I’ve been thinking a lot about working at the Circle K.
People come in almost every day. Regulars. Familiar faces. For many folks, especially people who are unhoused, it becomes a kind of third place. Not home. Not work. Just somewhere warm. Somewhere predictable.
We’re a few blocks from The Landing, the Warming Center, The Salvation Army, and Mayo Park. A lot of folks who live in the park come through our doors. Many buy a soda because it’s cheap. Ninety-nine cents. A dollar and seven cents after tax.
And more times than I can count, someone comes up a few cents short. Because capitalism, we deny the sale. And because capitalism, we eventually dump the soda down the sink.
After a while, I started asking myself, "What is five cents when someone can have a moment of comfort?"
I know the argument. “That’s irresponsible. They shouldn’t be spending their last pennies on sugar.” Sure. I can think that way too. But judgy-mcjudgerson aside, what I realized is this: sometimes that soda is the one small reprieve someone has from living a very hard life.
Many of these folks are dealing with addiction, serious mental illness, criminal records, or all of the above. Some are deeply difficult people. Some are just regular humans trying to survive, in transition, waiting for the right resource, program, or opportunity to land.
And here’s the truth we don’t like to say out loud, most of us are far closer to losing our housing because of a job loss, accident, or medical event than we are to becoming billionaires and launching ourselves into space.
There’s a woman who comes in regularly. She carries her entire life in a suitcase, like many do. Every time she sees me she says, “Thanks for showing up. I like seeing regular faces. I like the stability. And just so you know, if I ever saw you broken down on the side of the road, I’d stop to help you.”
I told her, “I appreciate that. It’s nice when someone stops. Not if I’m broken down.” I chuckled with her about it.
I don’t know her backstory. But I know mine. I’ve had unstable housing. I’ve needed help. If I didn’t have friends, family, and resources at certain points in my life, things could have gone very differently.
I’m grateful for my life. I tell people all the time, “I’m thriving compared to a lot of folks.” And because people showed up for me when I needed just a little support, I try to do the same.
So I started a soda pop fund.
Nothing formal. Just my pocket change in a cup in my locker. When someone comes up short, I say, “It’s good. I got you. Bring it back next time or pay it forward.”
And you know what? If I can make a person's day by fronting them 99 cents, why not!?
Kahlil Gibran wrote, “There are those who give little of the much which they have—and they give it for recognition… And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life, and their coffer is never empty.”
Today at work, it got a little chaotic. I was helping a customer. A regular was chatting with me. Someone else wanted my attention. And suddenly my friend Richie hands me his sweater and says, “Put this on so you’re not cold.”
My coworker Brendyn starts laughing and says, “Everyone is converging on Vangie.”
I looked up and said, “Not helpful, Brendyn," shaking my head. "Okay, everyone, back up. Let me finish what I’m doing and then I’ll give you the attention you want.”
Sundays are traditionally for church.
But for a lot of people, church looks like a Circle K counter. Familiar faces. Warmth. Someone remembering your name. Someone saying, “I got you.”
Lenten Reflection:
I keep thinking, if Jesus were alive today, he’d probably work at a place like a Circle K. Somewhere ordinary. Somewhere people come every day just to get through it. Somewhere you learn names, notice patterns, and understand that five cents can matter more than theology. He’d bend rules for compassion, not for profit. He’d know that people don’t need fixing before they deserve care. They’re just...thirsty.
Lent asks us to notice where God actually shows up.
Not in perfection.
Not in moral superiority.
But in ordinary acts of care.
Scripture doesn’t tell us to give only when it makes sense or when the recipient meets our standards. It tells us to give from the heart.
“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” - 2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)
Lent isn’t about grand gestures.
It’s about small faithfulness.
Five cents. A soda. A sweater. A familiar face.
Maybe the question isn’t, “Is this responsible?”
Maybe the question is, “Does this help someone get through the day?”
That’s how beloved communities are built.
One ordinary act at a time.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
I’ve been thinking a lot today about Punch-kun, the Japanese macaque monkey who went viral this week.
Rejected by his mother for reasons only she knows. Hand-raised by zookeepers. Given an IKEA orangutan plushy as a surrogate. People woke up crying over videos of him trying to be accepted by his troop. And honestly, I get it. I felt that immediate instinct to protect him. To scoop him up. To say, someone, please love this baby.
But I also wondered why Punch hit such a nerve.
Is it the mother-abandonment wound?
The fear of being unwanted?
The memory of being bullied, ignored, or lonely?
That feeling of pressing yourself against a stuffed animal at night because it can’t reject you, even if it can’t hug you back?
The zoo responded thoughtfully. They reminded people that while it looks painful, this is normal monkey behavior. They said:
“In order to integrate Punch into other Japanese monkey troops, we anticipated that this kind of challenge may arise… While Punch is scolded many times, no single monkey has shown serious aggression toward him. We would like you to support Punch’s effort rather than feel sorry for him.”
That line stopped me cold.
Support his effort rather than feel sorry for him.
It made me think about myself as a kid.
I was a weird kid. Awkward. Quiet (if you can believe that). A daydreamer. I drew a lot. Enjoyed my own company. Had exactly one good friend who lived across the street, and he was the kid who threw up in the cafeteria. So yes, we were both outcasts.
When he moved away, I was alone. New school. No friends. Poor social skills. Deep loneliness. I wanted connection, I just didn’t know how to get there.
In third grade, the school offered workshops, and one of them was literally called How to Make Friends. I’m 51 years old and I still remember the most important lesson from that class: Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself.
