Don’t Share Your Leftovers.
It’s October 2021 and I’m staying in a colorful wooden cabin that belongs to Tato and Antonia. Tato is an 80-something-year-old Dominican man who serves as the “abuelo” of the BLUE Missions team. Antonia is his loving wife. On my first day here, I felt like a little girl tagging along with her grandparents to Sunday morning mass. Early in the morning, we walked over to a white chapel on the main dirt road and stood at the entrance to be greeted by every doña in town. They hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages, asked about each other’s families like they hadn’t asked a few days ago, and cracked jokes like they haven’t been using the same ones for years.
When the priest arrived, the hens flocked into their holy coop. The readings were different stories that all pointed towards the same message. One told the story of a widow who is asked by the prophet Elijah for some water to drink and bread to eat. Being a widow on the fringe of extreme poverty, she replies that she regrettably only has enough flour to make one more loaf for her son and herself, and then dramatically claims that they would die of hunger soon after. To that, Elijah said, make me a little bread first and then make yours, and you’ll see that you won’t go hungry. She did that and the reading proclaims that she never ran out of flour.
The message was clear, give not what you have leftover, give what you have. This is the pulse of the campo. The karmic ebb and flow.
Every day, I watched Antonia make more food than we needed. At first, I thought, that’s a little wasteful, why does she make so much? And then every afternoon I saw her offer a few plates to tired farm workers passing through after a long day of harvesting cacao in the hills.
I thought of a blind old lady I met a few years ago in another campo. She was by far the poorest in town and lived in a ramshackle tin hut with her son. Although having enough food to eat was their main daily trial, she told me that whenever her son brought in a bushel of plantains, she would tell him to take a quarter of the bunch and give it away. And almost every day, I witnessed different neighbors walking towards her crooked doorway with a covered plate of food.
It’s the same belief as the reading with the widow, “give what you have and don’t worry about how your needs will be met.” What a beautiful way to live. What a contrast to our modern world of surplus and bulk-buying, hoarding for tomorrow. In the city, giving is a favor, not a way of life. While in the campo, even though securing the daily bread is the goal of every tired worker, it’s still shared generously between neighbors.
In the city, we operate from a place of scarcity rather than abundance. It never seems like “enough”. Enough material possessions, enough growth, enough time. How can we practice giving what we have? I believe the answer lies in being generous with our most valued and coveted resource, time. By being available for others. Showing up just to share time with family, opening your schedule to help someone in need. We brag about how busy we are and I don’t see the valor in it. You’re too busy to be a good friend? Too busy to notice those around you?
Don’t live like you’re running out of time. Don’t just share your scraps. Make time for others your first priority, and don’t worry about when everything will get done.