When I was in high school the first bell rang about an hour later on Wednesdays. Back in seventh grade my friends and I began a tradition of getting coffee before school on those days, and we continued these meetings for six years until we graduated. One morning during senior year, when only Will Cammack and I could come, we decided to go for breakfast instead of coffee. As we walked up to the restaurant we passed a homeless veteran sitting by the road with a sign that read “Hungry.” After walking right past him we stopped and decided to invite him to breakfast with us. When we told him where we were eating his eyes lit up. He had no teeth, the most we could offer him was coffee and an omelet. But for an hour and a half we were in community. We discussed politics and economics, we each shared our stories (his being far more interesting than ours), and we laughed together. I was reminded that if I truly want to minister to the poor and broken, I cannot act as if I’m too good to eat and live among them. I often forget this, and find my comfortable life needing to be disrupted.
Contributed by Sam Saxton, North Valley Friends
