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Philippians 2:3

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”

If The Shoe Fits……

        There was Imelda Marcos.  And then there was…..uh, me.  With so many siblings growing up keeping us all in shoes was certainly a challenge for my parents.  Luckily, four months of the year we really didn’t “need” shoes so that probably offered some reprieve to the imaginary budget mom and dad may have used.  One winter when I was in the second grade, I kicked a frozen soccer ball at recess and a piece of my shoe broke off leaving a very obvious toe-exposing hole, Three Stooges style!  I would do everything I could to hide the hole especially during reading group sitting with my “good” shoe on top of the broken shoe trying to hide the problem.  It was a couple of long embarrassing months before it came to my turn to get new shoes.

          A few years earlier the Daughters of Charity gave the Politte clan a few boxes of Christmas goodies that included a pair of black cowboy boots.  Like Cinderella, they were claimed by whoever could fit into them.  I think my brother Rick was the lucky winner.  Unlike today, boys didn’t wear flip flops or sandals as a shoe of choice way back when.  At least we didn’t.  We didn’t have any so it didn’t matter.  Nowadays most kids seem to care less about the condition of their shoes or worry if they even fit correctly.  Still others will only wear the best available or latest fad.

                -Fast-forward-

There we were in the small locker room before the start of our eighth grade basketball game.  There was nothing fancy or professional about us.  We did have some cool nicknames though.  Don’t laugh, mine was Panther Politte.  Not much works with our last name when it comes to creating team spirit.  I wasn’t Batman Battreal or Lightning Lowe and since assigning the nicknames was a group decision I was stuck.  I was dubbed Panther Politte.  I never heard of panthers playing basketball.  Yeah, before you keel over from laughing so hard you should walk awhile in my shoes, or in someone else’s shoes for that matter because at that time that’s what I was doing.  I was walking in someone else’s shoes.

I never really liked basketball.  With all due respect to the minions of basketball out there, it just isn’t my sport and that holds true even today.  Since there were so few boys in our eighth grade class I had an obligation to be on the team.  It took every one of us and a couple of seventh graders to make up an “A” and “B” squad.  I think most of the eighth graders were on the “A” squad.  I suppose it was determined by age and since I was one of the older eighth graders (you know that happens when your birthday comes in September and you have to wait another year to start school) well, I was on the “A” squad and thus had a starting position on the team.  Once the game began though, the Coach Govero could substitute “B” squad players.  So there I was all ready to take the court, another skinny Politte with toothpick arms wearing a drooping tank top style uniform getting ready to play.  I was lacing up my sneakers when George came over and said, “Here, wear these”.

That’s all George said and then he turned and walked out of the locker room.  Well, they were his old pair of Converse sneakers.  George was wearing a new pair.  Me?  Oh I was lacing up my shoes all right.  I was lacing up my black rubber cleated soccer shoes that I got two years earlier in the sixth grade.  It didn’t matter if my feet had grown over that time.  Having a second pair of shoes in our house was very rare and getting a new pair just to play grade school basketball was out of the question.  Several days before the game I debated time and again what to do for shoes and the only answer was to cut the cleats off my soccer shoes.  Soccer season was finished and I wouldn’t need them ever again since I was entering high school the next year.  I only had a few weeks of basketball and then this whole crappy experience would be behind me forever!  So off the cleats came with the use of dad’s hack saw.

Let me tell you, after sawing off those little black knobs I didn’t have such a smooth surface on the bottom of those shoes.  Certainly not for running up and down a basketball court that is.  Good thing I didn’t have to find out.  But until George came along it was the plan.  My feet had a little more room in George’s used pair of tennis shoes.  He must have kept buying shoes as his feet grew!  Oh well, other than being scrawny and looking mal-nourished, for each remaining game I wore George’s old shoes.

When Jesus said to his followers, “sell what you have, leave all behind and come follow me”, they basically did just that, losing jobs, feel unsure of their futures and most certainly absorbing the awkward gaze or stare of bystanders as they walked with him from town to town.  How many prospective disciples turned down that invitation to “go sell what you have and come follow me”?  How many turn down this invitation even today and every day?

A lot of times we are encouraged to “walk in someone else’s shoes” but rarely do we volunteer to let others walk in ours especially if our shoes or our life situation is better.  I think most of the time we will pass up the hitch hiker along the road or not interact in some way with the person sitting alone at the diner.  Have you or I ever looked at it this way, to offer our “shoes” for awhile?  That maybe even our used shoes are better or more appropriate for someone else in their current circumstance?  I don’t think George said, “Here, wear my shoes.  Someday you’ll write about it.”  Yet here I am now nearly forty years later, playing music at the funeral for George’s mom.  And there was George, someone I haven’t seen but a few times since eighth grade and I was able to walk in his shoes sort of, share his sorrow and provide some level of comfort for him as he prepared to bury his mother.

I don’t think George or I ever imagined that loaning a skinny kid a used pair of sneakers could ever come back around in this way but God knew!  He had the plan.  And to top it off, each of us had on the nicest pair of black shoes!

One lesson we can learn from walking in the shoes of another is to defer judgment.  Just lacing up their sandals once in awhile can help us to see something from their perspective even in the simplest of ways.  We are quick to bemoan those who hold elected office.  The school board is declared incompetent by those who disagree with their policy making.  On and on we go finding fault with anyone who doesn’t share our views.  Yet, we won’t walk in their shoes.

For a brief moment as I looked at George my mind immediately went back to the locker room in eighth grade.  I was curious if while George was looking at me, if he didn’t momentarily drift back too.  Later I wondered as he drove away to go to his mother’s grave site, he might have said to his wife, “That guy playing the guitar?  I loaned him a pair of used sneakers a long, long time ago.”

My journey during this recession as I have experienced the loss of a job, having to sell my home and seek unemployment compensation and tap into savings has given me an in-depth perspective and true opportunity to walk in another’s shoes in various ways.  While I may try to put a humorous spin on it or remark matter-of-factly about being “broke, homeless and unemployed”, by God’s grace, the blessings of family and sharing from others I still have enough to sustain me on this journey.  And when you’ve walked in those shoes you soon realize there is nothing funny about it.  I also know that in due time I will pay it forward once again as well.

I didn’t get the chance to talk to George after the funeral because I was still feeling the effects of a recent bout of flu and went home immediately afterward.  I guess that was appropriate for us to go our separate ways.  We didn’t need to reminisce about the times of long ago.  God just gave me this moment to silently repay a debt of gratitude!

Every day I gain new meaning to the concept of walking in someone else’s shoes once in awhile.  Whether it was forty years ago or now, by George I’ve done it!

Peace

(C) David A. Politte

2011

I appreciate your comments.

dpolitte57@gmail.com

 

 

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