The Deplorables: Do We See Them?

Went to the city today. Home prior to conversion. Faces. Many.  Passing by. Around…..

High buildings. Architecture. Tastes. Smells.  Swirling.  Darting. All around.

Creating….Uniqueness.    Everywhere.

Oh, once beloved city.

And as I see such diversity…I wonder.  What is each story?

Isn’t it true?     We each have a story?

And I hear them talking…at the table next.  Restaurant on the Pier.  Overlooking waves abreast….with laughing.

Suits. 

Trying to impress. Heads held high. Backs erect.

Talk of Cambridge. 
                   Influence.
                              Money…Fifty-five thousand dollars to be exact….one of them saying…

And it seems, as I eavesdrop…that money does grow on trees. Tens of thousands…to them…
                   Crumbs.
                               Insignificant.
                                             Measly Gain.

And I remember…
                   I used to love this world I left….
                                    Pompous talk of material influence. Prestige. The finest of things…

                                                     Yet, I left.

And I drive past them….

The destitute ones.  

Tent city…moved again.  We ask half a dozen.  Yet, nobody knowing where to find them.

It seems…..the world doesn’t miss insignificance….wouldn’t change with or without them.   

It just turns…so comfortably….without them.                  Pretending not to see…

And I mourn….as blankets lie sleeping.
                   Curled up in streets.
                                 Tents under bridges.
                                                 The lost…begging. 

And we stop. Give one man close to nothing.  His face brightens.  And light shoots out his eyes…

And he walks away limping…one leg shorter than the other.

And I wonder…Did he fight for our country?  

Was he born this way…disabled? 

How had I…in seeming past lives….been so pompous, so proud…missing them…as I walked by.

Me, wrapped in self-righteous shrouds.

Then, I see her. 

A child.             
                A girl not twenty.                       
                           Looking……
                                      Skirt hiked.
                                                     Eyes begging.

A desperate plea….

As we drive…Her gaze wedging….indefinitely…    In the pit of my soul. 
        
                       And I sense her desperation to escape her world.
                                    And I wish I hadn’t seen her, those eyes haunting so….
                                                      
                                         But I did.
                                                          
                                                                      That face:  Neglect. Abuse. Devastation.
                                                                                 That destitute, broken, abused little girl.  Alone.   

And I feel…what God must feel…
 

…His burden and love for the poor.

And I remember…   Christ not confined by Synagogue walls.

But reaching, searching, venturing…..outdoors….   To people.
                Crippled.
                            Prostitutes.
                                         Downtrodden…           People.

And I know, I have spent hours studying…..Greek and Latin.  His Word.

…..Safe in comfort of my home.

Yet, I fail…like the Pharisees…to see the lost in this world.  Broken around me.

Who am I like more?

And I ask myself…Can I do more?
                    Share tangible evidences of Christ to the poor?
                            Give bread and water to the forgotten…most deplorable…

And I ache….

Leaving the city that once delighted me…

I ache….

The lives of luxury.  Mansions.  Mercedes.  Now, Empty.  So unsatisfying.   

Simply….  Imitations of love. 

And I go away despising what I had once longed to attain.

And words keep ringing in my head clearly….  “Faith without works, dead.” 

Truth without action….  Useless.

Grace without service….  Fruitless.

Faith shouts, without changing…simply….        Clanging….Symbols…

Emptiness.

And we drive from the city.  That girl and her eyes…still nagging….this open, wound deep inside…

As echoes from Matthew twenty-five rupture loud in my soul….

“Whatever you do for one of the least of these…you do for me.”