Do I Give Her My Shoes?

my moral quandary at the Los Angeles Central Library

After meeting a neighbor for a walk a few times, she suggested we explore downtown together. In her sensible Honda sedan we traveled to the Los Angeles Central Library.

That day, my new friend wanted to go into the library, but I didn’t. In large part this was because I wasn’t up for the hassle of negotiating which sections we would visit, how long we would stay at each one, and the ongoing back and forth of assuring that both people’s library-related needs were being adequately met. 

Since I didn’t yet know her well, I wasn’t sure whether she was the type to speak up strongly for her own needs and preferences. This makes these scenarios negotiating our individual priorities and preferences even less pleasant, because I feel like I have to read minds or pull teeth or both. 

Plus, when I’m with someone who doesn’t speak up for their own needs, it’s easy for me to hold back expressing mine too. It’s as if we enter an unspoken agreement that the best way to care for the other person is to assert as little of ourselves as possible. 

This is a bad plan, but an easy one to slip into. I learned it early on from some of my family, who often wanted me to be more like them than I actually was. They tended to equate love and connection with similarity, so I was scolded or guilt-tripped for pursuing (or even having) interests or preferences they didn’t share, which was called selfishness. So now I sometimes assume that caring for another person includes shrinking my own desires and preferences.

Years ago I went on a walk with another friend I was just getting to know, and she also operated under this assumption. We were walking a popular 3 mile loop, and after we had gone about two-thirds of the way, she asked if we could stop so she could adjust her shoes. It turned out the backs of her heels were rubbed raw and bleeding, which had been happening for much of the two miles we had walked so far. But it took until her shoes were practically filling up with blood for her to say anything. 

Maybe that’s an extreme example, but it’s what I think of when I’m with someone who seems hesitant to speak up for their needs or express their discomfort. I just imagine that as we casually chat about our weekend plans or what we ate for lunch, their shoes are slowly filling up with blood. 

So in the case of the library, I told my new neighborhood friend that I’d hang out in the courtyard and wait while she went inside.

As I sat on a courtyard wall, the empty ornate fountain beside me, a woman who likely lived on the streets was walking in winding paths and loops from one side of the courtyard to the other. She would stop in random spots to sit on the wall of one of the many planters, then return to wandering loops.

What initially drew my attention to this woman was her shoes. Or, her lack of shoes. On one foot was a very worn unlaced running shoe, at least 4 sizes too big, with the sole holding on by a miracle, which flopped as she walked. On her other foot was an elaborate sculpture of white plastic grocery bags, layered and tied together to create at least some kind of protection as she walked the filthy streets of downtown. The bag “shoe” was fraying significantly. 

I immediately decided that I should give her my shoes, and squinted my eyes, trying to gauge the size of her feet and whether my shoes would fit her.

I laughed to myself as I thought of my neighbor who didn’t know me very well yet, coming out of the library with her books, only to find me standing in bare feet, ill-prepared for the downtown walking adventure we had planned.

But just as I contemplated the best way to offer my shoes to the woman, I stopped myself. It just so happened that in this particular season of life, I was trying to learn that not every need I encountered was my responsibility to meet. I was a burned out pastor and church starter who, especially through the intensity of leading a community through the  pandemic lockdown, had slipped into beliefs and practices where other people’s urgencies immediately became my own. I had been operating in that way over the past several years (and in some ways for my whole life). But rather than deepening my sense of love and compassion, these dutiful acts of service had resulted in alienation from God and myself. 

So I considered this shoe-giving situation from multiple angles. 

On one hand, I could easily get another pair of shoes, and this woman didn’t have any shoes. On that level it seemed straightforwardly right that I give mine to her.

On the other hand, I had promised my friend that we would go for a walk in the city, and my shoes were a pretty essential part of that being possible. 

Added to that, I was trying to learn that I am not required to reflexively jump into action every time I see someone else’s need. I am all for sacrificing for other people, but I have been trying to learn not to do it purely reflexively; not to do it unthinkingly and out of compulsion. When I do decide to help someone, or to sacrifice for them, for it to emerge from a place of freedom and intentional choice.

It also occurred to me that maybe everyone’s brain doesn’t work this way. After all, it’s not like a horde of people was approaching the woman trying to give their shoes to her. Most other people might have seen this woman, might have noticed her lack of adequate shoes, might have felt some pangs of empathy, but wouldn't necessarily have decided that it was their responsibility right in that moment to do something about it. 

And I don’t think that’s necessarily good. But I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, either. I think it’s the reality of living in a city where you are surrounded by vastly more needs than you have the capacity to attend to in any meaningful way.

Still, there are so many scriptures about the emptiness of just wishing someone well but not actually helping them. It feels easy to slide into self-centeredness and get too comfortable only focusing on my own needs. But also, compulsively feeling responsible to meet the needs around me had resulted in exhaustion, and had reduced my sense of God to a dictator forcing me to do the “right” thing. That was not working either.

Plus, I wasn’t even sure God was asking me to do all the things I was doing. I was raised to be hypervigilant about noticing people’s needs and frantically filling them like my life depended on it. And the result was often resentment and burnout, a lack of desire to connect with God, and no real sense of God’s love for me apart from approving of my benevolences. 

So here I was trying to be more intentional about where I focused my energy, and sometimes saying no so I had stamina for the places where I did say yes. I was trying hard to stop manufacturing tasks for myself out of a reflexive sense of obligation. That meant I needed to slow my roll on this whole shoe-giving thing, in the name of the transformative work happening in my heart. I had to figure out a way to decide whether this impulse was indeed coming from the Spirit and from my true self, or just emerging from an ingrained sense of over-responsibility. 

Trying to get comfortable sometimes saying no to a need in front of me means sometimes I actually do say no to the need in front of me, no matter the guilt that comes along.

So I decided to take this particular decision out of my hands.

I prayed internally. “Okay, God. If you want me to offer this lady my shoes, then have her come sit next to me here on this wall. If she comes and sits down on my stretch of wall, I will give her my shoes. Otherwise, I won’t.”

This felt like a good way to go about it, or at least a way to go about it. The woman was already walking around the courtyard randomly, sitting for short bursts on different sections of wall. So I figured God could somehow get in her brain synapses and have her stroll in my direction, if my shoes were something that would indeed make her life better. 

For several minutes, the woman walked in loops, sat down in spots that were not on my stretch of wall, and then slowly descended the steps out of the courtyard, with her plastic-bagged foot, onto the busy sidewalk, and then out of sight.

Was it wrong for me not to give her my shoes? Honestly, I still don’t have a clear yes or no answer to that question. And it feels weird and vulnerable to share a story (as the first real post on my Substack, no less) where I choose not to share my resources with someone when I had the ability to do so. But it’s a complex place where I continue to ponder and wrestle and I’d love to hear how other folks navigate their own resources around how and when to help, and how you avoid burnout and resentment.

Anyway, my friend emerged from the library with a small stack of books, and found me wearing shoes, as would be expected. And none of our shoes were full of blood.