Los Angeles and the Lame Beggar : He Transformed a Community, and He Can Do It for Us, Too

Several items in the news this winter illuminated the basic goodness and concern that are a part of everyone:

- When thieves broke into a building and stole Christmas gifts for poor children, there was an immediate and overwhelming response by people. Money and toys poured in so that those children could enjoy a happy holiday season.

- When a 7-year-old boy needed a liver transplant and his family could not pay for this special surgery, people from throughout the country sent in donations from quarters to checks worth thousands of dollars.

- When very cold weather struck Los Angeles toward the end of January, people from all over the city gave blankets and warm clothing to be distributed to the poor and homeless downtown.

These three brief examples point out the goodness that is in each of us, just waiting to be tapped. I continue to be amazed at the kindness of people, the basic sense of compassion that is so much a part of the human person.

And yet we can still be so afraid of people whom we don’t know. We can harbor misconceptions about the “winos” in the downtown area, or the “welfare cheats” who are taking all of our tax money, or the “foreigners” who seem to be moving in all around us with their “strange” languages and their “strange” foods.

Our fears and our lack of understanding combine to close in around us, fencing in the basic goodness and trust that are part of our nature.

We here in Southern California are confronted with a problem that has an enormous number of faces: the homeless, those who are truly hungry, those suffering from physical or mental disabilities, the runaway young people wandering our streets.

What is our personal response to these people? What do we do or say to understand them, their needs? Is there anything that we can do to help them ourselves, anything more than just referring them to a social-services agency?

This is where each of us has great potential to help meet the needs of others, but in a very personal and “hands-on” way. We might start by looking at what I like to call our three keys to full membership in the human family:

--Drop from our minds and attitudes the generalizations, cliches and labels such as lazy bum , welfare cheat , wino ; try to see this one person, this man or woman, in his or her situation right now, and then look at his or her potential as a human being.

--Try to listen to other people; hear the story of who they are, where they are from, what circumstances have led to their current need. These stories, these experiences are something that we all can understand; it’s amazing how often we will say to ourselves, “But for the grace of God, there go I!”

--Promise yourself that each week you will look for an opportunity to touch the life of just one person for the better, regardless of whether that person needs money for coffee, a kind word after losing a job, a prayer of hope when sudden illness hits his or her family. Just offering a few moments of comfort to another person will brighten your own day and eventually change your life.

You and I really need to believe that by unlocking our own lives we are at the same time giving new life to others around us.

The story is told of a poor, lame beggar who sat outside the gates of a city in the Middle East day after day. He made a definite effort to look into the eyes of each passer-by, not so much hoping for a coin or two but to engage everyone in some kind of personal contact with him so that the goodness and generosity of each might emerge.

After 25 years of just sitting there at the main gate of the city, this lame man had transformed the city--had gradually opened the eyes, ears and hearts of that entire community. Before long the city’s reputation had spread far and wide: It was a city of heart, of love, of concern. No longer did anyone experience loneliness in the city--people looked out for one another, hunger had disappeared because people sought opportunities to share with one another, conflicts and divisions faded away because people began to take responsibility for one another.

And all because one lame beggar looked into the eyes of each citizen with love, thereby unlocking in them the basic goodness that is always there just waiting to be discovered.

The lame beggar is here with us today in Los Angeles. Could not that same great miracle transform our city, with all of us purposefully looking for opportunities to unlock the trust, goodness and concern that is in each of us?