Everybody has a name …

I have a terrible confession to make … I am horrible with names. I always have been and suspect that such may never change, but God love Caleb (my 7 year old)  for always asking, for always remembering. Last week when we gave the homeless man at Del Taco a giftcard so he could go eat, Caleb was so thoroughly disappointed when he found I had no name to give to the face we would never forget … And so was I.

For some Divine reason, the awareness of my suburban comfort in light of the homeless in my backyard is keeping me up a little bit longer these nights. We pass them everyday. To most, they are faceless, too numerous to count, without a name or a story, and far too often that’s the way we like to keep it. But they’re not … I recognize them and I can’t get away from that. I am seeing the same faces over and over again and every single one has their God-given features unlike anyone else. Each man and woman on the street is an individual, created in his or her Maker’s image, with purpose, a plan, and a future embedded deeply somewhere inside their DNA. And, of course, each and every one of the men and women living on the street has their own story. Similarities, poor choices, addictions, lost jobs, divorces, loss of family, fleeing home, or illnesses aside, they all have their own tale to tell, and today I’m reminded of that more than ever.

Dropping off blankets, food, and various toiletries to the our own homeless this afternoon, my relatability as the mom with four kids piled into the minivan doesn’t exactly overwhelm them. Why should it? We live seemingly worlds apart. I know they don’t think I get any of it, but, to some extent, I do. Never homeless, but entirely addicted, selling my body to make that happen,  and at risk for losing everything at any given time, I am able to relate to them far more than they, or even I, thought I could. Having had many a friend walk through homelessness and back, I can empathize.

Cruz was so fearlessly, lovingly, curiously, adamant about being the one to hand the man the gift card at Del Taco last week, so with my kids clamouring over themselves to be the ones to drop off the gift cards and to give out the blankets, I’m overwhelmed by the sense that they’re getting it … That our life is not our own, that we’re obligated and blessed to love and care for our brothers and sisters in need, that this love for others is, indeed, a gift to us as well.  

This is not the field trip that makes me feel better about my barely middle-class life and reliable weekly paycheck … This is the awakening that has been 37 years in the making. This is the shift in perception, perspective, and priority that God has been moving me toward my entire existence. This is the life for which we were all created. Service, sacrificial giving, extravagant love, graceful and tender compassion, merciful understanding, empathy for the seemingly untouchable … This is what should move me as a believer, riding this undercurrent of faith with the understanding that people will never know, believe, or sense that I, or God for that matter, cares for and loves them if I don’t step out beyond what is comfortable, convenient, or aesthetically appealling and show them.

I’m not sure it’s them or their current state that repels us nearly as much as it is our own deeply-seated fears that keep us from wanting to look total loss and societal abandonment in the face. It is not for their comfort that we choose to remain detatched and distanced, I believe, but for our own. It’s far too scary or foundation shaking to think that a God who loves, adores, and protects me could allow this to happen to one of His children, right? I was no different, but how can I pretend that God’s child doesn’t exist, especially when I see him or her everyday, sitting at the same street corner, holding the same sign, sleeping under the same overpass? I, in all good conscience, cannot.

And so, as I turn to go this afternoon, I reel back around, acutely aware that I have not asked him his name, that we have not been formally introduced, that this budding relationship has no grounds if we can’t engage personally … It’s David, he says with a wink and a thumbs up,  David.

Off we go – turning to get my now sleeping Fae home to her comfortable, safe, protected bed – and the conversation begins. What was his name? Are people scared of homeless people? Why? With the dialogue running, the talk becoming more introspective (at least as introspective as it can for 7, 6, and 3 year olds), and my kids becoming more personally invested in David, Ricky, and Roger, the final, shining thought emerges. Much to my heart’s joy, it is out of the mouths of my beautiful, loving babes, that the ultimate sentiment is grasped, and expressed. The expression of significance, value, importance, and uniqueness in our creation by a loving God is summed up in answer to my final rhetorical question to my kids … Why is it important to  learn about and remember people? What does everyone have?

And then my sweet, tender hearted, sensitive in spirit, Ruben captures it all … “Everybody has a name.”

Indeed they do.

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