On a recent Tuesday evening I was standing at the bus stop in downtown Cincinnati, waiting for the 21. A man approached, asking me and others in line for bus fare.
I had no intention of giving him money. I felt immediately guilty, but I am armored against these requests. Many people ask for bus fare and then move on down the street to the next bus stop to ask for more. Maybe he needed bus fare, maybe he needed food money, maybe he was economizing after a day of work.
I explained to him that I had just been serving meals at my church. Our “5000 Club” – named after a parable of Jesus feeding many people with just a few bread loaves and fish – serves about 150 hot dinners every Tuesday night. I invited him to come the following Tuesday. I gave him details, then I showed him all the money I had with me: $1.75. Seven quarters. Bus fare home.
“Sorry,” I shrugged and boarded the bus.
Perhaps conditioned from years of supervising teens in a high school, I always sit in the back portion of the bus, in the first row of elevated seats in the Cincinnati Metro buses next to the door. It gives me a chance to hear what is happening where the rowdier riders sometimes sit. It also allows me to see the front of the bus.
Before I started my reading (I think I had Yes to the Mess by Frank Barrett with me that day), I noticed a woman looking at me. She had been behind me in line, and she had interacted with the man too, but I don’t know if she gave him anything.
When our eyes met I smiled then resumed my book.
She was looking at me again several stops later. It’s not uncommon for this to happen. There aren’t a lot of places to look on a bus.
A few more stops, and suddenly the woman appeared in front of me, her face conspiratorially close. “I heard what you said to that man,” she said, pressing a $20 bill into my hand. “I was homeless once. You do good work, and I know you will use this to help someone.”
I started to protest. “You need this more than …” I started, then stopped. I didn’t know her circumstances, but I made some assumptions. Rather than say something insulting, I corrected myself. “Really, you should keep it.”
She squeezed the bill tighter into my hand and made significant eye contact. “You will use this to help someone who needs it more than we do.”
And she exited the bus.
The Side Quest
I immediately texted my friend Sarah who has an amazing ministry in our neighborhood called My Neighbor’s Place (MNP). They provide food, fellowship, and clothing to people in our area. She gave me several suggestions for the money.
She reminded me of their “People’s Pantry,” a cleverly converted newspaper rack that sits in front of MNP. I decided I would buy non-perishable food and put it there for those who needed it.
It took me a couple of days to realize what any video game player could tell right away: I had been given a side quest.
In video games, a side quest is a task or challenge that doesn’t really affect the outcome of the game. You can win without completing it. You can ignore it. But it brings new challenges and experiences, and can sometimes unlock special powers or weapons for later use.
I thought I couldn’t ignore the $20.
When I got home I set it with our grocery supplies on a shelf, then … I forgot it. Or, more accurately, I got pre-occupied with my main mission of daily life. An embarrassingly large number of weeks passed.
Then Greg asked me to guest-write this week’s Random Inspiration / Weekly Instigator. Suddenly, needing to write this post (side quest) I saw the chance to motivate myself to finally put that $20 to work (side quest).
And THIS is how side quests work. This is the power of “yes.” I could have gone on with my main mission. I could have said no. (Well … sort of. The woman was persuasive and Greg is, well, Greg.)
So maybe I couldn’t have said no. But after saying yes, awesome things were happening.
I listed my resources. I had $20 from the woman on the bus. I had a plan from Sarah.
But I’m a terrible shopper. So I told my wife Kathy – the most conscientious shopper I know – about my side quests. She generously offered to bring me with her on an already-planned trip to Aldi.
Side quest companion!
She was brilliant, proposing a full range of foods that matched my one condition: I would only buy food that I would want to eat. I’ve seen too many donated lima beans in my day. We picked some great meals, and she plucked two small boxes from the shelves to help me carry our purchases.
In the end, our $20 was quite a haul.
The Main Mission
On our way back from Aldi, we stopped by the People’s Pantry and put one box in, roughly half our quest-load. This morning when I brought the rest, a man who volunteers at MNP saw me carrying the box and held open the newspaper rack door.
A woman watched me re-fill the pantry. “Can I have that spaghetti sauce?” she asked.
“Sure, can I interest you in some rotini to go with it?” I dug into the box and pulled it out.
She nodded. “That sounds nice.” She pondered me for a second. “So you’re the one who puts this food here!”
“Oh no, only this once, or … twice, I guess.” I turned from loading the cans and I looked at her. There was a time when I would have felt embarrassment at talking to her. I think that comes from a Midwesterner’s flawed sense that there is something wrong with needing help. We think the cure is for everyone to pretend no one is helping.
It’s an odd system.
I thought about what I had learned. I accepted a side quest. Then accepted another. I examined my resources. Then I enlisted expert help, and the quest went better because of it.
My reward was the rare chance to see who, exactly, my effort was benefiting. I regretted that the woman on the bus would never know what happened with her $20.
“I think there are a lot of people in the neighborhood who put food here,” I said. “I hope it helps.”
“Oh Sweetie, you have no idea.”