Eye for an Eye

     Driving around Santa Ana on a clear Tuesday morning, I pass by a rather disturbing scene-- a man sitting, leant onto the red brick wall of a restaurant establishment.  He had a disheveled appearance and a look to him that would softly speak "I need a friend."  Not too far away from him was a shopping cart with what looked to be his belongings.  The man was not begging, but just sitting there, idling his day away.  Where I live, I've only seen a homeless person once: and that was in Washington, DC, 20 minutes from my house.  Seeing someone so desolate pains my heart-- what has he done so to come to the situation he's in?

     Now, not too far way, around 50 feet in front of that restaurant, was another man.  He was waiting at a bus stop in his bright, vivid attire puffing tobacco every now and then.  He sees the homeless fellow, yet he just stands there, waiting for his bus to come.  In every possible sense, he had an opportunity to help such an unfortuned comrade, yet the ignorance seemed to envelop his behavior.  I was at a traffic light when I saw this scene-- for a good long time, it seemed like-- and it was a sight that made me want to get out of the car, give the homeless man something to eat, and rebuke that well-off smoker.

     How in the world have people become like this?  It's a rather tough fact to admit, but it seems to me that people have indeed become more and more self-centered than anything else.  We are all brothers and sisters under one supreme Being, yet it doesn't seem like we treat our fellow human beings like such.  Is it fear?  Is it shyness?  Is it ignorance, even?  If we look at first Samuel, chapter 2, verse 8, Hannah, Samuel's mother, sings about God's Grace being upon the poor, lifting them up from the dust.  God has compassion on these people; why don't we?  After all, they're going to be the ones who will be "set among princes and made to inherit the throne of glory" (1 Samuel 2:8).  We can also tie in a parable that Jesus had spoken about in the gospel according to Luke.  There was a rich man who would always see a beggar named Lazarus, begging the rich man for food.  After they died, the beggar had been lifted into heaven while the latter into hell.  Now as the rich man asked for relief from the hellfire, he was replied by Abraham that "in [the rich man's] lifetime receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things: now he is comforted and thou art tormented" (Luke 16:25).  Essentially, ignorance is NEVER bliss.

     The moral of the little spectacle is that man must have compassion on his fellow man.  If not, both the poverty-stricken and the ignorant will both be laid to waste-- one in bodily form and the other in spirit.  This is the sadness that I have witnessed.  I know that I'll be putting evermore diligence to serve my fellow men.  Hopefully it may go likewise with all others.