Can I help you find something?

¨Can I help you find something?¨ an obese lady, maybe 55 years old, had caught me in front of the bacon and cheese section at the local mom & pop supermarket 1 hour from closing in the mostly vacant store.

¨I´m just a little overwhelmed by the bacon choices. Thanks,¨ I said, thinking I might explain that I don´t usually buy bacon, but then reasoning: what´s the point? And I turned away.

She took this an invitation to explain to me the finer art of purchasing pork products, and so I humored her. It was as if she had found purpose for the evening, a place and time to contribute. As she dug to the bottom of the Oscar Meyer pile to compare marbling, I noticed and decried a package that appeared to contain air and was no longer reddish pink with pearly streaks but rather an ominous gray color. ¨If you point that out to the cashier, they´d probably knock off 79 cents,¨ she offered, hopefully. ¨Looks a little risky for 79 cents,¨ I countered, happy to squeeze in my first complete sentence. As she moved on to the shredded cheeses, which were adjacent, I decided to interrupt and point out that I had already selected my cheeses, confidently showing her my basket to prove I was not lying. ¨Oh, this lesson is for next time and so that you can share it with someone else,¨ she smiled, and I felt rather stupid at my self-centeredness.

She appeared comfortably dressed in her overcoat and scarf, with a fairly warm smile under her round nose which held up her round glasses. A loud voice in my head told me to excuse myself, leave, and get on with life. The quiet voice told me to shut-up, stay, and get on with life… listening. Perhaps 15 minutes into the engagement, the loud voice surged. The monologue was back to bacon, so I grabbed the cheapest pack, Big Buy Hardwood Smoked, and chose to say something weird and end on a fun note:

¨I´ll just go with the Big Buy, ´cause it´s cheapest. But I think the question that´s on everybody´s mind is this:¨ I took care to enunciate, ¨Since Jesus was omniscient, did he struggle with not being able to eat bacon?¨

She paused and pondered for a second… ¨I haven´t tried the Big Buy, but if you ask the fellow up front…¨ and she continued.

A while later, I found an opening and ventured, ¨Do you go to church?¨ which resulted in her admittedly uncertain yet thorough opinions on the significance and ramifications of Jesus Christ as well as some of the other prophets and apostles both within and without Christianity. She also spoke very highly of her favorite church and all of its ministries to the disenfranchised and homeless. And although she was not sure of its name, she gave me directions to it at least twice.

As she delved into the history of the church, she stumbled to recall the name of Constantine, so I filled in the blank. She paused. The look on her face told me she was surprised that anyone would listen to someone talk about something that they already knew something about. Yet on we (she) went into church, Bicycle Billy the Irish guy, homelessness, her disability, raising children… Honestly, I was surprised that I was still listening.

I managed to find value in the child-rearing methodologies she was describing and interjected, ¨you seem to have innate ability as a leader.¨ She balked, maybe blushed. ¨Well, some people have said… but leadership and power…¨

I interjected again, ¨maybe I should have been more specific… you have innate ability as a servant-leader… like Jesus.¨

For a second, I thought she was going to cry. There was silence for the first time after what must have been well over half an hour.

¨I think I need to go back to church,¨ said Teresa.

I committed to pray for her and we parted with a hug and lots of smiles.

¨What on earth was that?,¨ I thought, feeling totally used, but in a great way.