Vendor Writing

My Mask

BY VICKY B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

I’m on the backside of 50 and I remember a lot of the cool things I had growing up. We wore plastic masks on Halloween and I had one that looked like a princess with a big smile. I hid behind that plastic smile because I didn’t receive any Valentine’s Day cards in school and pretended it didn’t bother me. Other times, I’d wear makeup to cover the little imperfections. Masks cover up many emotions that we hide behind.

Doctors and nurses use masks for protection, and today we use masks to protect us and others from a deadly virus that is killing thousands. Will the new normal mean that we won’t see people’s smiles anymore behind this mask? I get such joy from seeing smiles at me and returning them. Human contact is so much a part of our lives that without it I break down, have meltdowns and eventually can’t function. Last Thursday I went down to The Contributor

office to pick up some newspapers and see people. I needed those smiles after many weeks without them. What was waiting for me was a total surprise: my very own mask. A mask I could wear — not to hide behind — but a mask to protect myself and others. There weren’t many people downtown but a few vendors and construction workers, but I managed to see a couple of smiles. Rest assured when you see a vendor with a mask that there is still the big smile you’d normally see behind that mask.

If you see me with a mask on, know that I still have my smile behind it. A long time volunteer of The Contributor, Christine, has been hard at work sewing cloth masks for the vendors. Our Executive Director Cathy — or “mom” as I think of her — arranged for a very hungry vendor stuck inside to receive some food delivered.

That’s love and that’s why I call The Contributor family.

Love ‘em Anyway

BY JOHN H. , CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

Just the other day, I was about to catch the bus and they’ve got a rule where if you take the back door it’s free and if the front door, it’s regular pay. On that day, I asked the driver, “which is it?” He said, “you pay regular fair today.” Cool, that it was. He went on to say that many passengers talked crazy to him and what not ‘til the point he started charging everyone. I was quiet for a minute. The driver stepped off the bus to take a smoke. I looked up and began to step toward the door. Just stood there and looked at him, waiting for God to give me the words to give him.

I stepped on out the door and said, “Hey!” looking at him in the eye and said, “You have to love ‘em anyway.” A tear dropped from my eye and I explained, “You know for 10 years I’ve been coming to this area selling papers. And for 10 years I’ve been hated for no apparent reason, other than the color of skin, but still I love them, and that’s even supposedly Christians. Majority but not all. So how do you think I feel? It’s not my call. On the other hand, I have to be obedient to God’s word. Love ‘em anyway. Don’t ever let another person take your joy or trigger the happiness in your heart. Many times it hurts deep inside, but we must let love continue.”

A day later I met a lady driver that complained about the same thing. I told her, don’t destroy your blessings for revenge. Do what God put in your heart. Ya see, that’s the difference between you and them. You have that opportunity of putting God’s wisdom out there to them, but they won’t pick up on it ‘til later in life. But believe-you-me, they’ll remember you, the bus driver, and smile one day. Just plant the seed, God will nourish it.

Love ‘em Anyway.

Stay Safe

BY MAURICE B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

While we’re all being carefully reminded to “stay safe,” let’s ponder over the many miraculous recoveries that this whole world has gone through from the beginning of time. Regardless of what story one favors and accepts as the best theory, I believe all creation has been placed upon this world to do one major and certain thing, and within our task of doing that we all become attached to doing “our” own self will. That’s how we actually need to “stay safe” because our will is what shall hinder us.

In just about all creation stories there is an afterlife or hereafter, where there is no need to “stay safe.” It’s all about Marvelous and Glorious events of living. So why worry about man made trials and errors of this world? Because the true keeper of every individual’s time is not up to man and his trails and errors.

See, mankind has been striving to control the mass as if power is in numbers. True power lies in the beholder where in time all shall return, may it be His will. To “stay safe” is to stay in His will and not in ours. We’ve tried it our way for so long and look where it has gotten us. Just confirm that His will is better, take a moment, and realize that it was His will that woke us up, and He returned our naffs(soul) back into our control for just today.