Maya’s unsettled by the comment. No one else could see it.

But Maya is my daughter and I catch the tiny flicker of surprise across her face. I imagine what she’s thinking: “Feast? You should see Christmas dinner at my grandmother’s house this week. There will be overflowing tables of food. A dozen laughing aunts and uncles. Chattering, happy cousins. Scores of wonderful presents beneath the tree!”

It’s the Friday before Christmas and this simple meal, served by awkwardly smiling strangers, is what passes for this homeless man’s holiday feast. As my daughters leap from bed and dash to the tree on Christmas morning, the dirty, unshaven man standing before Maya will pull himself from a sleeping bag in the nearby woods, blink at the chilly, morning sun and wonder where he’ll find something to eat.

Maya and I, as well as my wife and other two daughters, arrived 90 minutes earlier at Kaye Prox Food Bank to deliver some holiday gifts for needy children. After setting them out with her sisters, Maya wandered over to help with the food line. “This place makes me feel uncomfortable,” she whispered.

“If homelessness and hunger made more people uncomfortable, maybe they wouldn’t be such a significant problem in our country,” I responded.

    A clever answer, perhaps,
   but  I felt a bit hypocritical
   uttering it. In truth, the
   men and women we were
   serving also make me
   feel uncomfortable, even
   after working an entire
   year at a homeless
   intervention facility
   in Pennsylvania in my
   20’s. I struggle to
   understand the homeless – and their struggles. My attempts at conversation seem forced and stilted. At times I even wonder if I’m being taken advantage of.

“Yet,” I find myself arguing with myself. “Who are you to judge who is deserving? All humans deserve basic dignity.”

No exceptions.

Perhaps Maya would also feel more comfortable if I brought her to Kaye Prox more consistently. Too often we fall into the trap of many affluent, suburban families: Job responsibilities and carpools. Algebra I quizzes. Scouts and soccer practice. Volleyball games and gymnastics. The Ben Franklin Diorama due next Thursday. Piano lessons and play dates. Band practice and birthday parties.

Maya comes from a large, extended family with blessings that know no bounds. We live in one of Tampa Bay’s most affluent communities, where fortunate children struggle to discern the difference between wants and needs. I began bringing her to Kaye Prox to volunteer nearly two years ago, hoping to pop her bubble of affluence – her firm belief that all the 10-year-olds in Tampa Bay have iPhones, vacation in Europe and have bigger houses and nicer cars than she does.

She grumbles but she goes with me. She has watched as parents gratefully pick out small Christmas gifts – the only things that will be under the tree that week, assuming there is a tree.

In August she has helped children pick up school supplies, even spotting her sister’s classmate selecting one of her used backpacks for the coming school year.

This past Good Friday she maintained a tradition she began two years ago. She dyed Easter eggs and prepared small Easter baskets for the food bank’s homeless men and women.

Why do I insist she go? What is so remarkable about Kaye Prox Food Bank?

The answers are found in the parable of the mustard seed.

Kaye Prox plants the tiny seeds along the path my daughter is walking.

It is simply my job to stay out of the way…and occasionally remember to water them.