I encountered a homeless man on a cold, grey day in January,
sitting by the window of a convenience store.
His clothing was worn and dirty, his old yellow coat pulled
up against his neck, zipped to the top, a knitted red scarf tucked in around
the edges. His hands, in torn and ragged gloves, were wrapped around a cup of
coffee. Probably the warmest thing he would experience all day.
The small shopping cart that held his meager belongings was
pushed against the wall, a copy of a free local paper spread over the top. He smiled as he turned the page, moving to
the next story.
Long white hair flowed down his back, a little greasy, but
combed. It was the same color as the beard and mustache that covered most of
his face.
He looked up as I passed.
I smiled and said hello.
His weathered face crinkled into a large, friendly smile. Deep blue eyes, surrounded by wrinkles of age and time, sparkled as he told me good morning.
He went back to reading, and I went inside for my morning
soda and a muffin.
Walking through the store, I couldn’t get his face out of my
mind. His serene nature, as he sat in the cold with a simple cup of coffee and
a newspaper, haunted me.
I couldn’t help but wonder when he’d last had warm food in
his belly, when he’d last slept somewhere heated.
It wasn’t in my power to provide him with shelter, but I
knew I could at the very least provide him with a little sustenance. So I picked up a breakfast sandwich and made my way to the
register.
I’ll never forget the
feeling of handing the man a warm sandwich.
I’ll never forget the surprise that colored his expression, the smile
that spread across his worn features. I’ll
never forget the kindness in his eyes or his words of thanks.
Most importantly, I’ll never forget the feeling of rightness
from doing something small for another human being.
Are you wondering why I would share this experience?
I’m not looking for an ‘atta girl’, or even expecting you to
understand. But I haven’t been able to get his face, his smile, his kind
expression, out of my thoughts.
You see, when I pass homeless people on the street – and I
pass quite a few every day as I drive to and from my office downtown – there is
a deeply ingrained sense of ‘me’ and ‘them’.
Society has trained me to see them as different, as slackers,
as lazy, as people who made bad choices and ended up in a bad situation – their
travails their own fault - and I am blameless when I pass them with nary a
thought.
But on that cold January morning, I saw past the dirty,
ragged clothing. I saw past the misfortune and the lowly circumstances.
That day, I saw gratitude and kindness in the eyes of another
human being. I saw a fellow child of God.
Yes, he’s a man whose path is different than my own, at
least at this point. His story is unknown to me. His joys, his pains, his
successes, his failures: a mystery. I
wonder if he was a soldier whose benefits have run out. Was he married for
fifty years, and upon the death of his spouse, lost all? Did a medical
emergency drain his resources? What happened to lead him to this place?
I fail to truly understand his life, because I’ve never
walked in his shoes.
And yet, the truth is that we are more alike than different.
The more I ponder on the situation, the more I’m inundated
with memes on Facebook and other social media that scream about ‘the takers’,
the more political propaganda I see, the deeper my feelings over this occasion go.
Reality for so many in our country is that we’re one payday,
one month, one medical crisis, from where this man sits. As we pass them on the
street we have no way of knowing their stories, no way of comprehending what
brought them to this place – and we can’t envision our lives turning to this
particular path.
We are ‘us’. He’s a ‘them’, receiving not our compassion,
but our scorn.
As a society we do this a lot.
Our religious sect vs. theirs.
Christians vs. Muslims.
Rich vs. poor vs. middle class.
Citizen vs. immigrant.
Heterosexual vs. homosexual.
Republicans vs. Democrats vs. Independents vs. Libertarians.
Our country vs. the world.
Us.
Them.
We look for and cherish the differences instead of the
similarities, nurturing the distrust of those who aren't like us.
What it boils down to (in my eyes), is that the substance
which makes us human and decides who we are is mostly the same – whether we
have brown eyes or blue, brown skin or white, worship God or not, feel
attraction to the opposite sex or the same, have a lot of money or none, or
live in this country or another.
If you change that substance too much, life won’t happen. It
can’t happen.
And that is only the stuff of our physical nature.
So, we are all born, our lives are lived in various
places and manners, but we all end up in the same place at the end of our
journey, as we breathe our last.
I believe the value of the time we spend on this Earth is measured in the
compassion we have for others, the love we have for our fellow beings, the
actions of our daily lives.
And I hope and pray that if I make an error in judgment in
my life, it is an error on the side of humanity, of compassion.
Because “There but for the Grace of God, go I” is more than
a saying.
