Even Jeffrey Dahmer Looked Nice on the Outside

George Dunn joined us for our Thursday morning free store conversation and as usual was Mr. Popularity owing in part to the Krispy Kreme donuts he brought with him.  George told us that he had been on a diet recently and had lost about 20 pounds which we thought was great.  He said that a friend of his that has recently lost about 50 pounds said something that helped him, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" which made us laugh.

George started the conversation by reading out of Matthew 7 where Jesus says, "Judge not that you be not judged."  We talked a bit about how it is normal to make distinctions and to discern between things but that this was different than judging and condemning people in a negative way.  George told us about some research that had been done showing that kids often develop self-image problems in grade school because of the system of grading that is used to evaluate them.  He said that kids that don't do well on tests and that get lower grades start to think they are dumb which is often reinforced by teachers, parents, and other kids.  This is really tragic because test measures really only evaluate one kind of intelligence.

George told us that he thought Jesus was really saying in effect, "Don't label people, and don't condemn people based on your own limited understanding."  He gave us a good laugh when he said that even Jeffrey Dahmer's neighbor thought that he was a nice young man based on his external appearance while taking out the trash even though we now know what was in those garbage bags.  We laughed even harder when we saw the look on Rick's face as he bit into one of those Krispy creme-filled donuts as George said this.

After getting the group re-focused after the comedy central interlude George went on to say that life isn't about keeping the rules and looking good on the exterior.  He said that religion that says "do this, do that" is just a bunch of doo doo which made us laugh.  He said that it is tragic if you call yourself a christian and yet don't care about the poor.  He said this would be like a 5' 2" basketball player that can't jump thinking he was a real athlete.

Instead of labeling and condemning each other George suggested that we be kind and compassionate.  He told us with tears in his eyes about losing both parents in the last two months and how much it meant to him when a friend took him to lunch and said simply, "tell me about your mom."  At this someone told us about the time that one of our homeless friends that is an artist found a box of paint brushes and paint colors in the free store and how meaningful that had been to him.  The guy actually thought we had bought them for him because he had just been telling us the week before how much he needed these supplies.  Someone else told us about a saying he had heard years ago and remembered, "You should do something every day to make other people happy.  Even if it's just to leave them alone" which made us laugh.

As the conversation moved to a conclusion George shared with us a quote from Mother Teresa, "It's not the size of the deed, but the size of the love."