This morning Andrea, Kayla and I joined our friends Tony and Amethyst and their 2 kids to pass out food and clothes to people at Baldwin Park here in Concord. Andrea dished up some serious amounts of gravy, and I ended up spending most of the time following Kayla around the park and she trotted around and made friends with everyone in the park. It was amazing. Kayla would walk up to people with her big smile, and everyone just melted. Old, young, black, white, Hispanic...they all lit up when they saw her. They all said hi and tried to talk to her. They all told me how cute she is. For a brief moment in time everyone was so happy.
Kayla doesn't know that some people are looked down upon in our society. She doesn't realize that some people are obviously homeless. She isn't scared by older men with rotting teeth and scruffy gray beards and tattered clothes. She doesn't care if people speak Spanish instead of English. She doesn't care if people have dark skin. She doesn't care if they smoke or if the cuss. She just walks up to people and smiles. Perhaps we could all learn a thing or two from my fifteen month old girl.
I am hoping I can see people get excited about spending time at this park in Concord. A Lutheran church brings food and clothes the third Saturday of each month. I would love to organize something similar the fourth week of each month. May God lead the way.
PS - I have much to write about from my time in Israel and New Mexico (Emergent Gathering). I'll post more this week.
