No, it was not Santa Claus or Papa Noel as some of my adopted Argentine family refer to this mythic figure. The visit was unexpected, however, and while it’s very fresh in my mind, I want to share it for the New Year.
It was not planned, but I found myself alone on Christmas Day, a fact that is, or was, not concerning. I had plenty to keep me busy. Correspondence with beloved friends, for one, in other countries.
This is not an easy Christmas, in a way most are not. No matter who I might be with, my thought finds itself mired in sadness and tragedy because I find myself thinking of so many who suffer throughout the world. Palestine is top on the list, but they are not the only ones. I am no suffering saint, no saint of any kind, but something kicked in and I found myself thinking of homeless who live in this so-called “Sunshine State” to where many seem to flee, both the prosperous and newcomers from other places, especially parts of Latin America.
When I was a child, my own family migrated to Florida from the Middle West of the US, seeking a new beginning with hope. They were US born and bred, but opportunity in post-war, 1950s US America distributed opportunity and wealth very unevenly then, too. My dad and mom met as young factory workers in a small Indiana town, but in those days, manufacturing was widespread in that part of the country, but they needed a new beginning, and my grandparents, on my mother’s side promised a land of sunshine and plenty.
Pickings were slim, abundant jobs were low-paying and the first job my dad found and needed paid pretty well up north, but only $1.75 cents an hour in the Florida we had settled in where segregation still reigned and African-Americans were doing a lot of jobs my father had been familiar with, at a much lower salary. Soon he needed to look elsewhere, eventually ending up in what was and would become a housing boom in residential housing for families. These were, nonetheless, lean times for a number of years when one present was about it, along with necessities, socks, underwear, pajamas, and if we were lucky some kind of sports equipment, maybe a baseball glove, a bat, or a ball to be shared.
It was not so bad, most of our working class friends did not get much more, a few, yes, but in our neighborhood a new bike was like the lottery win. So this year the thought came to me to prepare some food bags, not a lot, just some single meal bags and head out to give them out to the “invisible,” but not so visible we did not see many on daily streets, and the near-poor who live simply, no longer with cars but electric bikes if they are “lucky.” Holy mackerel! there are a lot of those things now.
I made 25 bags of sandwiches, cakes, chips, a drink, no big deal and I hit the streets, going where I often ran into folks who looked destitute. I was a little nervous, did not want to offend anyone. I did not think it was “charity,” no one likes that word, except the well-to-do. I felt apologetic. Four different places that seemed likely were empty, stores closed for the day. Then I headed by several churches, again empty for the day. My last choice was a park in the middle of our prospering, growing city, but when allowed cautiously by the authorities during daytime hours (what were people supposed to do after dark?) there were usually folks there.
As I rounded the corner there must have been at least 60 or 70 clustered together, waiting for no one special or no one at all. Surprised, I arrived and asked if everyone was without a home? Amiably they responded yes. All ages from 30’s to 60’s, different races, unlike Sunday morning at 11am that Martin Luther King, Jr. said was the most segregated hour of the week in the US, these folk were integrated and obviously treating each other decently.
Is destitution what we need to unite? I wondered, is this the great equalizer or leveler in modern-day US America? I carried my modest food collection, not nearly enough for all, but they shared with each other. It only took a few minutes and I left. Suddenly, out of sight, it hit me with unexpected force, I found myself crying uncontrollably in response. I don’t think it was sadness, well it was that, but I think it was the warmth, the courtesy they showed to me, a stranger, and the image of their gentleness with one another.
It took me a while to compose myself. I had a couple of telephone calls on my cell phone shortly after, and I was unable to contain myself again. It was the best Christmas I could remember in a long time. Nothing routine, and this was added to a dinner I had fixed and shared with my adult son the day before, which was special as well. Not routine at all, a real communion.
Frankly, I think it was revolutionary, politically-charged, just the beginning of what for sure I needed Christmas 2024 and for the beginning of a scary new year 2025 with ominous events anticipated just around the corner. One of the best Christmases ever. Two clichés come to mind, “buckle up your seatbelt, we’re in for a rough ride,” and another, strangely Biblical, a combination of Jeremiah and Ephesians, “…gird up your loins…and with…loins girt up with truth…” Sounds like a metaphor the great liberation theologian Gustavo Gutièrrez, who died this year at 96, might say, appropriate to the season for sure.
Okay, now, we need to get up and do countless things. Inform ourselves, unite, act. First, overcome that sense of powerlessness that always challenges, that’s probably the main initial barrier. Acting, even in modest ways has a way of opening doors and leading to further opportunities.
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