dueling prayers

Friday afternoon.

I get on the #4 express subway from the Bronx to Manhattan to meet my little brother.

I sit down and notice that next to me is a much older man with a gray beard, large glasses and a yarmulke on his head.

He cups in his hand a small, very worn copy of the Scriptures… thumbing its pages as he rocks gently back and forth, mouthing out prayers while his eyes read over the Hebrew text.

I look up, and across from him sits another older man, wearing a long black robe and a white kufi skullcap.

In his hands he cradles a small, very worn copy of the Quran… thumbing its pages as he whispers prayers, pointing his index finger resting on his knee towards the sky as he reads over the Arabic script.

And I fumble with the Rosary in my pocket.

At the Fulton Street stop two girls come aboard and join our circle, one of them (maybe 19 or 20) in short shorts and a shorter tank-top… the skin on her legs naturally the color most girls sit in the sun all day to find. She has a black and white kafia wrapped around her neck as a decorative scarf (or a statement of cultural pride) as she drinks an iced coffee from Starbucks.

We all pause for a moment and stare at her, then go back to talking to God.

At Union Square a man boards our car… in one hand he holds a plastic grocery bag full of sandwiches, in another a large cup full of change.

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen,” he begins, and then tells us his story:

He works for a group that gives sandwiches to the poor who live in the subways, and every penny we can give helps him in his cause of mercy and justice for the hungry and homeless.

As he holds out his cup and makes one pass down the car, the girl with the kafia and the legs dumps a fistful of change.

She is the only one, and the man with the food for the hungry looks at the three of us men in prayer and says, “Thanks anyway.”

He moves on to the next car.

We go back to talking to God… while the girl sips her coffee, having done His work.