Enough

A guy came around the house, an eager kid with a polo shirt tucked into khaki pants. He was selling ultra windows or solar panels or super sprays for bugs.

My heart warmed toward him, I appreciated the hustle, but said no thanks. He could see it in my eyes and hear it in my voice: I wasn’t on the fence. This was a solid no.

“Will you please take my card,” he urged. “I do other stuff too. Painting, carpentry.”

I took his card. Looks like it came from old inkjet printer, anchored by some solid Word 97 clipart. A mix of blue print and hand scrawl from a ballpoint pen. Here is a word crossed out. “Free construction laborer” revised to “construction laborer.”

I’ve held onto the card, kept it around for some reason. Not planning to call him, but maybe I will. Maybe I should.

“This is America,” I think when I look at the card. “Keep on keeping on, brother,” I sometimes say aloud when I see it. Right now you’re going door to door, selling for the man, selling a system, but also scrapping for yourself, working the system but also bucking up against it. Trying. Hustling. Flitting in and out like a butterfly, taking a hit but bobbing and weaving and staying on your feet and coming back with a combo. Not giving up.

—

I’m surrounded by people who haven’t given up.

For fifteen years I have had the honor of listening to stories and seeing the lives of people who have faced, overcome, or are facing crushing hardship and loss.

Over and over I’ve been uplifted and strengthened by the conclusions of people who are suffering. People who are being blasted by injustice and facing many pains, both at the hands of others and also because of their own devices. Sometimes it is easier to gird up against the oppression from outside than the injuries from within.

I marvel at the words of thanksgiving I have heard from those on the streets.

I was homeless and addicted. Thank God that now I’m just homeless.

I was trapped in abuse and afraid he would kill me. Thank God that now I’m living in a shelter.

—

Dayenu is the Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving for the more than enough. It can be a recognition of abundance even in the most trying of circumstance.

It would have been enough to live through the car accident, but I lived through it without a head injury. Dayenu. Thank you.

It would have been enough to hold my mother’s hand before she died, but she also looked me in the eyes and smiled. Dayenu. Thank you.

It would have been enough, but I have even more than that.

At certain times my own hope has been in short supply. I know I should have hope and the posts and talks and books say I should have hope, yet I don’t feel it or see it or understand it. Over the years I’ve learned that gratitude is often the pull cord to restart that engine of hope.

“When I think I want to kill myself,” a homeless-facing friend told me, “I get out my notebook to write down ten things I am thankful for. It is usually easy to keep going until I hit 100.”

It would have been enough to be born and live and die, but I get to do so with friends like these. Dayenu. Thank you.