kindness...

I was driving running errands with my mom today.  On our way home,  I was absently counting the traffic lights I still had to pass whilst making idle conversation with her.  Drumming my fingers on the wheel hoping for Divine intervention– wishing the red light would turn green.  I was in a hurry to get home to change because I was going to see friends.


As the light turns green, my attention turns to the car in front of me.  I saw how it had hit a man who was walking away from the car pointing listlessly at the driver.  He was clearly destitute, dressed in his best rags. (I can only assume he saves these for the holidays.) Normally this kind of a scene would have fallen on deaf eyes [ears] as I am usually protected by my dedma shield.  The man had been carrying a bag of rice that had splattered onto the ground and poor man was looking on to the commuters and passers-by for help.  It wasn’t a very Christmas-y sight, I must say.  And the look on his face was half of pity and of hopelessness.  I didn’t know what was worse- that the commuters had sympathetic stares, clearly affected at the sorry sight that had befallen this dirty man yet were unable to stop and help him.  He was trying hopelessly to fit 5 kilos of rice in a dilapidated plastic bag while looking for some assistance.


Almost sure that I had a clean plastic bag in the back of the car, I opened the trunk and filched out one that I had used to contain Christmas giveaways some evenings ago.  He looked gratefully at me and I looked on wishing there was more that I could do.  It was like what I’d read about in Gospel Comics (yeah, yeah. I went to a strict Catholic school…so slap me.) I handed him some cash and albeit unwillingly left him to meander on home.
As I write this I wonder about the guilt I felt despite helping him and giving him additional Christmas money.  This poor man who was going about his way home to partake in rice with his family.  I wonder why pity makes us want to reach out to people and why we don’t help out as much as we can.  And I wonder why despite all the extended assistance, the guilt that fills us isn’t fully assuaged by charity.


Does it really help our conscience that we help?  Or should we be helping out as much as we can?  It boggles my mind- wonder now if  guilt and goodness are a bigger parcel of some God-given emotion that we refuse to accept with open arms…