWeHo — December 26, 2006 @ 12:36 am
Kristine - your kids are amazing! (as is their mother!) Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas
Comment by Rebecca — December 26, 2006 @ 2:00 am
A beautiful Christmas meditation. Thank you.
Comment by Kevin Barney — December 26, 2006 @ 7:29 am
My homesickness just got worse. Thanks, K.
Comment by Sam MB — December 26, 2006 @ 9:36 am
This was a touching trip down memory lane for me. Newbury (or is it Newberry?) was always on my holiday shopping/looking stroll.
My favorite Boston panhandler was a woman that sat outside the T downtown main station. I’d see her when I connected from the Green to the Red-line to get to Cambridge, where students and young families were especially vulnerable to her pleas.
The Globe had a write up about her about 11 years ago. She cleared $50,000 then…
Comment by anon — December 26, 2006 @ 6:27 pm
Yeah, those 50k-earning homeless are a real blight on our cities. (Sarcasm Alert!)
Comment by MikeInWeHo — December 26, 2006 @ 11:15 pm
Thank you to everyone who is kind to homeless people. They are people too. One of them is my uncle. (He isn’t the kind that makes thousands of dollars.) He’s a schizophrenic and can’t live a “normal” life because of his illness. I am always touched when people show him kindness. Not necessarily giving him money, but just treating him like a human being. It means the world to me. We don’t know where he was this Christmas. I hope that somewhere a little girl whispered Merry Christmas to him for me. Thanks for this post.
Comment by jothegrill — December 28, 2006 @ 10:01 pm
jothegrill, I think that was what was most striking to me about my daughter’s response–she just responded in a human way. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to do that once we become self-conscious adults, but it is. We either demonize or oversentimentalize the homeless, and can’t see through our own guilt/fear/policy prejudices, etc. to notice that there’s an actual person in front of us.
One time while I was in college, feeling guilty about walking past homeless people on my way to my snooty little school that cost my parents (and me) a gazillion dollars a year, a homeless man asked for change. I rummaged through my pockets, handed him a crumpled bill and then burst out sobbing, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” and practically ran away. So he ended up chasing me through Harvard Yard, yelling “miss, miss, are you OK? Here’s your dollar–I don’t need it! Really, you can have it back…miss!”
I try to remember that when my thinking on the subject gets too abstract!
Comment by Kristine — December 28, 2006 @ 10:14 pm
this has reminded me of the couple of times i was mistaken for a homeless person in Cambridge. Once I was watching a homeless friend’s things while he got some water to nourish a plant he had been given. i felt my humanity torn from me as I sank into his squalor on the sidewalk by the Unitarian Church along Mass Ave. As if color TV had been turned to black and white.
The other was when a homeless woman asked me for busking advice, but i was so obtuse it didn’t register for a few minutes, so finally invited her to breakfast to celebrate our moment of connection.
Kristine will remember–it wasn’t such a visual slipup to consider me homeless that freshman year of college.
Comment by smb — December 30, 2006 @ 10:20 am
It’s true, Sam–you did make those of us who were into bathing regularly seem hopelessly bourgeois!
Comment by Kristine — December 30, 2006 @ 11:10 am
think of it as my special gift to all of you. merry christmas
Comment by smb — December 30, 2006 @ 12:21 pm