How do you view the homeless on the street? Do you walk by oblivious to their need? Do you notice? Do you send a prayer their way? Do you care?
Here’s a moving short video that will stir your soul.
Have the homeless become invisible?
Do you notice the homeless?
February 18, 2015 | 14 comments
Evan, In my opinion you have accomplished more with this one video than all the anonymous prayers we claim we send out daily to cover all mankind…Well done and Amen..
I think people look away or become “unaware” out of fear and discomfort. These feelings need to be addressed when recognized. The fear that it could be “me” is probably most common, and the idea that maybe these people have done something to deserve their plight, so judgment. If we realized that by loving them, praying, helping in whatever way we are inspired it could help heal the fears in ourselves.
This video touches my heart. Thank you.
Wow ~ that was so powerful! poignant, touching, but most of all, inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing that, Evan. It’s a real eye opener. The video after that one was very heartwarming, too.
Thanks for this eye opening video. There is a homeless man that I greet and talk to every day by the post office. At first I avoided him, then I felt sorry for him, and then I realized I wasn’t really seeing him spiritually at all. I now look forward to really seeing him every day and enjoy his company. Thanks Evan.
Thanks for the wake-up call!
The video was an excellent reminder to me. My CS teacher told us that when we see this type of scene to remember “that there must be so much good in them that error would try so hard”. I love to think about that healing thought.
thanks for sharing…
Today when you go to the ER in Queens NYC. The hospital workers don’t care if you live or die. It’s all beaurocracy and if not followed that’s more horrible than doing what’s proper. That’s what we have to pray for, the uncaring of strangers that’s going today in our society, to turn things around to caring.
The Beggar Woman Who Does Not Beg
Hunched and plodding,
head averted for a moment as we pass, her very smallness seems to shrink her stature more
as if to say, “no, don’t look, don’t see my tattered self.”
Chin to chest, her eyes cast sideways to see if I am watching.
She catches me tossing the air a small, apologetic smile
– and I am caught off guard –
Bubbling through her being, I glimpse
some deep and handsome invincibility
manifested now on her haggard face
and see there is great beauty in her toothless grin.
Suddenly our vulnerability is gone,
taking with it the narrowness of the path we tread,
the largeness of the distance between us.
The possessions piled upon the cart she pushes
throw off their shabby-seeming meagerness
to show me the riches of self-immediacy.
I am, for that lingering moment,
lifted far above the frail and beggarly, superficial mask we wear
to see the true countenance of humanity.
PCL 1988
Bulls eye Evan, thank you so very much.
Why does Jesus tell us to care for the poor and the outsider?
Because we need to stand in that position for our own conversion.
We need to understand the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the grace of God…
(Dancing Standing Still by Rohr)
“Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Savior saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick [homeless]. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy. Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect nor material.” Science and health p. 476
Evan,
When our oldest daughter was 2 1/2 , I had an experience that will forever stay with me. One afternoon, as we were walking across a large field, she suddenly ran ahead towards the entrance to a bakery where we were headed. On the bench, a few feet outside the entrance, there sat a homeless, older man. To my surprise she walked straight up to the man and looked into his face. My senses were a bit overwhelmed at the moment, thinking of things I should not have been thinking, as she proceeded to crawl up on the bench beside him. I began to pray, asking God to give me openness of heart and non-judgment. By the time I reached her, I heard her say, “Are you a grandpa?” Looking surprised, the man slowly turned his head toward her and began to nod ‘yes’. Then she, very softly, put both arms around the homeless man’s head and began to rock him back and forth. The man smiled – a smile full of yellow and black teeth – but touched with that special moment of knowing he was seen – not as an anonymous, homeless man – but as a “grandpa’ through the eyes of a young child. And to her – grandpas were only good, caring, and huggable. This tender moment has stayed with me and given me special renewed awareness of what Jesus meant when he said, “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.”
Thank you for sharing this video.
Aw, this is touching! Thanks for sharing.