I've posted before about Vinnie, a mentally challenged young man I know, and from that post I'll remind the reader of two things:

(1) Vinnie speaks pretty well and gets his point across, sometimes he's really funny without trying to be, and he always speaks sincerely. He knows the value of communication and of being transparent. (2) Vinnie knows the value of many things much better than I do. Lots of times he comes to church at the same place I go. Vinnie was formed by the same Loving God as me. That's why he's my brother. I'm going to watch him more closely this year. I think he's here to be a teacher—for people like me.

I saw Vinnie at church services today. He came up to me after they were over, said "Hi," and held out his hand to shake mine. I returned the gesture, offering, "Hi Vinnie. How ya doin' today?"

"I'm doing good I was just wondering if you have any plans for lunch today—" he said. Most of his sentences are spoken with the inflection of part statement, part question.

At this, I was thinking Vinnie was trying to ask me out to lunch, maybe because I gave him a ride home recently. So I said, "No, I don't, I'm just going to go home because I have some other things I gotta go do later. I don't really have time to go out to lunch today. But thank you very much for asking."

"Ohhhh okaaaaay," Vinnie said as his eyes gazed past me, looking around the church auditorium, as if searching for something. I decided it would be a good idea to try to clarify the conversation, so I asked, "Were you wanting to ask me out to eat with you today?" At this point, I'll just note ahead of time that this is how we normal, average, blah-blah people think: Ah-hah! I did a nice thing the other day, and so I'm being offered payback! Good for you, Vinnie! That's so nice of you!

My brother Vinnie, though, he's much more clearly focused than us, far less calculating, with no ego whatsoever. His response? "Uhm no I was just going around asking the older people to see who's going out to lunch to see if somebody might take me out with them—" I smiled broadly and genuinely, and explained again that I was going out of town, and didn't have time to go eat. Vinnie told me good-bye, and continued with his quest.

The lesson from Vinnie to me here? I'm having trouble finding all the right words. It's a very clear, very simple lesson, but it's big. It's a big lesson about how we should relate to other people, versus how we actually relate to other people. I think the best way I can put it is, Vinnie wanted food and he wanted companionship. No calculations. No ego. No attachment to outcome. No strings. No reading into things. No hurt feelings. No embarrassment. Clean. Pure. Simple. Childlike. Innocent. Just basic human needs, as natural and acceptable as daybreak and nightfall. I need. You give? No? Okie. I ask somebody else.

Naah… we normal, average, blah-blah people would never be satisfied with something so uncomplicated. We can't seem to think we're alive unless we have something to be unhappy about, and somebody to blame for it.