Love, Justice, & Generosity

The gift of smelly feet, sweep your doorstep, and the fruit of community.

Author

Michael Larson
September 21, 2023

On Love:

Longer story, but worth the read:

A man, his name is Hymie, is describing to me in detail just how dirty his feet are. He’s next in line for the foot-washing station I happen to be working at NightStrike. I tell him not to worry and we’ll take good care of him. As I begin washing his feet he opens up about how two weeks ago he was evicted and became homeless. He pauses before telling me how being an alcoholic led to it. “So do you have a foot washing degree or what? Why are you here washing people’s feet?” I don’t have a pedicure degree. It’s a combination of both my faith and that I grew up in the foster care system, but was lucky to be adopted by a loving family. I tell him I’m very aware that many kids who age out of foster care become homeless, so I feel very grateful how I ended up and want to give back any way I can. After I say all this, he stares at me for an awkwardly long time. Then tells me he was adopted too, but when he was 10 months old. He tells me there’s no worse trauma than being taken from your parents at a very young age after the bond has already been formed. He recommends I read the book Primal Wound, it’s about childhood trauma for adoptees. “I never really got over it,” he tells me.

I finish washing and drying and I put socks on his brand new pair of feet. I shake Hymie’s hand, he’s a Black man, I feel as if I’m looking into a mirror. Hymie is me, and I am him. After the moment passes, at the top of his lungs, he yells “Michael! Get your feet washed by Michael! WOOOO! Feet washing by Michael here!” I have to urge him to stop as everyone is looking over at the foot washing station and I'm trying to hide, feeling super embarrassed. I tell him that people are going to think I paid him to say all that. We both laugh. We go our separate ways. 

On Justice:

Mother Teresa

“If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole World would be clean.”

Mother Teresa

On Generosity:

“However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own. The question, therefore, is not 'How can we make community?' but, 'How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?'“

Henri J.M. Nouwen

A question for the day:

  • What is one way you can make the interest of others more important than your own today?

Resource of the Week:

  • A few weeks ago at a pajama themed dinner, we put together this playlist of meaningful songs. I invite you to listen to these songs this week and maybe add them to your own playlist.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in taking this journey towards more Love, more Justice, and more Generosity in their own life and in the world, please send them this link which will allow them to sign up (or copy and send: https://ljg.beehiiv.com/subscribe).

Thank you for being here.

With Love, Justice, and Generosity,

Michael Larson