Five Dollars Well Spent

I was walking to a store two blocks up Judah to purchase a small loaf of bread so my faith community could participate in Eucharist (if you are Catholic)/ Communion (if you are Protestant) together this evening. I passed two men with two dogs sitting on the sidewalk. One of them asked me "Can you get me something to eat?"

"What do you want to eat?" I asked. He told me a burger or an omelet from the cafe up the street would be good, but I informed him that I only had $5 to spend and could probably get him something at the cheaper Mexican food place up the street. So he stood up, we shook hands and introduced ourselves, and we walked to the restaurant together as we chatted.

His name is Joe and he told me he is from Virginia, but he went to Washington State to visit his parents only to find out they had died in a car accident. He is a military veteran with some neurological disorder. His hand was bandaged because his girlfriend's parents don't like him and they sicced their dog on him. "You've had a rough few weeks" I observed. He mumbled, "yea, life is a mess right now."

Joe picked out a modest rice and beans burrito and a coke, and I paid for it with the found money that I never considered mine anyway. He returned to his friend on the sidewalk and I walked to the store to get bread. I was rejoicing that I had tucked my five $1 bills in my back pocket as I left the house. I was relieved that I didn't choose to be the priest or the Levite who passed to the other side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan. I was grateful that the Maker had crossed my path with someone who needed a hand.

I passed Joe on the sidewalk as I walked back home. Two raggedly girls had joined Joe, his friend David, and their two dogs. All four were sharing bites of his burrito and chips and salsa. "Hi Joe!" I called out. He looked blankly at me for a minute as his impaired brain registered who I was. "Hi! Melanie, right?" Yes.