3:00 AM Marginalia: If I don't give to the homeless person on the corner am I not fulfilling God's mission?
3:00 AM Marginalia: If I don't give to the homeless person on the corner am I not fulfilling God's mission?
He's there with the sign. I'm hiding in my car. Prayer when somebody needs bread feels like a cruel joke.
Three a.m. Still at that stoplight. The one from this afternoon. He's standing there with the cardboard and the marker. I'm sitting in my car with the AC and the conscience. Light's red. I got time. Too much time. I look away. Then I look at my hands on the wheel. Then I look away again.
They tell us—they tell me—give freely. Whatever they do with it after, that's not your business. That's between them and God. Just give. You got abundance, so give the abundance out. Don't judge. Don't ask. Just roll down the window and hand it over. That's what light does.
But here I am. Hiding. In my own car. Pretending to check my phone. Pretending I don't see him walking toward the lane. Pretending the light's gonna turn green any second. But it's red. And he's there. And I got nothing.
Well. I got prayer.
But prayer when somebody needs bread—that's not bread. That's just words. That's just me in my car with my mouth moving and his stomach still empty. Prayer feels like a cruel joke at that moment. Like offering a blanket when somebody's drowning. Technically kind. Actually useless.
Bad money in his cup.
Same hands. Same God. Same me.
So I sit there. And I don't roll down the window. And he moves on to the next car. And the light turns green. And I drive away. And now it's 3 a.m. and I'm still in that car. Still at that light. Still not looking at him.
They say Genesis starts with formless void. Darkness over the deep. Tohu wa-bohu. Chaos. And then God speaks and separates stuff from other stuff. Light from dark. Water from land. Order from chaos.
But what's the order here? What am I supposed to separate? Is the chaos out there—on the corner with the sign? Or is the chaos in here—in the car with the abundance and the guilt and the prayer that feels like nothing?
If I don't give—if I just sit here and let the light turn green and drive away—am I part of the void now? Am I the darkness they're supposed to separate out? Am I the thing that doesn't belong?
My thoughts. Just spinning. Separate one thought from the chaos. Just one.
If I could speak one word into the void right now—at this stoplight, at this moment, with him walking toward the car—I think I'd say no.
No.
Does that make me a bad Christian? Does that break the order? Does that mean I chose chaos?
Or is the miracle not that the chaos vanishes—but that in the act of even asking, in the act of sitting here at 3 a.m. still seeing his face, still feeling the weight—is that the beginning? Is that the speaking?
I don't know. I really don't. The light's still red in my head. He's still there. I'm still hiding.
That's enough. For tonight. Tomorrow another corner. Another sign. Another chance to figure out what light even means.
The scene that night did not stay contained within that moment. The question it raised—why human beings speak into silence at all—led further back than psychology or circumstance. It led to the opening sentence of the Bible itself. If a person will speak into the dark hoping to be heard, then perhaps the instinct to speak is older than we realize. I explore that idea in the companion reflection, Genesis 1:1 — Chaos or Nothingness?, where the question of the void becomes a question about the very structure of beginnings.
