May 12,

Looking forward to a dinner at our favorite restaurant all day made me almost taste the entree I had in mind. We arrived at the popular restaurant and waited for a table to become available. Fortunately we found some seats. Then Bobby gave me this look of panic and asked me if I had my purse. I purposefully had left everything at home and shared with him my state. Without words I knew what this meant. He had left his wallet at home as well. He did have a small amount of cash in his pocket. This certainly changed the course of the evening. We found our state kind of funny and looked at it as an adventure. After all, when was the last time we were so exposed, vulnerable, and confined in our spending? Life has been comfortable. We know our budget and live comfortably within it. We had not felt this feeling of exposure since college. And that itself sounds rather pompous. It truly felt foreign to us. This was a self-imposed exile into a few hours of being money challenged.

Once we had chuckled about our temporary state, it made us think more intimately how too many people in our world live each day with a few coins or bills to get through a day or week with tough, hard choices to make on what can be served for a meal or where their next meal is even coming from. Even in this great city of Denver, too many people go hungry or food challenged on a regular basis.

We came up with a plan for us of choosing take out from Chipotle on our way home and watching a movie. Bobby carefully drove the speed limit. A lack of driver’s license tends to make one highly obedient. At Chipotle we carefully ordered so as not to exceed our amount of cash. We asked humbling questions like does guacamole come with that? Is salsa extra? It felt almost cleansing to be asking these questions and feeling this humble. We ended up at home for a lovely evening of take out, movie, and provocative conversation on how this all felt. We both agreed it made us feel, really feel how so many in our city and world live. We were extremely grateful for this experience. It made us acutely more sensitive to the demands on the poor in a way we had not experienced in some time. Chipotle never tasted so good.

Since I did not have my camera, this image is from a previous visit to this favored restaurant, Linger, an eatuary. Tomorrow I will post about another unexpected experience due to our quick departure from this restaurant.

"We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Peace.