Both sides of the table
I was raised Catholic, and Christmas was the most festive time of the year. That is the season I think of whenever I remember that I have used soup kitchens and food banks myself. It happened at other times of year as well, but Christmas is the one that stays with me.
Today I stand on the other side of that table, serving in kitchens for homeless people. Having been on both sides is why the table has become one of my best teachers.
Learning not to judge
The first lessons were patience and not judging others. Neither came quickly, and I’m still learning both. Then the work taught me something harder. People come to volunteering for all sorts of reasons, and so did I. When I saw motives that weren’t about the people being fed, I felt a flash of anger, and it didn’t last, because I recognised them. They showed me what desperation used to do in my own life.
Jesus said it plainly: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1, KJV). A few lines later he asks: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:3, KJV). I heard those words every year as a boy. I only began to understand them while holding a ladle.
The beam in my own eye
That verse gets tested most by people who seem to need to show they are above someone, a small power trip. I used to take it personally. Now I try to see it as unhealed karma, and I know that word fits me too. I can’t see how much anyone carries. I can only see the action in front of me.
The same action shows me what I still need to work on, and I have learned to take that lesson with humility, as a mirror rather than an insult. The Tao Te Ching puts it like this: “He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.” (Tao Te Ching, chapter 33, tr. James Legge, 1891). A power trip is an attempt to overcome others. My work is overcoming myself.
Complaints over a warm meal
The table tests me in quieter ways too. At the tables I sometimes hear complaints about the food. I notice them, and I notice the part of me that wants to react.
When that part stirs, I think of the Tao Te Ching: “There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one’s lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.” (Tao Te Ching, chapter 46, tr. James Legge, 1891). I don’t say that to point at anyone. I know discontent from the inside. It is the voice that once told me a gift only counted if it beat the neighbour’s.
Jesus also said: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” (Matthew 25:35, KJV). I have stood on both sides of that sentence, and at Christmas I feel both at once.
Whose plans
Turning the mirror on myself goes back further than the kitchens. For a long time I put my energy into other people’s plans and ideas, building what they wanted to build. In the end those plans made me look at my own ideas and my own actions. I’m grateful for that now, even though it didn’t feel like a gift at the time.
Sitting with it
What I do with all of this happens on a cushion. I chant, and I sit. In meditation, the way the Buddhist tradition teaches it, I don’t push a feeling away and I don’t act on it. I let the envy, the irritation and the judgement rise, and I watch them until I can see where they come from. Mostly they come from me.
Which brings me to you. Do you know what this text has woken in you? Maybe irritation, maybe pity, maybe a memory of your own Christmas table. Can you sit with it, and not react, but understand?