Living in a city offers many amenities. There are countless places to work, restaurants for any and all palates, shops full of every item that can be imagined and businesses that specialize in whatever mode of entertainment one needs to be entertained. There are medical clinics, on practically every corner, for humans or their best furry, or scaly, friend. Most all these things can be found in close proximity to wherever one lives. It is possible to fill up the gas tank, pantry, closet and stomach and never get more than a mile away from home base.
One of the hardest realizations of the city life is not the large population or the crime rate. It's the homeless. The people who stand at the intersections, with their cardboard signs.
Some of the signs are simple handwritten pleas that state the bearer of said sign will work for food. Others spell out the facts, they're homeless, they're broke, they're hungry....they need money.
Areas around grocery stores seem to be the ideal place for the homeless to seek help. A young man approached me one day with the most well rehearsed script that I finally had to put up my hands to stop him and explain that I had no cash on me. He looked at me, nodded his head and spun around to catch the unsuspecting little old lady, just getting out of her car. From the look on her face, she took the bait.
As I pulled up to the stoplight, waiting for the left turn lane to go green, I made eye contact with the man. He was standing on the concrete barrier that separates the incoming and outgoing lanes. He smiled and flashed me the 'peace' sign. He opened his small cardboard sign that ended with "God bless". He was within three feet of my vehicle and as I kept my gaze straight ahead, he walked back and forth along side of the cars ahead of and behind me.
There were a million thoughts going through my head. I rarely carry cash and this time was no exception, so I could not donate to his cause. Do you roll your window down for a disheveled stranger, letting him have access to yourself? Should I get out of the car, pop the trunk and give him a loaf of bread, a banana?
It was the longest red light in the history of stoplight intersections. When it turned green, everyone moved forward in what was almost an audible collective sigh. As I drove off, the Voice, that lives inside my head, told me that even if I had the money to give, I would have had to spend the rest of the day driving around to the areas where I know they stand, giving away all my money.
The Voice is usually right. The possibility that 90% of the people who stand and beg, do it for a living and have no intention of seeking other gainful employment is a fact. But, I could not help but wonder what it said about my own humanity. The phrase, "There, but for the grace of God, go I" floated through my head, followed by "it is not what the receiver does with the gift, it is the spirit in which the gift was given."
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