Do you ever have one of those moments when you really don’t know what to say or do? I just got back from up/rooted, our local Emergent cohort where I had one of those moments. We had some good conversations tonight which I may blog about later when I’m more awake, but it was the very start of the evening that created this awkward moment of self-doubt and paralysis of action. We were meeting tonight at a pizza place in Wheaton and had reserved their patio/party room like we have done before. As the leaders and first to arrive, the manager asked us if we would like to see if the room was okay before we were seated. Since we’d met there before we told him to just seat us. As we walked into the room he mentioned that he would turn the heat on in the room for us. I just assumed the room was empty when he said that, but as we walked in I saw there there was a homeless guy in there eating a pizza. I have no clue if it was a free meal or if he was a “paying customer,” but I was appalled that on this bitterly cold night he would be stuck on the unheated patio (and that we were essentially asked if we were willing to be in the same room as him). Apparently turning on the heat for a book discussion group is okay, but not for the homeless man.
So I felt awkward. Here a group of well-dressed, well-fed, and “deserving” of heat Christians come in to discuss the justice issues in McLaren’s Everything Must Change and immediately we are faced with the realities of poverty and prejudice. So what, if anything, do we do? Do we make a scene about his treatment? Do we offer to help the homeless guy (who I have encountered before) or would that be condescending (in the “hey look, you’re homeless! Can we pity you or have you be the token poor for our group?” sort of way)? Or do we treat him like we would any other “regular” customer in the restaurant and ignore him? We ended up doing that latter and just not engaging him. He left shortly after we got started, but it was a strange moment wondering about the best course of action. And it was odd realizing that even in attempting to determine how best to treat him with dignity and respect I was labeling him as “other” and not treating him with the same anonymous respect I would give anyone else. Perhaps the answer is that I should be more aware of how I interact with everyone. I don’t know. It just set an interesting mental stage for the evening.