A View of 541

Six weeks ago, my calendar didn’t have space. I wrote things above other things. I numbered appointments so I remembered them in the right order. I squeezed in sermon prep, appointments with my spiritual director, grandchildren visits. And then the world stopped. Anything written in my calendar now has a line through it. The only things added are various kinds of video conference calls.

We closed 541 on March 17. It was a tough decision that we were right to make. Instead of providing a place for people to eat together, whether they can afford to pay or not we changed over night to providing 75 free bag lunches at our door Monday through Saturday. And we’ve done it ever since: That’s about 2,700 meals so far.

We’ve worked out a system to make it as safe as we can. We have three consistent teams of three people. That way if one of us gets sick, only one team has to be quarantined. We wear masks and gloves and do the COVID dance as we move around the kitchen, always 6ft between us. We sanitize everything. Our customers line up with one person on each large concrete square on the sidewalk, and wait while we put their lunch on the counter we put across the side door.

There’s a familiar litany. ‘Hi, good morning, how are you?’ (Response is varied). ‘Apple with your lunch? Coffee?’ The reason for asking about the apple is because many don’t have teeth that will cope with the crisp apple donated by a local orchard. Sometimes we don’t get a response, but mostly we get a thank you, while they use some sanitizer we have sitting on the counter. It’s their hands that get me. They are often puffy, blue with cold (when is it going to get warm?) and so very dirty. (Where, exactly, are they supposed to be able to wash them? All the places they used to use, including 541, are closed to them).

We used to say only one bag per person. But then someone will ask ‘Can I take one for my girlfriend? If we leave our camp alone someone steals our stuff’ Is he telling me the truth? I think so. Who knows? I’m going to go home in my car and unlock my front door to make my own lunch soon. Am I going to say no to an extra brown bag to this young guy who desperately needs a haircut, a shower, and a warm coat?

So I sit at my kitchen table typing this, with a calendar that is almost empty, being pretty sure that Jesus was in that line today, listening to my old clock chiming the time away. This pandemic brings some things into a sharp focus, and others fade away. What exactly were all those important things I used to do? 

Sue Carr