Mr. Lindsey

"I promised your dad that I would teach you how to work and by God, you are going to learn how if it's the last the I do." With those words Mr. Lindsey shoved the broom into my hands and sent me back out to the rear of the building to clean the parking lot---again and again and again.

My father raised me as a disabled, single parent. He always worried that I would grow up without having someone to model for me what it was like to go to work every day. So, the day after my 14th birthday, he drove me down to get a work permit and took me to the Community Cash grocery store where Mr. Lindsey was the manager. Mr. Lindsey went to our church and he really liked my dad. It's a good thing too, because I gave Mr. Lindsey quite a few gray hairs. It would be an understatement to say that I was a mischievous goof-off at that time in my life. I pretty much lived for mischief. Every time I would goof off or ignore a customer, Mr. Lindsey would begin our little ritual of sending me to clean the toilets or sweep the parking lots. As you can probably imagine, the result was that we often had the cleanest toilets and parking lot in town. I hated to see Mr. Lindsey pop around the corner only to catch me goofing off and I am sure that he hated the promise he made to my dad. However, in his very patient way, he taught me a great deal about work and how to show up and do your job even when you do not feel like it.

I saw him last year and when I encountered him, I realized how much I love him for patiently investing so much of his life into a mischievous kid who caused him great grief. That was also the moment that I realized what a gift my late father had given to me. I also realized just how many of the men I serve have never had that opportunity. They never had a Mr. Lindsey to patiently train them how to work. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Mr. Lindsey in his or her life at some point.

I meet many people who assume that a work ethic is simply in a person's character: you are born with it or you are just lazy. That mentality drives me crazy. Most people do no realize just how many role models helped form their work ethics. The young people who stay at the shelter have often never seen a close adult go to work every day. What they have seen is a parent who works for one check and then drinks it away over the weekend, after which he does not show up for work on Monday, or adults who spend more time scheming to get out of work than actually working. They come to us without a clue of what a work ethic looks like and then someone wants to blame their character?

Many employers in town have taken risks to hire people from the shelter. I am not talking about picking up people from the streets for day labor. I mean actually hiring people who are in our long-term programs because we pay attention to trying to instill a work ethic with our programs, structures and classes. I wish you could see the joy on the faces of people at the shelter when they get a real job. Some are convinced that all they are qualified for is day labor. They run and sometimes practically push their way through to tell me when they finally land a real job. Sometimes this happens two or three times a week. For many of our guests a real job is the difference between the shelter being the end of the line or the start of a new road in life. There is a certain poverty of dignity that comes from feeling like you have nothing to offer. There is something dehumanizing about always living up to the lowest expectations of others and there is something very empowering about overcoming them.

Obviously, not everyone is able to work. Obviously, not every job will even come to close to providing a living wage. There are many jobs in this country that keep you in poverty rather than keeping you out of it. Some of the jobs that provide virtually no living wages or benefits will also cause you to lose the few government benefits you do have. Despite some of the best efforts, I still see the system often penalize people for working. There are also many work environments that are exploitative and alienating. However, such talk often seems like a luxury to people who are desperate to take anything to survive. What I try to help my guests understand is that those jobs are a means to an end and not the end itself. They are simply the starting point. It seems that it is easier to get hired once you are already working. Some of the guests may have to patiently go several months in very menial jobs before they are "upgraded" to better jobs. In this economy, it is quite an achievement to find a job, but many of them do it and I offer them my standing ovation. Standing over my shoulder is the spirit of Mr. Lindsey, for surely I could have never helped them, if he had not helped me. The irony is that a big part of my most valuable training for this particular ministry did not come from a seminary or a theologian. It came from an old grocery store manager whose precious gift I was completely unable to understand at the time. I wish I could go back in time just once to say, "I got it boss, I finally got it!"