I snooze for about an hour. I know, I know… I think to myself. I should be up. I should be helping with food distribution this morning. I’ve never gone before and I do not know what it will be like. It’s not that I am dreading it… I am just plain tired. It is Saturday and my bed, even with its tangled web of sheets, blankets, and pillows, is too delicious to abandon. Finally the guilty obligation sets in and I pull myself out of bed.
On goes the same purple tshirt that I have been wearing every weekend in Long Beach. I throw on the only jeans and only pair of shoes I brought for the weekend. My hair gets thrown up in a messy ponytail. I forget to put on make-up, even the most minimal amount of eyeliner that I’ve worn every day since junior year of high school. I rush on down to 9th and Atlantic and arrive 10 minutes late.
I’m not the only one who is late. The food truck was late to Carson. I brace myself. I’m not panicking… it is not my project, I’m just here to help out a little. But I am prepared for people to complain. I am used to customers, acquaintances, and friends who freak out and get unnecessarily upset at waiters and cashiers, people just trying to do their job when they happen to mess up a little. Sure, these people are getting a good deal… enough fresh food to feed a family for a week for only 30 bucks. But when have I known others to be patient when we’re in a spot? They thought they could pick the food up now, and the food wouldn’t be ready for another hour or so? This could get ugly.
But no.
The community filed into the church, smiling, understanding. Enjoying a cup of coffee and filing into the pews to wait for the truck to arrive… even if the pot was brewed from the last few grinds of 3 or 4 different batches of beans. And then the truck arrived. And we all went out and brought in hundreds of boxes. By we, I don’t just mean the 8 or so of us who actually go to church there… I mean everybody. Everybdoy who was physically able was smiling and bringing in box after box of eggs, meat, vegetables, pastas, milk. People I have never seen before. People I expected to be angry and yell at us, yell at me when there was nothing I could do differently. When there was nothing ANYBODY there could have done differently. And then, everybody waited patiently as we got the food sorted out and put in order.
“We’ll take box #1!” And we’re off. We fill bags, grocery carts, boxes with groceries. In less than an hour, we’ve finished distributing the food.
“Thank you so much! You don’t know how much this helps us!”
“I like your shirt! Palomar observatory, huh?”
“Meatballs! These meatballs are amazing!”
“Hello!”
And then just the smiling faces. And putting a bag of chopped ham into the grocery bag of little children “helping” their aunts, uncles, and grandparents with the “shopping.”
I came to serve. Scratch that, not even. I came to help a friend out… and because I did not have other plans for my morning.
But instead I was served. I was blessed.
In those minutes when “The truck is here!” was murmured through the masses and everybody jumped up to lug in the boxes, I was more happy than I have been in a long long time.
This is family. This is happiness. This is community.
This is understanding. This is collaboration.
And beyond that… this is love.
Thank you, Angelfood. (spread the word).
