There was a time when I would go to the grocery store with a list in my hand and a number in my head: what we absolutely needed and what we could afford. When I got to the cash register, I would hold back the two or three least critical items and ask for a subtotal to see if those items could be added. Today, I can afford Honeycrisp apples, pasture-raised eggs and a better bourbon. Times are different now.
Six blocks from my house, the St. Leonard Catholic Church food pantry opens every Tuesday afternoon for the two dozen or so people it serves. They arrive not with a list because choices are not an option, or with a number, but with humble gratitude for their weekly ration of no-name canned fruit and vegetables, pasta sauce, crackers and toilet paper. These are my brothers.
There was a place where our bedroom was so small I would sit on the end of the bed to get my body out of the way so I could open the dresser drawer; where the bathroom was so small the door hit the end of the toilet before it could fully open; and where the kitchen was so small you had to move a chair to open the oven door. Now we have a master bedroom, three full baths and a kitchen large enough for an island and two sinks. My place is different now.
In parks and underpasses all across any city, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of tents that people call home. Having a bed, bathroom and kitchen of any size would seem to them like Windsor Castle. These are my brothers.
There was a reason for the time and place. I was a first-year graduate student, newly married, and my wife had to leave her job when it became apparent to her company that she was pregnant with our first child. (Welcome to the late 1960s.) We had no health insurance. There were reasons for the numbers in my head and the tiny apartment rooms. Today, I am fully employed and our kids grown and gone. Social Security, Medicare and a Blue Cross Blue Shield supplement plan together mean there is more time and treasure. Reasons for what I do are different now.
In those tents in our parks and underpasses, the reasons are many: drug and alcohol addiction, loss of a breadwinner, devastating medical bills, skyrocketing rents, post-traumatic stress disorder from military service and various forms of mental illness. In a country where medical treatment, equal pay and fair housing are a privilege and not a right, there is little hope of these lives ever getting any better. These, too, are my brothers.
If we are to be our brother’s keeper, how much is enough? The Mormons stipulate 10%. The biblical request is “whatever you do for the least of these.” “Whatever” is not a percentage, but it is not nothing. We Americans, our brothers’ keepers, give almost half a trillion dollars each year to charity. The causes are endless: food pantries, the Red Cross, churches, schools, Doctors Without Borders, animal welfare, the arts and people who are homeless with their cups and cardboard signs. Half a trillion dollars. That’s not nothing.
On my one city block, there are two families that buy food for St. Leonard’s food pantry. The cost is not “nothing.” There is a husband and wife who spend hundreds of hours a year delivering food and necessities to seniors in our neighborhood. Those hours are not “nothing.” Next to one front door, atop an old brown porch swing, there is a large, clear plastic storage bin filled with snack bags of pretzels and chips, as well as bottles of water and soda. On the lid of the container is a handwritten note that reads, “Delivery people, please help yourself.” This kindness in a box is not “nothing.” I’m sure there are more; these are the only ones I know about.
For each of us, there was a time, or place, or reason when we needed the help of others. And there will be other times, places or reasons when we will find ourselves grateful for the help of our “brothers.” Life is complicated. Kindness is not.
We find ourselves, now, in a time filled with the booming sounds of war, mass shootings and political vitriol. Attention-demanding headlines deafen us to the quiet acts of kindness all around, acts that demonstrate our willingness to be our brother’s keeper. Walking along life’s beaches, we usually see two sets of footprints in the sand, ours and our companion’s. Until, suddenly, there is only one set; not because our companion abandoned us, but because he was carrying us. “He ain’t heavy; he’s my brother.”
Now is the time, here is the place, this is the reason for the quiet kindness of the 365-day Thanksgiving season.
Bill Sieck has a bachelor’s in philosophy from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin.
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