Couple days ago, I was in my house and I was a little hungry. It was past 10pm and I wasn’t going to get something to eat but I decided to go to a nearby Taco truck because I wanted to drive and be alone with my thoughts. I order my food and as I was walking to the table where I was going to sit, I see a homeless man cleaning the table, “do you want something to eat?,” I asked. “Oh yeah!,” said the man. “Go ahead and order your meal. That way you can take a break. Make sure you get a good meal.” The man seem gracious about my offer. When he was ordering his food, I said to him, “when you are done ordering your food, come and join me.”
The man got his food, sat next to me and prayed before he began eating his food. I introduce myself to him. His name is Clarence, a man who appeared to me to be in his early 50s. We started talking and he told me that he is always around the area, cleaning people’s car windows when they are pumping gas and cleaning the tables of the Taco truck. Clarence went on to tell me that he ended in the streets when he lost his job and he didn’t have enough money to pay the rent and bills.
As we were eating, Clarence started sharing his spirituality with me. He talked about his faith in God and how when strangers go up to him after he has cleaning the windshields of their car, they always tell him that he is different than other people. Clarence then told me, “I always tell them if you see good in me, you are seeing God in me.” That phrase caught my attention. He went on, “I feel God wants me to tell others about Him through me. I feel He is using me so that people can see Him through me.” I told him that I see God in him and that I have always felt that Jesus disguises himself in the most marginalized so that we as a society can go beyond the outer appearance and pay attention to the inner gifts that we each possess. Clarence agreed with me and said, “I feel the same way too. I feel there is a reason why we are having this conversation. To be honest, when you asked me if I was hungry, I really was. I felt that God used you to reach out to me. Thank you. I can see God in you.” I quickly replied, “I see God in you.”
Clarence was telling me why he likes to wash the windshields of people’s car, “I like cleaning windows. I feel a good driver has to have his windshields clean.” When I was listening to him talk, a thought came to my mind and I shared with Clarence, “you know what they say about the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well, by you cleaning windows, you are ‘cleaning’ people’s eyes so that their sight is clean and will be able to see the God that is in you. By you cleaning windows, you are allowing people to see with fresh eyes the beauty that is in their surrounding.” Clarence paused. “Wow, you just made me realized why I like cleaning windows. Thank you G. That was deep. I never thought about it in that way.”
We ended having almost an hour conversation about life and spirituality. I then shared with Clarence my thoughts on the Gospels. “Clarence, this is what I tell people. Everyone knows about the 4 Gospels but the Gospel that people don’t know is the Gospel according to Clarence. That is the Gospel that you have to tell people about. St. Francis of Assissi once said, ‘Preach the Gospel, use words if necessary.’ The missing Gospels in the Bible are living Gospels.” Clarence was taken back by what I had just shared with him, “are you a preacher?” “No, I am not. I just feel that everyone of us has been given gifts to make this world a better place and there is no greater joy than sharing your gifts for the greater good of humanity. In order for us to share our gifts, we have to preach our Gospel and we do that through our actions.”
When it was time to leave we thank God for bringing us together and allowing us to have an amazing conversation. He told me that I can always find him around the area and hopefully we will see each other soon. We shook hands and gave each other a hug.
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