A reluctant recepient

When I was younger I used to hate going to Luby’s Cafeteria.   I’m not sure that my family was aware of my vitriol toward the establishment, because we seemed to go there all the time.  The cafeteria was the full service kind. A place where an eight-year-old boy could grab his tray and silverware rolled up in linen napkin and push down the rail.  Along the way the attendant would serve a helping of the food for which he asked.  Across or under the sneeze guard he began to pile on the choices, Salisbury steak and mushrooms(that he’d scratch off later), mashed potatoes with gravy, salads, and of course the obligatory green vegetables.

More often than not we were denied all things we really wanted.  After multiple rejections we learned to stop asking for Jell-O and coconut or chocolate cream, apple or cherry pie.

Fortunately, I assume, I was never forced to take the liver and onions.  And although we were allowed the choice, we were often admonished for picking up corn and mashed potatoes.  I learned early that two starches in the same meal is a sin.  It was a sin I committed regularly.

Slowly pushing the tray I reach the line's end.  Water and tea were the cue for my pulse to begin quickening.  Onward I pushed grabbing ice water.  And reaching the cashier my heart was beating against the collar, pounding away with no rational explanation. 

It wasn’t because the girl at the cash register was a beauty. I was still too young to think that way. 

No, as I approached her my thoughts were thus:  Will this be the time I’m finally allowed to take my tray and carry it to the table myself?  Will I be shamed again to have the girl conscripted from the back counter to carry my tray twenty feet to our table?

She always mysteriously appeared at the end of the railing.  She was some behind the scenes contrivance, some conspiracy, some underhanded and unspoken plot to undo my independence.

A few times I had already lifted my tray off the rail only to turn and be intercepted by some young attendant.  My escape in search of a table was ended before it began.

She never said a word to me, but with one look at me, she knew why she was drafted from her duties of filling water and tea glasses.  And I know why she awkwardly stands there waiting for my tray to reach the end of the rails.

I never believed that she offered a kindness to me.  It was kindness that I did not want, that I resented, and outright rejected.

She was my humiliation and the reminder that I was different.  She was the voice that whispered, “There are things that you can’t do.  You have one leg and so you’re special.”  Except I didn’t want to be special.

Today I went for a walk with some friends in Andorra.  It was a mountain hike and it was beautiful.  The trail runs along a rushing mountain river no wider than a Texas creek.  Uneven rocks, dirt, mud, and the occasional cow pies (Just like Texas creeks) lead up along some steep and treacherous path.  Not technically difficult for the causal hiker.  But a beautiful mountain terrain.  It’s a terrain, for me, that more often goes unseen.

As is always the case we start in the same parking lot.  And almost as soon as the journey begins the anxiety and humiliation reappears as the gap between me and the group lengthens.  As I am looking down judging where the next footstep will fall they are now ten, fifteen, twenty feet ahead of me.  An exponential growing gap between me and the group.

When I’m moving in this environment, I only see what’s right in front of me.  Because I can’t shake the idea that the next uneven rock or unseen crater hidden under a tuft of grass will be my undoing.  A fall, a trip, or worse a prosthetic brake would quickly end the adventure and make for the most humiliating and arduous hop back to civilization.  It’s a thought, an anxiety, which I haven’t manage to shake off since I broke a crutch in the second grade.

And always there is someone who does the kindness of hanging back with me.  Under the guise of just a pleasant conversation they offer the kindness of walking with me.  And I am made mindful that I am slowing them down.

The reason I like to go alone and at my own pace is that when I’ve had enough of a long walk, rather than pressing on, I stop and count my blessing for a safe travel thus far.  I declare this is where the train stops and turns around.  It’s then that I pause and take in the glory around me.  And then I feel no burden or obligation to anyone but myself.

But today for the first time my heart is ready to accept this kindness.

How ridiculous are these emotions? How prideful and selfish of me?  How another person’s kind gesture is intended for compassion but so repugnant to the recipient.

I am a mess. I both want sympathy and understanding while at the same time despise any footnote of my disability.  My hypocrisy is stark. My emotions are irrational.  I am irrational.  Wretched mind! Who will save me from this body [this mind] of death, Paul exclaims!

Now I think I know how God feels.  How foolish we must seem to God.  Who looking down from heaven or walking along side of us sees our disability.  And we in our spiritual pride reject his goodness and kindness on us all.  He who bears our tray and lot for the sake of his great love for us?

It was humiliating to me to be given that assistance.  When I didn’t feel that I needed it.

But I did need it.  I needed someone to carry that damn tray so that I wouldn’t bear the humiliation of that one time that I would have dropped it.


Accept the kindness given to you in all of its forms; whether you think it misguided or not. It is still kindness.

You can listen to my podcast at:  The Rev. Stephen Whaley's Sermons

Or find me on iTunes.