Giving

Amanda and I were volunteering our time today at the Monroe County Community Kitchen (the kitchen's goal is to provide free meals to anyone who would like to partake of its services). We quickly learned that husband and wife should be separated and not allowed to work together because they quickly become hypercritical of each other's decisions in how to prepare the meals. We had a good time :)

The interesting thing happened when I was cleaning up. I was wiping down the tables with bleach water when a gentleman came in. He had obviously walked to the location, and I assume he walked from Kroghetto (the 2nd street Kroger) which was probably 5 or 6 blocks away. He was wearing some unkempt clothing and was unshaven. If you had to picture what a man would look like after living out of his car for a week or two, he might look like this gentleman. He walked up to me carrying 2 plastic bags with food and handed me a box of storebought oatmeal raisin cookies and said "These are for you all, I made them myself" as he smiled and gave a light chuckle. I quickly realized they weren't for me personally but rather for the Community Kitchen. He added that he appreciated what the kitchen does for everyone.

Immediately I was reminded of the widow's mite and how the poor widow, owining next to nothing gave all she had to God's work. Jesus praised the woman and said that her gift, though far less than what others had given, was the largest gift because it was everything she had.

The most astonishing part of the moment wasn't the size of the gift, because honestly, in size, it wasn't much. Rather it was the thought. He obviously was thinking about the community and the kitchen and decided that he ought to give back something for the services he was being offered. But he didn't wait until it was time to pass the collection plate at the designated Offeratory time on Sunday morning, he took the opportunity at that moment to give what he could.

I don't think I need to say anything more about this, if you want to see how this ties into my views on charity, just scroll down and read some of those posts. But I clearly think this was an awesome demonstration of how human nature is fundamentally good and that if we, as a society, saw the need to help each other out, then even those of us with the least means would donate what they could to aid their fellow neighbors. We don't need federal intervention to provide for those in need.