A Blessing for the Sole
An airport shoeshine man gave me a lesson about God and his human gifts on earth.
Shortly after passing through airport security, I realized my shoes were in desperate need of a shine. I stopped at Executive Shine in Charlotte, N.C., and took a seat in the regal bank of elevated chairs.
An employee approached and, after confirming I was good on time, got to work. This unplanned stop allowed me to get out of my head for a moment. From my perch, I silently watched the laborer at my feet.
Hunched over, he toiled for what seemed an impossibly long stretch. The diligent and humble effort reminded me of something St. Thérèse of Lisieux said about the merits of redemptive suffering. “I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies,” said the 19th-century Carmelite nun. “To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.” From where I sat, that’s what the worker was doing: a small thing with great love.
There seemed no past or future, only a continuous present in which he was fully engaged. How often I selfishly worry about tomorrow or dwell on yesterday. Yet this man knew, as the proverb goes, how to be where your feet are.
His efforts breathed new life into my wingtips. Shoes that could have been mistaken for the worn-out kicks of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Mr. Bojangles suddenly looked good enough to pass military inspection.
When it was time to settle up, I asked what I owed for his services. “Whatever you think it was worth,” he said. Surprised, I asked the question again but got the same answer.
It had been years since I’d been to this shop, but I recalled its prices and figured they hadn’t changed much. Inspired by this man’s trust, I paid him a premium. Our circuitous path to price discovery got me thinking.
A cynic, Oscar Wilde said, is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This most uncynical man demands no price for payment, only value for consideration. I think I understand why. Transactions in the material economy may be zero-sum—a dollar in his pocket was one out of mine—but ones in the spiritual economy never are. The abundant trust he placed in me didn’t diminish his stores of unperishable virtue.
How man sees himself and the world around him largely depends on which part, matter or spirit, he identifies as the seat of his authentic self. By transacting in values, the laborer chose the better part. As with shoes, I suddenly realized, so with people.
It’s fitting that a boot polisher would be the one great-souled enough to help me make this connection. He surely knows how life’s curb spares nobody, but that no matter how abraded our exterior, we’re never without intrinsic value. Once the imperfections are lovingly made right, interior magnificence is visible, and we are again glorious bodies.
A lot to draw from a chance encounter with an ordinary person? I think not, for two reasons, both courtesy of C.S. Lewis. First, in “The Weight of Glory” (1941), the British writer observed: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” He’s right. The artisan was no ordinary person; nobody is. “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,” Lewis continued, “your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” No human life is a cost. Every human life is of an infinite value.
Second, reflecting on his faith in “Mere Christianity” (1952), Lewis wrote that he “does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” While his grace comes directly, his gifts often come indirectly and through others. If this is so, then there are no chance encounters, only chance opportunities to learn the good God is anonymously teaching. Here a shoeshine made me think less of myself and more of others—through whom, by accepting them as gifts, I learned more from their giver.
What might have been pedestrian turned profound. God never stops seeing the immanent beauty beneath our disfigured exteriors. Through his care of my banged-up footwear, a gift of a man reminded that neither should I.
Mr. Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte, N.C.
By Mike Kerrigan
Nov. 7, 2024 5:26 pm ET
