Salty

After an hour of shopping and another hour of standing in line, my phone battery was about to die. I removed my ear buds and started listening in to the conversations going on around me. The woman behind me and I began chatting about how civilly everyone was behaving. Even though there were limited resources and everyone was crowded and tired of being at the supermarket, not a single riot had broken out. I made it to the front of the line and the clerk began scanning my groceries. As he did, the woman behind me – who was probably30 years older than the check-out worker – began to scold the young grocery clerk. “I think that you aren’t being as efficient as you could be. Look how fast the others are going. We picked the wrong line.” My heart sank. This woman, who was cordial and polite to me earlier, was accusatory and cruel to a young man who showed up to serve hundreds of strangers in the midst of a pandemic.

Salt improves what it touches. It stands out. It’s different. As Christians, we are supposed to be like that too. I wanted to give that grocery worker a $10 bill as a tip after I heard what the woman said to him, but I wasn’t sure that was allowed in a Safeway. Instead I looked him in the eye and said, “thank you for coming to work today.” I made sure I said it loud enough for the woman behind me to hear it. Salt is good.