“Hi, my name is Vangie.”
That was me taking an active role in my own life. Trying. Showing up. Making an effort, even when it was uncomfortable. Even when I was scared and alone.
Eventually, I met my best friend growing up, Coleen Mande. She became one of the first members of my sacred, beloved community. She helped heal the loneliness. The feeling of being unwanted or invisible. Maybe the day those boys stole my shoes and threw them into the boys’ bathroom, she saw a little Punch who needed rescuing. (Yes, that actually happened.)
What we found was sisterhood. Support. Friendship. Community.
I wouldn’t be who I am today without her. I wouldn't be as cool. I know that. And she knows that, too.
And when I see Punch, I see myself. I see resilience. I see effort. I see someone trying to belong.
We don’t need to pity him.
We need to support his effort.
His resilience.
His mental strength.
His fortitude.
He, too, will find his beloved community.
Lenten Reflection:
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:34–35
Beloved community isn’t built on perfection or sameness. It’s built through effort, patience, and choosing love even when it’s awkward or slow.
Lent asks us to notice who is trying.
Who is showing up.
Who is reaching out, even when it costs them something.
This season invites us not just to feel compassion, but to practice it. Not to rescue people from discomfort, but to walk beside them as they grow.
Maybe the work isn’t to feel sorry.
Maybe the work is to support the effort.
That’s how beloved communities are made.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
Today marks six years since my mother died.
“Are you happy?” I asked my mother.
“I’m happy if you’re happy,” she said.
It was one of the last fully coherent sentences she said to me. It was also what she said when I came out to her in my early twenties. Love, distilled. No theology degree. No conditions. Just love. Mothers teach us this first.
They carry us into the world, and in time, we carry them out. They feed us. They worry over us. They teach us what care looks like long before we have language for it. And even when their bodies fail, their love often remains clear. Death does not erase love. It rearranges it.
Grief becomes a kind of companionship. Love shifts from presence to memory, from voice to echo, from touch to responsibility. We live differently because they loved us.
I asked her if she was happy because I knew she was dying. I wanted to know if she felt she had lived a good life. Our relationship was complicated. Less so than my relationship with my father, but still layered. She loved me in ways that were always undeniable, even though she was a woman I didn’t fully know. What I do know is this: she lived for us. She worked hard. She sacrificed. She stayed in a marriage that betrayed her so that we would be okay. She loved him until his death, for us.
After my mother took her last breath and the funeral home took her body away, I got into a cab and went straight to the Dumaguete airport. I spent sixteen hours, which felt like a thousand, holding my grief inside my body. Holding the tears. Holding the greatest loss of my life so I could get home. Crossing oceans, continents, and time zones.
When I arrived, what followed was the deepest internal injury I’ve ever experienced. I had just spent three weeks watching the only woman I truly loved die in front of me. I came home to another bitter ending. And people wondered why I was so upset. Try not to have a complete breakdown in front of hundreds of strangers, traveling internationally, so you can get home, sleep in your own bed, and grieve your mother in a house you once shared with a woman you loved and planned a life with. Pain has a way of making reality unavoidable.
When people are given the opportunity to show kindness in the face of someone else’s suffering and instead choose cruelty, that tells you everything you need to know. As Maya Angelou said, when people show you who they are, believe them. My mother was dying and said, “I’m happy if you’re happy.” My ex waited three weeks for me to come home and then chose to tell me how much she hated me.
Both women were mothers. Only one chose love.
That contrast changed me. I could never intentionally hurt someone in that moment, knowing what I was experiencing with grief, and what it does to the body and the soul. Whatever love I had left for that woman disappeared in an instant. Not out of anger, but clarity.
Because of my mother, I know what love is supposed to feel like. And because of her, I know what love in action looks like.
And that was not it!
What hurt almost as much was realizing that some people around us couldn’t see it either. Or wouldn’t. That silence taught me something, too. Grief strips things down to their truth. It shows you who wants your healing and who can only tolerate you when you are whole, quiet, and convenient.
Be gentle with people’s hearts. The world can be unintentionally cruel, especially to the strong, quiet ones. Most people don’t know what others are carrying.
Years after my father died, when no one was controlling my mother or telling her how to live...
Me: “Are you happy?”
My mother: “I’m happy if you’re happy.”
Lenten Reflection:
Lent reminds me that life and death are not enemies. They are part of the same story. Endings make room for new beginnings, not by erasing what came before, but by carrying it forward.
May we live in ways that honor those who loved us into being.
May we care for one another as we were cared for.
May grief soften us, not harden us.
And may we trust that even in loss, love continues. “A humble and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)
Grief does not disqualify us from love or from God. Tenderness is not something to fix. It is something to honor.
Lent asks us to sit with endings. With dust and breath. With the truth that life is finite and therefore precious. But Lent also reminds us that endings are never the whole story.
Lent asks: how will you live with what you’ve been given?
What does it mean to be happy in a world where people we love die? Where nothing is guaranteed? Where joy and sorrow are not opposites, but companions?
Maybe happiness isn’t constant joy.
Maybe it’s alignment.
Maybe it’s living in a way that honors the people who cared for us.
Maybe it’s choosing presence instead of numbing, connection instead of escape, love instead of fear.
Mothers don’t usually ask us to be perfect.
They ask us to be okay.
To be safe.
To be loved.
To love.
Today, I remember my mother.
I remember her love.
I remember her care.
I remember her.
Mahal Kita, mommy!
