Waiting for a Christmas Visitor Along Skid Row : The poor: St. Nicholas helped all in need, ‘deserving’ or not.

St. Nicholas was late for his appointment. Crossing the Russian steppes on his way to meet God, he happened upon a poor peasant whose cart was stuck in the mud. St. Nicholas stopped to help.

Such legends abound about this 4th century Bishop of Myra, precursor to Santa Claus, who, on his way somewhere, happened upon people in distress and always, always, stopped to help.

On Skid Row, homeless people are forced to use public spaces as their private places, for city sidewalks are the last place on earth where the city’s poorest can live. So, like St. Nicholas, we happen upon the poor.

Red, T.J., Toothless and their friends crowd a dirty sidewalk on Fifth Street. Brenda, 65 and just 3 feet tall, is standing precariously in the middle of the street, begging quarters. Passersby instinctively lock their car doors and avert their eyes.

There is much talk these days about personal responsibility. Politicians have agreed to agree that the social net is more than adequate--that less will somehow be more. It is the poor, they say, who need to be personally responsible--who need to get their own carts out of the mud, so to speak.

For St. Nicholas, personal responsibility had to do with being irrepressibly compelled to help someone in need, any time and anywhere--even if God had to be kept waiting. No attempt was made to single out the undeserving poor from the deserving. St. Nicholas helped thieves. It was the gift of human love that he was bearing on his sled.

Down by Gravy Joe’s, everything seems asleep. No Christmas carols fill the cold night. No Hannukkah candles light the sad darkness. Red, Candyman and the rest of Skid Row are huddled in their cardboard shelters in hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be there. Hope abides. It always has.