We live near a church. On Sundays we like to take our dogs for rides and we have noticed that there’s a family that has set up on the corner right near the church. They have a sign asking for donations. There’s a man with his wife, a young daughter, and a baby. They wear nice clothes. They have a good mini van. Their sign says they need help with their mortgage and groceries, which means they live in a house.
My first thought is that this family is panhandlers. We live in a neighborhood that is difficult to find. You wouldn’t get to it because you were driving through it to get somewhere else. You have to know where you are going to find it and you also have to do that to get to this church. So, this family might have targeted the churchgoers on purpose hoping that they would be more generous than most people just driving by any street corner. Then, given their dress and other outside appearances, it is possible that they are people who have chosen to panhandle instead of working for money. I know that in Biblical times begging was a profession. However, in those times, beggars weren’t liars. If you were a beggar, you freely admitted it. These days there are people who panhandle claiming that they have no money to eat, when some of them make more money from panhandling than business executives. If someone chooses that life, then they should be honest about it.
But honesty, isn’t my point. As we drove past this family, I wondered if they really were panhandlers. I find it very difficult to be able to tell by just looking at a person. It’s difficult to tell what is in a person’s heart by just what I see with my own eyes. And I guess that’s why I am called to love others as I would want to be loved. I know that when people see me that they don’t really see very much of who I really am. My mom has been around me my entire life and seen me with her eyes millions of times and yet she has never really seen the real me once.
Yet, if we take the time to realize that there’s more to each of us that what’s on the surface and have the faith to believe that there’s more than what we see, then that’s when our hearts and minds can really open up to the love that God wants us to feel for one another. We realize that just as there’s so much depth to us, there’s a lot of depth to everyone else.
I keep thinking about social media. It’s so strange. What I see of person on social media is only the tip of the iceberg of what a person really is. What I see of that family standing on the corner whether they are panhandlers or truly in need is only the tip of the iceberg. What a miracle that there are billions of amazing rich deep people existing on their earth at this very minute.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
