It IS a good Friday!

Moving to San Diego has brought me into closer contact with homeless people than I've ever been before. On our way to the gym every day there is a homeless man who's sign says "So broke it hurts. Help a homeless family with kids." He's polite, friendly, named Ron and loves Claire. He waves at her every day and she (in true Claire fashion) eats her shoes in response. He tells me about his girls and when they were little (they didn't wave either).  When he sees us coming he presses the button for the cross walk.

Last week while at the dollar store I thought about his kids and picked up some art supplies for them (we love art supplies from the dollar store and were excited to share the love). The art supplies got me thinking about Easter.  I grew up in a house where every holiday was a big deal and my parents sometimes still send me a box full of Easter grass, trinkets and candy for the big day. So I decided to make a big deal out of Easter for the homeless family.  The only thing I could think of sure to brighten up the Easter of a couple of tweens was nail polish in unnatural shades, trinkets and lots of candy. We packed up all of those things (along with some other manicure essentials and an awesome article about the meaning of Easter) and took them to Ron (we packed them in Easter Chinese-takeout containers so that he could transport them easily).

What's been odd has been other people's reaction to the idea of giving Ron....well...anything. I was at the pool with some ladies (when I was still in the planning phase of the project) and asked for suggestions of what I could put in the Easter baskets of tweens.  Instead of providing suggestions the conversation turned to how the girls were sure that Ron walked around the corner after a hard days begging, jumped into his Mercedes and drove home to his huge house.  The hubbs mentioned it to his boss who looked at him and said, "that guys not homeless."

I appreciate that Ron  might not be homeless, that he could be taking advantage of the generous spirits of others.  I guess it just doesn't matter to me. If he is, he now has a couple of bottles of nail polish, a manicure kit and several packages of candy and I'm out a couple of dollars.  If he does have 3 pre-teen girls then hopefully their day will be a little brighter.

In the fourth century St. Basil said this, "The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry person; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the person who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the person with no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help."

I guess I'm more worried about the wrong that I'm doing to those I fail to help than the wrong of being duped by Ron.  And getting a hug from the homeless man who pushes the cross walk button every morning for us was a pretty nice reward too.