This afternoon, I walked into the bank with a good-sized (for me, anyway) check. There was a man outside holding out a cup asking people for money. I put my head down and walked in. I deposited my money. I put my head down as I walked out.
For all my writing and thinking about treating the poor like real people, I still stubbornly do the same stuff I’ve always done. Not always, thank God – these days it’s more like a 50/50 chance. But what’s my criteria the 50% of the time when I turn down the man or woman begging me for help?
This afternoon as I sat down at my coffee shop and opened my brand new laptop and talked on my iPhone, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. It’s pointless to pretend like I’m something I’m not – and what I’m not is humble, magnanimous, generous of heart. My wife and I don’t have a condo – who cares. Our walls are bare and we only have a couple of (really nice) pieces of furniture in our apartment. It’s ridiculous that I contemplate these facts and sometimes convince myself that I’m living the way God intended me to live.
30 or 40 years ago, a man and a woman gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. They loved him, took care of him, went out of their way to protect him and keep him safe. He grew up, fell in and out of love, thought about what he wanted to be when he grew up, got a job, did his best. Somewhere along the way, things took a turn for the worse. Who knows what the catalyst was – losing a job, an inability to get over heartbreak, losing his parents. Maybe drugs or alcohol or some other vice. Whatever it was, it led to a deterioration in his life, one that he hasn’t recovered from.
I walked by a man today who has parents somewhere who love him and wish they could help. Maybe has brothers and sisters who are ashamed of him, or wish they could see him more often, or wonder where he even is. He likely had dreams that seem terribly distant, and faces a reality that is colder and harsher and more difficult and humbling that I can even begin to imagine. Who knows what he would have done with the money had I given it to him – regardless of motive, he is certainly harder on his luck than I am.
But as long as I continue to look down, I can convince myself that none of the above is true. As long as I don’t have to look him in the eye, I can tell myself that he’s an alcoholic and he deserves whatever’s come to him and that he should just get a job.
As long as I’m looking down, I don’t have to confront the fact that he has a heart that aches, emotions that have to grapple with the fact that his life isn’t like everyone else’s. I don’t have to think about how he long ago stopped being treated like a member of society and started being treated like something to be avoided, ignored, or worse.
As long as I look down, I can pretend he’s not a person.
