Mr. Ing

Mr. Ing is the homeless man who took up residence on Catherine Street between Henry and Madison Streets in Chinatown. He’s been there for a little more than a year now. He sits under a pile of blankets wearing a huge coat so that all you can really see is his head and hands coming out of this mound of cloth. I would wonder if he had legs at all if he didn’t appear on different sides of the street every day following the sun: seeking shade in the summer and sun in the winter. I did actually see him walk once. He just stood up and all his blankets lifted with him like a 200 pound skirt.

Mr. Ing has always been a curiosity to me. You don’t see many homeless Chinese people. Most people are connected to family in some way. I wonder about his story and why he seems to be here all alone. He sits and reads what seems to be a dictionary and makes notes. He is almost always reading that book. I wonder what it is. I wonder if he is really that interested in a dictionary or if he is just in need of something to do. I see him mend his coat and tend the sores on his hands with little white plasters. He does not beg—at least not that I know of. He seems to have food. I see people give him a cup of coffee or tea here or there. Sometimes I see him eating food someone just brought by. I would love to talk to him and find out what brought him to this place and why he stays, but we don’t speak the same language. I think about bringing him a cup of hot tea or pint of congee on a cold day, but then I question my own motives: is this to help him or make myself feel better? So, instead, every day we exchange our tight-lipped smiles and nods as I walk past him to and from work.

Memoirs of a Suburbanite

Being a suburbanite living in an urban world takes some getting used to. One big thing is getting used to walking . . . a lot. Walking to the grocery, walking with all your laundry to the Laundromat, walking to work, walking in the sun, walking in the rain, walking even after it gets dark--this is where it starts to get uncomfortable. As the days get shorter and shorter and as Daylight Savings Time ends (wah!) walking alone after dark is a fact of my new life.

Although I do not travel through any seriously dangerous neighborhoods on my way home from work, I still have points where I feel less safe than others. At those times I review in my head how I would deal with a potential attacker. This seems to give me some confidence. I think about my martial arts classes. I think about possible weapons I might be carrying. Then I form a plan for the evening. Somehow this makes me feel safer, even though it is a rather morbid method. For example, the last two days have been rainy. So I carried with me an umbrella, which gave me great confidence as its dual use a possible weapon. Today, however, I was carrying persimmons. I had not even noticed my new habit of planning a way to fend off attackers until I caught myself pondering the dangerous aspects of persimmons. I was carrying four of them: they weren’t heavy, hard, or sharp. So, my plan for the night suddenly became more realistic: give the guy my purse and try to stay calm.

Complacent vs. Content

I’ve never been one to “stop and smell the roses,” as they say. I can look back to last summer and say how nice the roses were then and I can look forward with hopeful expectation about how beautiful the roses will be. But as for the roses I have right now, unfortunately they often get neglected. I’m one of those people who is always working towards the next best thing. Granted, this attitude has brought me lots of wonderful opportunities and experiences, but it has not brought me much satisfaction.
Complacent and content . . . I’ve always gotten these two words confused in how I live my life. Even Merriam-Webster places them very similarly – they both mean satisfied. But one is a good kind of satisfied (content) and one is a lazy kind of satisfied (complacent). As I understand it, content is to be happy with what you have yet still ready to move on when the right time comes and complacent is being comfortable with what you have such that you do not ever want to change for fear of being uncomfortable. So, even with my own personal definitions in place, I still seem to get them mixed up. I end up feeling like if I sit still and stop looking for where I am going to go next, I am not doing what I should be doing.
For the last four or five years I have been focused on one goal – getting through seminary. I had something to look forward to. Something to strive for. Something better on the horizon. Now that I am here, I am finding it hard to be content. I’m not doing what I had planned to do. I am not living where I thought I’d live. And every time I try to make a change I hit a brick wall. I feel God telling me to stay put, sit tight, and enjoy this ride. God is telling me to be content with what he’s given me. God is saying that this is my portion and my cup is indeed full and running over I just need to stop looking back and hoping forward to enjoy right now.
So, this is my wish for you, dear Reader, as well. We are living in an age that tells us to never be content with what we have to always be looking for the new best thing and instead of perfecting our lives we are polluting them with gizmos and goals and things that do not satisfy. Be satisfied. Be blessed. Smell your roses and encourage me to stop and smell mine, too.

What makes a house a home

A few days ago I finally had my housewarming party. I never really had one of those before. Until then the only people who had seen my place were those who helped me move in and a couple of others who came by for one reason or another. My apartment felt to me to be a place I slept. But not really a home and not really my home. That is until everyone came over and really warmed it up. I don’t know why, but having people come and eat with you in your house makes it feel more like home.