There's Always Time For Kindness
ServiceSpace
--Vishesh Gupta
2 minute read
Oct 4, 2014

 

A ministory after Karma Kitchen this Sunday - I had a bag full of leftover food and didn't know what to do with it, so I decided I'd pay it forward.

It was actually more food than any one person could eat so I was hoping to find someone and tell them to share the food or find a couple people and share the food with them.

Now, I had only 15 minutes to reach the BART station before the next train, and I needed to get back in time for a meeting. As I kept going down the blocks and not seeing anyone I started to get worried and thought 'eh, I guess its fine, I can always give it away my dormmates and they'll gobble it up.'

But lo and behold, there was a guy sleeping on a sleeping bag by himself with a couple grocery bags of what appeared to be clothes. However, he was sleeping, and I didn't want to give all the food to him, since most of it would go to waste anyway, so I kept walking.

Then I checked myself - should I really be not helping this man because he is sleeping? After all, I'm sure he wants food too. So I go back and put the food next to him.

However, I'm walking down and as I get to the station, I see another sign that says Starving Musician, and I think, well that guy has a lot of food, so maybe I should go back and get some for this guy.

But then it's getting late, and I don't know I can make it back there and here and get on the train in time. Then it occurs to me that if I instead of standing here thinking about it, I went and did it, it would probably be okay.
So I go back and probably look really weird taking food from a bag sitting next to a homeless person, and then walk back and ask the guy if he wants some food.

He says "No, not really."

Which confuses me since he's sitting in front of a sign that says "starving" but I ask the guy next to him (literally, next to him), "Do you want some food" and he says "YEAH" so I give it to him and say 'have a nice day!'

I made my train too - there's always time for kindness :)

 

Posted by Vishesh Gupta on Oct 4, 2014


1 Past Reflections