Stories of Kindness from Around the World

“Would you like this radish?” Leela asked in all earnestness.

Though radishes are not a part of my diet, it was an offer I could not refuse. First, it was the biggest radish I’ve ever seen. Secondly, she grew it herself. Finally, aside from its sheer mass, the radish was all the more weighty because Leela is homeless.

Since the top of the pandemic, I’ve been regularly delivering food to a homeless encampment about a mile from my house. For those who don’t understand homelessness and never meaningfully engage with their brethren on the street, counterintuitively the last thing they need is food.

Yet food is the wrapper for the real meals that I deliver: a bit of love sandwiched between humanity and humility. Making love the primary ingredient takes work on the wrapper, but most importantly, work on the cook.



For the wrapper aka actual food, I prepare almost all of it from scratch. If burritos are on the menu, the organic pinto beans get soaked overnight, then pressure cooked the next day before they’re refried and seasoned. The salsa will start as organic bell peppers, tomatoes, and garlic, oven broiled with avocado oil and then flavored with oregano, salt, and homegrown lemons before being blended into final form.

My somewhat occasional collaborator in my mostly weekly deliveries is my seven year old daughter (and sometimes her school pod when it was active months ago), who decorates the burrito wrappers with art and positive messages. The folks at the encampment tell me that though they love the food I offer, the best part are the sweet messages from heartful kids.

Regardless of the actual menu, which usually oscillates between sandwiches and burritos with some seasonal variation, the primary motif is the same: meticulously and mindfully prepared vegan organic and ultra-local fare when possible, packaged in sweet loving innocence.

For the cook, the work is much deeper. First there is the remembrance of the wholeness, and therefore holiness of life. Its easy to see things as broken and bring forth pity. The work is to focus on the sparks of brilliance, creativity, and divinity in those living on the street, even when they themselves cannot see it.

Second is the willingness to sit together in the pain. The physical pain is the easiest to see: the cold, the rain, the noise, the wildfire smoke, the raging pandemic. Ironically, the emotional layer at this encampment is actually much better than what I observe among the housed population at-large.

Too many mostly comfortable people are worried about what they have to lose, or are stretched to the mental breakpoint as they log too many hours working even when its not needed or stress about problems they can’t solve. Often parents of young kids are gasping for solitude within the full court press of working & managing homeschool even as they are suffocating from lack of community in pandemic-imposed isolation.

As our society structurally loses the art of eating the free superfood of simply ‘being’ and monetizes the hunger and malnourishment arising from of that by selling fast food junk pop culture to fill the full emptiness people fear, we may actually stand to learn something from those with nothing left to lose and no high bandwidth connection into the matrix. The enduring lesson may be four words: Unplug Into Real Community.

Yet at a deeper level, what landed my brothers and sister onto the street was an erosion and corrosion of their safety nets. Part of this is societal: gov’t support when people struggle or stumble, but a deeper part is social, familial, intergenerational, spiritual, and values-based.

Through a complex cocktail of factors, these folks on the street lost the hands that would rescue them, or be a crutch when their leg is broken, or tend their fever when they overheat. These deeper causes are the ones that are most difficult to sit with, because they implicate society at-large, and I myself am implicated.

The political right, too high on a false infallibility of their individualism or privilege to care about others, refuses to acknowledge this societal and systemic problem and debt of responsibility. The political left, angry at the excesses and heartlessness of a broken system, is too eager to signal virtue by using someone else’s resources to solve the issues that trouble their heart.

How few across the spectrum recognize their own fragility, and are willing to put their own hands in motion behind the whispers of their heart to serve those more vulnerable. How few are ready to do any real work, to put anything personal on the line, or to even shake up their sense of righteous certainly about solutions and upgrade to the humility that let’s them sit with uncomfortable questions.

That connection, that discomfort, that questioning, that quest for alignment and integration, that small loving action-- that is the work of the cook cooking himself. Without that, any other food delivery would be fine. But it would be devoid of the nourishment that could make a lasting difference, in my estimation. Let’s be clear though: my meal visits are not and will not solve homelessness and are not meant to.

If anyone comes out of homelessness, it will be a side effect of something that has shifted at a much deeper level. That deeper shift can’t be causally attributed to my action, but it also cannot arise without the seed that is inside what I do. This doesn’t mean that I disagree with approaches like “housing first”, but rather choose to serve with what is genuinely mine to offer and recognize that housing and services are necessary but not sufficient for authentic transformation.

That giant radish was shaped like two hearts merged together. May all find such radishes in changing themselves in the world!