The day after retreat

Last night we got back from our 3-day vocational retreat at a camp in Newark, IL. This morning I woke up at 6:15, hopped on the train to work, walked to a middle school in the sunny but crisp weather, taught 2 classes of 7th graders, walked back to the office to discover that the internet, network server (and access to all our electronic files), areas of electricity and the heat were off at work. I then had a long but productive work meeting at someone's house nearby and hopped back on the train homeward after the cancellation of a late evening meeting due to the lack of heating at the office.

She encountered me halfway through the last leg of my commute home - the set of blocks from the train to my front door. She had a collapsed walker with wheels and was using it more like a single crutch, on one side only to support her labored gait. As many destitute, weary people do upon crossing my path as I walk or commute around Chicago, she asked for a couple of dollars. As is frequently the case of late, I was carrying no money on me. Wanting to be attentive to a fellow human being, I told her I didn't have money on me, but I did have a granola bar if she would like that. Over our five minute exchange, it became clear that she wanted a variety of toiletries and someone to accompany her to a store. If there had been a store anywhere nearby, I would have accompanied her gladly, but another truth is that Garfield Park does not have a plethora of Walgreens on every corner. She did not want food, and food was what I had. We went back and forth several times, each pleading our own truths to the other. She became frustrated and distraught by the time she turned to continue on her journey, and the impact of her complete despair and frustration hit me full force in the intimate space we had created on the sidewalk. I, too, struggled back tears for the rest of my heavy walk home.

I did not have adequate words, means, or wisdom to handle our encounter any differently, and all the well-meaning in the world was simply inadequate. This is not the first time I have had such an encounter, but there was a particular mutual emotional desperation that made this particular exchange hurt. Not my personal feelings so much as an empathy-hurt for the plight of the world that is currently the "reality of the world."

I know how systemic injustice is a huge thing that manifests itself in a multitude of small but significant ways, and this dear woman was a confluence of many of those small but significant injustices. Knowing this helps me sleep most nights and continue working towards dismantling systemic injustice, but it does not address the emotional desperation of an encounter between two human beings bound up in the same unjust systems, both offering and asking for help that is inadequate to the depth of suffering.

I do not know her name.