I walked right past him even with the urge to speak to him.

A few months earlier I had met a guy named Mark out on the streets of Boston. I wanted to offer Mark something to eat, so I asked him to go to get a sandwich with me. He said he preferred Dunkin Donuts, a classic New Englander. So, we went, and he told me what he wanted and then asked me for a five-dollar gift card on top of that. I said no, gave him his food, and that was that. I remember feeling kind of let down from the whole thing. Like I was expecting more, hoping for a cool story to come out of it or to meet this guy and connect with him in some way \u2013 inspire each other or become friends. Instead, it was just kind of a melancholy and dull interaction. On my way home I felt like maybe the interaction being so average and boring wasn\u2019t the problem. The problem was that I was expecting more. \u201cWhat did I even do that for?\u201d I asked myself. Was I just trying to feel good about myself? I truly believed my intentions were good going into it, but when I left the interaction disappointed, I felt like I needed to reevaluate where my heart\u2019s intentions were. By the way I felt, it was telling me that that interaction had become about me somewhere along the line. I\u2019ve seen Mark a few times since and we talk for a little while on the street from time to time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 My favorite part about seeing him is calling him by his name. He lights up and people even look at me funny when they see me walk up to this guy and yell, \u201cMark!!! What\u2019s up Mark!!?\u201d like they can\u2019t believe we actually know each other. One night Mark and I talked about his name specifically. He told me he appreciated being called that, his first name, because some people didn\u2019t even look at him like he was a human being. He was \u201chomeless\u201d. Not Mark. Just homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I struggle with homelessness. How to handle it. How to speak to someone who is. How to \u201cfix it\u201d. How to know when to give, what to give, if I should give at all. Am I enabling a panhandling lazy lifestyle, or giving someone the boost they need to get over a hill in life? Does it even matter which one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God loves to call us by name. Mark. Will. Whoever it is. That is who they are. For me, it starts there. Someone without a home doesn\u2019t self-impose the name, \u201chomeless\u201d. We strip people of their identity without even realizing it by ignoring that these people, who don\u2019t have homes, have a name. Know that name. Find out what it is and know it. Call them by it. They are named.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we drop money in someone\u2019s cup when we walk by because we can feel like we did something good? Like we did our part but from a safe distance where we don\u2019t have to get our hands too dirty or be a little too intentional. There\u2019s no doubt that sometimes we have every good intention in the world when we give to someone who is homeless. Other times, like the time I was with Mark, I think I\u2019ve caught myself being a little selfish.

Lately I think the word God has given me is \u201cinvitation\u201d. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s his answer to my questions or just something he has put on my heart. But the word is clearly invitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I\u2019ve learned about Jesus and continue to learn about him the more I get to know him is that he loved spending time with people. He loved being with people just to be with them. He wasn\u2019t focused on fixing them or getting anything, just being with them.

I knew I wanted to give an invitation.

I was walking to the store down the street to pick up some groceries when I saw a man sitting outside the Walgreens on a crate. It was a typical spot for people to hangout and the same spot I had met Mark a few months back. I saw a friendly and scruffy guy who was chattering with the public as they walked past him. \u201cInvitation\u201d, I thought. I knew I wanted to invite him. I told myself I\u2019d talk to him on my back as I walked past him and continued to pick up some things from the store. On the way back, there he was, still sunny as ever and asking for some help as people marched by.

I walked right past him even with the urge to speak to him.

As I made it another two blocks and almost back to my apartment, I turned around and started heading back towards him. I know myself and I was just making excuses not to talk to this guy. I knew what I wanted to do but I just didn\u2019t feel like doing it right then. I got all the way back to the man and approached him and introduced myself. He shook my hand firm, \u201cI\u2019m Will. Nice to meet you!\u201d he said. \u201cWill, I wanted to see if you\u2019d want to come over for dinner sometime?\u201d. \u201cYeah! That\u2019d be great. Where do you live?\u201d Will shot back without hesitation. \u201cAwesome, you\u2019re invited\u201d I told him. I had him write my address down and we planned for a Monday night dinner on Fairfield Street in my apartment. I asked him what he liked to eat, and he told me anything but that his favorite things were fried chicken and pizza. I opted to make us chicken parmesan. It seemed like a good cross between fried chicken and pizza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonight I pushed my couch and coffee table back and cleared out a big space under the chandelier in the middle of my studio apartment. Around 7 pm I peeked out the front door to see Will, right on time, stumbling around trying to find the right place. He came in and we had a great time visiting and talking, just sharing stories and getting to know who each other is. Will seems like a good man. He\u2019s funny and appears to be a man of integrity, one who has learned from the past and is striving to be someone good in the world. To do more than just exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I invited Will over without any expectations with what the night might entail. My purpose was to extend an invitation, and I held the hope that the person on the other end would say yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s invitations all around us. That is something that has become clearer to me in this past year. How many there really are and how much we have the chance to dive into when we\u2019re willing to accept them. Lately I\u2019ve been thinking more about the invitations I\u2019m giving. Who am I inviting? And what kind of story am I inviting them into?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We love invitations. I think back to being a kid, and getting invited to a birthday party was one of the most exciting things that could happen. Reversely, being snubbed of an invitation to a party or any kind of event is one of the worst feelings. How amazing that we have the power to do that every day. Who said an invitation needs to be formal with a card included?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know where my relationship with Will is headed next. Or what God has for me on this particular journey\/subject. I think he is reminding me that it isn\u2019t always about the details and figuring things out all at once. God knows the details of everything. We just need to figure out what. He will figure out how. Sometimes, it just starts with something simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something like an invitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walked right past him even with the urge to speak to him. A few months earlier I had met a guy named Mark out on the streets of Boston. I wanted to offer Mark something to eat, so I asked him to go to get a sandwich with me. He said he preferred Dunkin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":511,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grantkennethtaylor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}