"Because people annoy me. They're so stupid."



At the end of each brief conversation I would produce one of these coupons.



"What is this for?" they would ask. I told them it was for a free cheeseburger.



"No, what did we do to deserve it?"



"Nothing. I just wanted you to have it. No reason. Just because I want to."



The reaction to this kind of senseless dispensation of goodness was wonderful to watch. Some were thankful. Some walked away quizzical. Some showed their friends, and those friends would come to me and ask for a coupon. At this point I felt comfortable attaching requirements.



"You see that kid sitting over there by himself? Walk over there, sit down by him and tell him something good about himself," I would say before giving the coupon.



Now THAT is fun to watch.



Some kids caught on to the coupon gig pretty quickly, and when they saw me would start acting like Eddie Haskel from "Leave It to Beaver"—helping others with their backpacks, throwing trash away, always looking my direction out of the corners of their eyes. One girl made sure she was always in my line of vision and that I saw her do something nice. She got a coupon, but I was less excited about handing out coupons to suck-ups. It's boring. Mrs. Cleaver has my respect.



If I saw trouble brewing in a group (shouting, cursing, shoving, name-calling and backpack swinging were pretty good indicators), I would walk into the middle of the circle with the coupons. "Look at this," I'd say. "Free cheeseburgers. Anybody want one?" They all did. Crisis averted.



Some of the tables had chess or checkerboards painted onto their surfaces; some days I brought checkers from home. All it took was sitting down and setting the checkers on the board, and kids would appear, wanting to play. The sound around the game was deafening. The kids played against me by committee: "No, don't move there, Stupid! He'll jump you!" Every move a kid made was followed by the obligatory declaration: "You suck!" Still, it was fun; and everyone got a coupon just for being in the crowd.



The noise and chaos of the lunch period built to an ear-bleeding pitch; and then the bell rang, signaling a return to classes. The place cleared out as quickly as cockroaches when you turn on the kitchen light. Then the crows and gulls parachuted in like the 101st Airborne Division, creating chaos of their own. None was interested in playing checkers.



As I thought about this coupon routine, I decided we all have something like this as our vocation. It isn't as if we go find the misfits and give them a trinket and a pat on the head, though. Instead, we can look for those in our families, our places of work and in our communities who routinely are ignored, passed over or taken advantage of; and we can in one way or another say to them, "I see you. I notice you. You're not invisible. You matter." Loneliness can be the most devastating disease in the world. We really don't need that much to fulfill our vocation. Jesus sent His followers out with nothing except instructions.



Sometimes, all you need are some coupons.


Adapted from God Hides in Plain Sight: How to See the Sacred in a Chaotic World, by Dean Nelson (Brazos Press, 2009). Nelson is the founder and director of the Journalism Program at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. He spent three years as a youth pastor in Detroit.