Yes, you can sit here for a while.

Sometimes when autumn shows up it creeps in slowly and gracefully, like you imagine you do when you’re 17 and ten minutes late for curfew. Other times, it just comes out of nowhere, like that chair or nightstand that you inevitably run into and wake up the entire household, announcing your tardiness with a literal bang. This year, I remember the night that autumn played the role of the chair well, because when I walked into work at the hotel around 11:00 pm the temperature was a comfortable 50-something, but when, around 1:00 am, I was standing at the front desk and the lobby door opened and a few shivering folks meandered in after the bars closed, the air that blew in was crisp and wet and had me wishing for a sweater and a little more summer. 

The wind blew in something else that night. Around 2:00 am, I went for a cup of tea and noticed a middle-aged man sitting on a couch in the lobby. He was looking at a paper and drinking a cup of coffee, and I breezed past him without a second thought. Upon walking back toward the front desk, I noted his bag of belongings and tattered jeans. Knowing that my employee code of ethics for the homeless-man-in-lobby situation differs greatly from me personal code of ethics for such, I chose to forget what I had seen and get back to work in hopes that he would have his coffee and move on before I would have to acknowledge his presence and ask him, as a non-paying guest, to exit.

I ran out of work to do around 2:30, about the same time the man walked out the back doors of the lobby. I thought to myself how difficult it must be to have to wander, and wondered if he was a “resident” of the area or just passing through. I wondered if he had family, if he knew where the local shelter was, if he had eaten today. As worry for this man began to set in, he walked back through the doors and approached the front desk.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“Well…” he stumbled and looked up at me, revealing a mouth of decay and glasses with rims broken nearly in half and one earpiece completely missing. “I was just waiting for my friend here. And I thought he was going to be staying here or at the other hotel. But I think he said he would be here. And I was just wondering if I could wait here for him. Because…because it’s so cold outside.”

It’s funny the dilemmas I find myself in, isn’t it? One day I am debating whether to get my usual Starbucks latte or to try out some Frappuccino or another and the next day I am confronted with the reality of making decisions about temporarily housing a man who, perhaps, hasn’t showered for a week or more and who has just spent the last 15 minutes wandering outside constructing a story to get himself a warm couch for a while.

I am no stranger to the homeless. I worked in mental health case management, so I’ve known homelessness, mental illness, poverty from a professional standpoint. Something here, however, hit me personally. I was confronted by images of the homeless that I see on the streets of Chicago when I visit. I typically drop some change into a cup and have, on occasion, purchased a cup of coffee on a winter day for someone on a street corner. But, even as a social services professional in a postmodern world, I am often pulled between two thought processes in these cases. One thought is something like, “is this person really homeless? How much money or coffee has he been given today? Couldn’t she be at a shelter if she wanted to be? Is he going to spend this on alcohol? ” The other is something to the effect of, “how is my coffee really making a difference? Should I feel good about this or should I be doing more? What more could I possibly do for someone who I don’t even know?”

I felt that in that moment, my best choice would be to extend the kindness that was asked of me. I chose to believe that this man’s friend would be coming soon to check in (despite the fact that I had no reservations left for the evening) and allowed him to sit in the lobby during the cold, dark hours of the night.

Around 4:30 am, I knew that guests would start waking up to check out soon. I went to make the morning coffee for the lobby and found my friend dozing in a chair near the doors. I knelt down and gently spoke to him.

“Excuse me, sir? It’s morning. I don’t think your friend is going to come. I’m very sorry. Do you have a place to stay?”

He stirred and began to mumble. “Oh, I guess he isn’t coming. Well, yeah, I live with my sister just a little ways a way but she doesn’t like to have company a lot and stuff so…but I live with her. Well, she lets me stay with her. So I could go there if I wanted, but I was just waiting for my friend.”

He looked down and shuffled his feet. “Do you know when any restaurants open?” He asked.

I looked at him and tried to see beyond the moment.

“I don’t know what time the earliest opens that is close to here. Maybe 6 or 7? Do you know where the mission is? Can you get there on the bus? They start serving breakfast at 6:00 am for free if you’d like. And the next bus leaves in just half an hour and it will take you right there.” I pulled a dollar in coins from my pocket – all I had with me that night – and offered it to him.

He accepted the coins, looked at me and gave a little sigh. “Thank you so much for letting me sit here and wait,” he said. “I don’t know where I will go, maybe down to a restaurant or something. Thank you for the money. I will come pay you back when I get some money. Thanks for your kindness ma’am. I will give it back to you.”

I smiled. “Don’t worry about it. It’s yours.”

I watched him brave the not-so-chilly morning as he walked toward the bus station, then finished making the coffee and headed to the front desk to check out my first guests of the morning.

I probably will never see the man again. I don’t know that what I did or said was right, or if it was enough or too much, but I have unrest about the situation even in my knowledge that I did something. I ask myself whether I would have questioned allowing him to stay had he been dressed in a suit with a nice haircut – of course, not. I wonder whether he actually made it to the mission and whether or not he had breakfast. In fact, I wonder if he had breakfast this morning. And as strange and slightly irritating it is for me to continue to have little moments of concern for this man, it also is a reminder to me that I have not grown cold to the needs of those around me. I wonder how many times a week – a day, even – I may be presented with an opportunity to show a glimpse of lovingkindness to someone, and how many times I simply don’t see the opportunity. I want to continue to say “yes” to seeing things that I have chosen not to see before, and to say “yes” to opportunities to help without judgment. Maybe it doesn’t matter if my dollar goes to buy an alcoholic some gin or if my cup of coffee is the seventh that woman has been given today. Maybe it’s more about someone being seen and acknowledged, and about the continued shaping of my own heart. Maybe it’s about seeing someone as human, as a child of God, rather than homeless. Or an alcoholic. Or a single mother or father. Or a widow. Or a millionaire. Maybe it’s time for me to stop labeling as part of loving.

It seems as though I paid a dollar in quarters for a very intense therapy session. I owe a thank you to my friend who came in with the blustery winds of autumn.

Hello, new season.

 “There are no great things. Only small things with great love.”  - Mother Teresa