Let’s Be Nobodies

A Nobodies Magnificat

I saw her from behind. She’d dyed her hair a brassy orange although her roots were as dark as mine once were. She stood in the grocery aisle taking eternity to decide on which cheap cereal she’d buy. Her clothing was worn but clean, her cart full of ramen, canned soup and few fresh items.

My first reaction was impatience. Just decide already. But then, she gently replaced the boxes and wheeled her cart away. Something told me she’d already blown her grocery budget. I put the same cereals into my basket in case I ran into her at the checkout. Still, I felt small and stingy for wanting her to hurry.

Feeling small in lotsa ways this week. Battling a virus that has ravaged my mouth and throat, Even eating is painful. I’ve turned to porridge, the only food that doesn’t turn my oral cavity into a five-alarm fire.

And it makes me think about the haves and the have-nots. Fans of Oliver Twist may remember the chasm between the poor and the rich in Charles Dickens’ time. An orphan asking for a little more gruel was rebuffed. In 2026, facts show the top one percent controls more wealth than the bottom ninety-nine percent. Too many, especially people of color, can’t afford basic necessities. Stripped of health care and facing harsher food stamp rules, millions of Americans live small lives of scarcity.

I’m more than grateful for what I have, and I try to give as much as possible to those in need. My paltry faith reassures that nobodies are blessed. Jesus said so. I want to be a nobody too.

The wealth and opportunity imbalances across our country infuriate me. I do what I can to affect change: Help feed the poor, welcome the stranger, love God and neighbor. These things are so small to many elite somebodies, like gnats buzzing around their heads.

But wait. Where does it say, “Blessed are the elite?” The rich and powerful? I can’t find a spot that says, “Blessed be NIMBYs, for they shall not have undesirables move in next door.”

“Compassion without action is only observation.” -Joanna Macy

In God’s eyes, nobodies seem to be somebodies. God singles out the lowly, the darker-skinned, failures and sad losers. God welcomes mouth breathers, crips like me and doofuses. All blessed.

My white-girl inner snark says, “Blest with what?” I’m just as susceptible to greed and want and ooh wouldn’t THAT be nice. Groomed in a culture of capitalism, I feel the pull of possessing, amassing, accruing. Then I remember how Mary the mother of Jesus was lowly, chosen and blest.

How did she do it? Surely, she worried about having enough, just as we do today. God threw her a really bad hand, telling her she’d be visited by some stranger, one H. Spirit. And oh by the way you’re gonna be pregnant out of wedlock. But hey don’t worry, I’ll carry you through it.

Somehow, in spite of the pressures of peasant poverty and possible stoning, Mary saw God’s plan for what it really means: There’s plenty for you and everybody else. Every time you say yes to abundance instead of scarcity, the silo of your heart overflows.

I wonder if in spite of her lowly yes, people still whispered and shot mean looks as Mary went about her gestation. There’s always some who can’t see generosity if it hits them in the face. Yet Mary set her eyes on growth, abundance, pressed down and overflowing with gifts from the one who started it all.

Her light beamed out a promise of enough.

That no matter how lowly and invisible or targeted and suffering you and I may be, we are enough. We help one another and tah dah! Somebody isn’t as lacking as before. As activist Joanna Macy said, “compassion without action is only observation.” When I see poor folk helping one another in community, I can’t help thinking God smiles.

If you’re like me, you sit with our time’s brutal calamity and corruption and mean-spirited stinginess and wonder if anything matters one bit. I pray and give and occasionally make a sign for protests. But the single best thing I can do is adopt Mary’s blessing as my own: That I’m loved and enough and walking toward abundant life.

Abundance surely means giving away possible every scrap of love, kindness and help. As Jesus told the woman at the well, I only need drink the living water to bring the kingdom a little closer. And it never runs out. Whether it’s in a smile, inviting the person behind you in the checkout to go first, handing money to a sign flyer or whatever gives you grace to do for someone else, it’s there you’ll find the kingdom.

I wish I’d run into the lady with orange hair, but life doesn’t always cooperate with stories. Instead, I bought those cereals and donated them. Who knows, maybe she’ll get them after all. In the future I’ll be quicker to say yes to that nudge.

And I don’t really care if you use Christian ideals. Love is universal and compassion gives us bigger hearts. Most everyone I know identifies as not the one percent, which means we’re all nobodies. There’s enough. We’re enough. Blessed with the abundance of love, we can help heal those who need carrying. If you see the orange-haired lady, please buy her some cereal. Plan to do lots of somethings for nobodies who need to feel like somebody. Like Mary, you’ll be saying yes.