Get Over Yourself

I overheard a conversation once in which one teenager explained to another that heaven and hell were two identical places.

About a week ago, I was standing in line at an uppity sandwich shop (“Shoppe” probably) at lunchtime. There were ten or so people in front of me and as I waited to order my nine-dollar meal, a man came up to stand behind me in line. He was a five-foot-ten, white, middle-aged, (male), in a dress shirt and nice pants. He wore expensive shoes, had corrective lenses, combed hair, and looked healthy (medically). As he approached, I turned to do the cheesy, canned, “smile-nod” to acknowledge his existence on Earth and in line behind me. He looked at me and exclaims, “Man, what’s with this long line; I need to eat.”

The analogy used (in the story I overheard somewhere in the range of six to seven years ago) was that heaven and hell each is set-up in a way similar to people sitting around a bowl of soup with long spoons. The spoons are, say, six-feet-long, and for completeness sake can only be grabbed at the end that is six feet from “bowl of the spoon” (what’s the word for the part of the spoon from which you eat?). In hell, the people each grab their own spoons and attempt to eat from the bowl of soup by dipping in the bowl and serving themselves. They find it very difficult (maybe impossible) to eat in this way because the spoons are much longer than their arms and this makes them unable to turn the spoons around to feed themselves.

Recently, I was working in the clothing department of the local food bank. The clothing program is a completely free service targeted toward the working poor of the area. People come in, are given a basket, and allowed to “shop” (not “Shoppe”) to pick out clothes they need. A limit of fifteen to twenty items is mentioned at the door and the people are told they have fifteen minutes to get what they want. Oftentimes people go over one or both of the limits. (At one point a lady dragged at least eighty items up to the counter and went back for more.) In any case, because of the nature of the people working and being helped, the limits are practically unenforceable and there are (thankfully) so many clothing donations at that food bank that they aren’t overly necessary limits. Most people come somewhat close to following the rules, and the operation works. After I had been there for a few hours a man came in, alone, looking for a sleeping bag. At the door, the clients are required to relay to a man at the front a small amount of information in order for the food bank to keep a loose track of how often the same people are coming in and where in the city the clothes are going. The man’s address was scribbled down as “Homeless.” He explained to the “relayee” that all he was looking for were some clothes to keep warm and possibly a better sleeping bag. Unfortunately sleeping bags are one of the quickest items to go and we rarely get them donated, so we didn’t have one to give to him. He sighed, wandered around, picked a few clothes out, checked out, and left.

Sorry.

That’s not what happened.

He would have had every right to do just that though. It was a cool, fall day and I imagine he had been suffering through the cold nights for quite a while. I don’t mean to assume. All I knew about the guy was that he couldn’t fill out the line on the sheet that said “Address:”. Now that I live a few thousand miles away from my home, I sometimes struggle with that line too, but only because I can’t decide which of my two places of residence to put on whatever form I’m filling out (or sometimes I forget the mailing address for my California address). I’ve had the same problem for the past five years in college since I lived in Norfolk and my “home” was in Hampton. (Err...permanent mailing address or whatever). It’s annoying. I hate having to fill that line out cause it’s annoying to try to figure out for which of my two air conditioned, heated houses the form is asking.

It’s annoying.

Anyways. That’s all I knew about the guy. He was homeless that day.

Now what really happened was that he came in looking for a sleeping bag. (I didn’t lie about that.) Well, “came in” should be “danced in.” We play music in the clothing department and when he walked up to the counter he was already dancing and signing along. He was instantly gracious for our program. He was more cheerful than any of the workers. And he most likely spent his nighttime on a bench in a park or a sidewalk or…I’m assuming again (I’ll stop). The news that we didn’t have a sleeping bag for him wasn’t followed by a sigh. He immediately said “Oh no, that’s fine. I have one, but it’s just getting a little old.” He then started shopping. I watched him shop. He quickly walked around still singing to the music. He went over to the sweater rack and picked out two, then went to look at some sweat pants. After genuinely entertaining conversation with employees and other clients, he came up to the counter where I stood. He only had two sweaters. (The process is that now I get the card from the original man up at the front. That’s when I found out he was homeless.) Just to start conversation or whatever, I said the cliché statement “Did you find everything you were looking for?” (Oops, I knew he was looking for a sleeping bag and we didn’t have any.) He didn’t mention the sleeping bag. He said, “Oh, well there was a pair of sweatpants that I was looking at, but I know you guys are real busy.” I looked down again at the sheet with the incomplete “Address:” section and there was a time that he was “supposed” to be done shopping. He still had something like eight minutes out of his fifteen left (most people came up to the counter to finish shopping between ten and fifteen minutes past when they were supposed to be done.) I said, “No, no you are fine, go get them.” He smiled and jog-danced to the sweatpants rack. While he was gone, the scribbled letters “H-O-M-E-L-E-S-S” stared at me. And I thought back to the guy in the overpriced sandwich Shoppe.

Get over yourself.

Heaven in the analogy is the same as hell: six-foot-long spoons and a bunch of people around a soup bowl. But the people figure out that the best way (maybe only way) to nourish themselves is to feed the person across the table from them. People are happier, and fed. People interact and get to know one another. The sense of self is replaced by ‘us’.

I don’t care about heaven or hell. I don’t know anything about either. Nor does anyone else. I think that analogy is Earth.