On Friday morning I was up early to drop off DJ (one of the kids I nanny) at Spanish camp at the local school. Then I went across the street to the Rite Aid to pick out a birthday card, and while I was there got the paper too. Then, as part of my goal of being more connected to my neighborhood, I decided to sit outside on my stoop and read the paper. It was still early, so not many people were out.
I settled into reading, but before long I started to notice people coming by with big garbage bags and picking up trash. I looked up and said "hi", but to be honest some of them looked like delinquents - I assumed that they must be doing a community service project as part of their sentence or something. How terribly stereotypical of me, I know. There has been little that has scared me about living in this neighborhood, although people seem to think I should be. However, I felt like I could be afraid of some of the guys walking past my stoop.
However, when other people continued to go past who looked "normal" (again, stereotypical, I know) I started to wonder if this was a community event that I was missing out on. And when someone asked me if I wanted to join in, I asked what was happening - and learned that this is through Weed & Seed and happens every Friday. My mind started racing - this was exactly the kind of opportunity I was looking for to get to know the neighborhood better and contribute in some way. Did I have the guts to get up off my stoop and go do it? I saw clearly that this was one of those things that would probably be uncomfortable and stretching, but that I would kick myself if I didn't do it. So I went.
Catching up with a group, I joined in. Someone asked if I had signed my name, and when I gave a puzzled look someone else laughed - "Does she look like she's on parole?" Ahh, so I had been right. This may be Weed & Seed community clean-up, but I had joined the group that was on parole - in fact the very people who had made me uncomfortable before!
I was clearly out of place, and it was kind of uncomfortable, but also really cool. They may be forced to do this because of things that they had done, but they were a really fun group to pick up trash with. Despite the swear words that were used as a regular part of their vocabulary, they never said anything rude to me - and were really interesting and funny people. And they seemed amazed that I had just gotten up off my stoop to come help when I saw them picking up trash. It's not like we are best friends now, and there are still plenty of barriers that stand between us. But I feel so thankful to have my stereotypes confronted and deconstructed a bit - to see these parolees as human beings rather than just people to be afraid of them. I will make this a regular part of my Fridays from now on, and I hope that I get to be in their group again.
The word "serendipity" is defined as: the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it. This was certainly a serendipitous morning for me - happening upon this experience totally unexpected, but finding something so valuable in it. And really, it had to be a God thing because there are so many "ifs": If Doug hadn't borrowed Des' car I would've gone to the Agape Center and not been there that morning. If Kirsten hadn't asked me to take DJ to Spanish Camp I wouldn't have been awake that morning. If I hadn't needed to get a birthday card at Rite Aid I wouldn't have bought the paper. And if I hadn't decided to read the paper outside I would've missed all of this. Thank you, God. I want to live in a way that is always open to these kinds of opportunities.
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