This morning on my way to work, I encountered Alice, a homeless woman in her seventies, whose distinguishing characteristics include a rather elaborate fleece hat worn at a jaunty angle, white chin hair, missing top front teeth, and large, saggy breasts that hang down to her oversized belly. With her hands clasped behind her back she paces back and forth on the corner, repetitively muttering to no one in particular “Got a quarter? Got a quarter?”
I always look her in the eye, and say “Not today, Alice.” I am ashamed to admit that this is a rather new phenomenon for me – looking homeless people in the eye, actually talking to them, and sometimes getting to know their names. It has taken me many miles of walking down Jasper Avenue to shrug the discomfort that held me back from doing so.
I don’t think this makes me a better person than anyone else. I just realized one day that if I am going to talk the talk, I better start walking the walk. I also don’t think I am unusual in feeling uncomfortable about leaving my nice home, and walking down the street in my nice clothes after a nice breakfast to be confronted by the human condition every day. Seeing someone on the street asking for money reminds us deep down of how quickly all of those niceties could be lost.
The need to keep challenging myself in this way and to encourage others to do so was drilled home to me this morning, when while waiting for the light to change, Alice and I had our daily exchange. A woman standing beside me turned to me with a shocked look on her face and incredulity in her voice and said, “You know her name?”
Here’s hoping that this Christmas Santa brings us all a little more compassion.
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