Christmas spirit all year long

Everyday I have to go to class, I need to take a bus from downtown to the college. There are always tons of people walking busily here and there. And much of the time, they try to avoid eye contact or contact of any kind with the homeless. They populate the streets. When the weather gets colder, their plight gets more dire. There is one man who lives out of a shopping cart under the overpass. I walk by there on my way to the bus stop. I've never seen him approach people but instead he puts a coffee can out in front of his lawn chair in silent appeal for spare change. Every now and then I've noticed fresh fruits or vegetables on his shopping cart. I remember thinking about how he must use his meager means to try to buy good food for himself. But today, I got to see a the real deal (Christmas spirit I mean)in action.

While all of us raced to get to our various jobs, bus stops, offices, we each keep our heads down and walk/jog as quickly as possible. I walked behind this one guy, probably middle aged. He wore blue pants, a blue windbreaker with no discernible brand name emblazoned on the back, carried a lunch pail and thermos in one hand with a messenger bag slung across his other shoulder. Without breaking stride, without even saying hello to the sleeping figure sitting in the lawn chair, this man placed a banana on top of the shopping cart which was piled with all the worldly possessions of that sleeping man. I noticed that he didn't break stride. He didn't slow down and fiddle in his bag looking for something to hand the homeless person. He knew what he was doing. He did it in a practiced quiet way. And he thought no one was looking.

But this time somebody was. Me.

And now I'm thinking about what I can do to help lessen the hardships of the homeless. I've thought about putting together some care packages. Or maybe I can convince my Brownie troop to do so.

But I suppose this is how it starts. Just one random act of kindness. Unheralded. Uncelebrated. But not uninspiring.