It was a beautiful Sunday morning when the man exited the church grounds and quickly crossed the street. He approached a younger man who was pushing a buggy. There was a child in it. The younger man appeared to be a recent arrival to our shores.
Back at the church grounds, a young woman was begging. I had just arrived and stood beside her while, across the road, the older man, who was white, wagged one singular bony finger at the man and child, who were brown.
This was in a sleepy, affluent south Dublin suburb. My father and I had chosen the location to have my first brunch out since my life-saving kidney transplant.
Not wishing to flex a dormant white saviour complex, I felt I couldn’t ignore this situation which appeared racially motivated. I crossed the road just in time to hear the older man say: “Is that your wife? You should be ashamed! Get a real job!”
As he said this, his arms moved as though independent of his body, throwing shapes to emphasise his feelings which he may have been entitled to feel, however grotesque, but he was certainly not entitled to say in public with such venom. No one had told this man that hate was not on the menu this morning (or any morning). No one had told him before that his words were ugly. No one had said that no one cares what he thinks.
Or maybe they had, and that was the point. In his inflated egotistical world he desperately needed to feel worthy, bigger than someone. This couple, and this child, were an easy target.
The moment was like looking through a stained-glass window whose light was fracturing and illuminating the worst of humanity. A lens into the interiority of a seemingly normal person whose insides were a jumble of crossed wires, short circuits and the cleaving to a conviction believed to make them more than.
As a person, he looked to me like an older uncle, someone who read books to his grandchildren by fires and perhaps sat, genuflecting, in that same church he spouted his hate at the gates of that morning, just an hour or two ago at Sunday morning Mass.
This man had felt threatened by the woman sitting on the cold, hard ground over whom he physically towered? Was he concerned her presence would mean he would not meet his [charitable] quota? Not make money because this woman was begging?
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The behaviour was the very antithesis of the love and acceptance the church seemed to proselytise, and I wonder if this anti-immigrant behaviour were not such a visible sore across numerous countries in Europe – and devastatingly so in Ireland – would this privileged man have felt the licence to harass, belittle and hurt at all.
That morning, I chose to ignore his hysterics and speak directly to, what turned out to be, a father and child: I am so sorry you are experiencing this. Please, ignore this man. He does not represent most people and his views are not okay. You are loved. The man, who had been keeping watch on the woman as this man raged, looked me straight in the eyes. He was struggling not to cry.
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My father, recovering from a recent football injury, had moved on to sit and, thinking the moment over, I followed. However, a young woman came up behind me and spoke to the father and daughter. The aggressor crossed back across the road to yell again. This woman, more prudent than I, gave him a piece of her mind and I returned to check on her. She was so incensed and told me the man was collecting for a charity outside the church. So this man had felt threatened by the woman sitting on the cold, hard ground over whom he physically towered? Was he concerned her presence would mean he would not meet his quota? Not make money because this woman was begging?
It was possibly even more stomach churning than I thought.
A church is a place where people seek refuge and solace, the place where – when growing up in Irish Catholic schools – we are taught to see Jesus in everyone, especially someone down and out on their luck, like a woman begging. Was this the wellspring of this hateful person? And if they were, as alleged, representing people through a charity who were probably most in need, it was too much.
A little later, I noticed the man and the buggy nearby. I offered to buy him a coffee. He was hesitant to accept, he didn’t want to be a burden, but agreed. “And for the child?” I asked. “Anything,” he said.
I entered Riggers, a cafe. Overhearing the story, the woman working there would not accept payment. This generosity was such a shock it caught me off guard; the depth of humanity of it, compared with the encounter with the aggressor, was profound. When I glanced in the bag, the woman had added additional food for the family. This small gesture would hardly solve this young couple’s problems, but one act of kindness, in the face of hatred from someone who should know better, was the best we could do together in that moment.
Now that is community.
Afterwards, it got me thinking that anyone working for a charity – especially as a volunteer – should undergo mandatory anti-racism training and workshops.
And I did feel compassion for this man too. How awful to be so oblivious to the world, and so at war with the living, that you must scream and heckle and spew hate on a Sunday, of all days, outside a church, of all places. How very non-Jesus.
But since it happened, I think mostly of the family. How did they speak about it when they reunited and where did they go? And, most importantly, how did they explain this to their gorgeous young daughter, who was young enough to be in a buggy, but not young enough to fail to understand something bad had happened.
When I told a friend of this, they wondered what was wrong with me: I just expect it in the world, they said. I’d walk right on by. It doesn’t shock me.
I got what they were saying. It’s not that I don’t expect this in the world, I just believe there is always room for kindness if it is safe to intervene.
Or as the Dalai Lama would say: Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
