Pray For Me

I woke up this morning feeling some kind of way, kinda sad. Discovering that someone was bootlegging my art online, and deleting messages from racist trolls had put me in an irritated mood. I'm self aware enough to recognize the way I was feeling so I tried to uplift my self with a little exercise and prayer/meditation but I really couldn't focus or get into it. I had a lot of different troubling things on my overactive mind, and I needed to get out to an appointment I was running late for. On my way out to the meeting, a homeless man was begging for change, I ignored him because I was in a rush, I usually at least acknowledge someones presence when spoken to. My meeting went on as planned, happy to get the job done but disappointed that my investments had not performed as planned. Walking back home the same homeless man was on the corner panhandling. I thought to myself, screw it, I'm having a shitty day, mine as well make this guy a little happy. I  reached in my pocket to give him whatever change I had. Two shiny quarters, "Here you go, man, 50 cents." He said, "Thank you, God bless you!" At this moment I was reminded of what a mentor Dick Gregory said once, "give to the homeless and ask them to pray for you." I didn't really think about the philosophy behind it but I remembered. So I asked the man "Please pray for me, do you pray?" He said, "Yes I do, I will pray for you" He smiled, with his face lit up, and began to gently cry. We stood out there in front of Dunkin' Donuts and had a 15 minute conversation. We talked about spirituality, religion, philosophy, our families, the meanings behind our biblical names, and so on. "Okay David, I gotta go man, take care, and don't forget to pray for me brother." David eagerly said, "I will, I will." As I walked away he hollered out "Nathan wait a minute" and I turned around, and he said with joy in his heart, "If no one told you today they love you, I do, I love you brother" and I was touched, realizing that no one had told me they loved me today, my eyes began to water. I hugged him "Thank you, brother, I needed that."