I must confess: I have walked to “the other side,” sped up my pace, and lied so that I may avoid the messy interaction with panhandlers – and this breaks my heart. Where are the Samaritans?
Let me introduce to you my new friend, Alfred. He’s a panhandler on Charles Street in Baltimore’s Arts District. He’s dirty and his breath smells. The remaining tooth in the front of his mouth has seen a better day and will soon join her brothers and sisters outside the poustinia that is Alfred’s mouth. Slumped on the sidewalk, Alfred shakes his cup with maybe a dollar worth of change rattling the bottom. As you pass he mutters, “essuze me, do you tink you could spare some taynze?” Most walk by.
I asked Alfred if he would join my friends and I inside XS for some coffee and food. He replied that he would but they won’t let him in. So I offered to buy him a hamburger and he asked for sussi, which most of us call “sushi.”
See, this is what ticks most people off, homeless people can be picky. Why does this bother us so much? Are we not picky? How many of us would be willing to spend the night panhandling on the sidewalk?
Anyways, after we gave Alfred some sushi and a sweater, which my friends and I brought with us to handout, I learned that Alfred is in the advanced stages dying from AIDS and he, of course, can no longer buy medicine or get a job to afford the medinice. Would you hire a gentleman dying and nearly crippled from AIDS with a massive lump protruding his scalp? And I hear someone say, “Well who’s fault is it that he has AIDS?” And I respond, “Aren’t you lucky that you don’t contract a deadly disease from greed.”
Though we pointed Alfred to an HIV clinic which would be open in the morning, I doubt he will live much longer. I bought him sushi and prayed with him. I wish I could do more.
God, forgive us our sins. Forgive us for walking to the other side, not learning from the example of your servant, the Good Samaritan – that outcast and reject. May we put flesh to the Gospel of Christ. May we buy sushi for those dying and let us give our lives for their sake.
2 Comments
December 13, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Joel and Snoop,
Your blogs are communicating one huge message. The message is so similiar that I so believe God’s Spirit is involved.
The message is repentance.
May we repent and live the Gospel of Christ.
By the way Snoop, your are not heretical in your ideas…just an anachanist. Not to worry, I am one too.
January 9, 2008 at 7:34 pm
[...] 9, 2008 by joelkurz Last month I told you about Alfred, a panhandler in Baltimore. Well last night, after a month, I saw him again. He was sitting in the same spot with maybe 15 [...]