The Muffin Man
Moving Beyond Nice Gestures Toward the Richness of Diverse Relationships
A group of us took day-old pastries to the local homeless shelter every Saturday morning for almost six months. My sister, who worked at a local coffee shop, brought the leftovers from the previous night so the residents would have pastries for breakfast. Some weeks she would drop them off. Other weeks I made the drop. But each time, the staff passed along their appreciation for the kind gesture.
Taking pastries to a local homeless shelter was my first attempt at breaking out of a comfortable lifestyle to which I had grown accustomed. This was a huge step for me in growing as a person. But I was about to learn another profound lesson about people and relationships that would stretch me even more.
One Saturday morning, I arrived with a new bag of tasty treats and knocked on the door. Mary greeted me with a big smile. As one of the shelter workers, she had always been good to us when we stopped by. Mary invited me in as I handed her the bag. We chatted for a few minutes before I said I should be on my way. As I turned and began to walk away, Mary whispered something to me that I will remember for the rest of my life.
She said, "All the people come down to the kitchen on Saturday mornings and get a muffin. They ask where the muffins come from. I tell them that the people from the church drop them off. And they say, 'Well, tell the people from the church thank you.'"
Then she hit me upside the head with the real truth.
"The muffins are great, Brandon. But you don't know the people. You aren't sitting down with them and talking and getting to know their names. You don't know them as people. You are just dropping off muffins."
Her words were gentle, but they were daggers.
The sad reality was that I was much more comfortable with non-personal gestures and kindness than actually getting to know people who were not like me. It was easier for me to be charitable than to hang out with the “homeless.” That was the flaw in my thinking. Charity was fine, but it kept me from growing as a person and experiencing the richness of diverse relationships.
From that day forward, we brought the pastries and stayed. We sat with each other at the table. We talked. We grew. We realized muffins were best eaten together. And we developed friendships, all because of Mary and her words of wisdom.
Question
As we continue to break down silos that exist between ourselves and others, what might it look like to go beyond “nice gestures” and into developing diverse relationships with those different than you?
Peace,
Brandon
