Driving on by

Choosing the way of convenience over compassion

Beseeching is the word that comes to mind when I think about the man on the sidewalk.

It was a frigid day to be on his knees, without gloves on his hands. Those hands. In my memory they are palms up, stretched toward me. Asking. Beseeching.

Moments later, he would lay down on the pavement, legs bent, curled into himself. A plastic bag at his feet.

I watched him crumble at least twice from the warmth of my car. I was stopped at a traffic light, three lines of traffic separating me from the man. Then the light changed and I had a decision to make. Keep going or turn my car around. Change the direction I was headed or interrupt my own plans to help a stranger clearly in need.

I kept going. My heart cold.

“Should we call for help?” My colleague, seated next to me, asked. I was relieved by her prompt. “Yes, oh yes.”

She called 911 and the dispatcher asked us many questions while assuring us that help was on its way. Even though I mentioned we had kept driving, so could no longer see the man on his knees, could not say for sure he had not gotten up and stumbled on his way, the dispatcher kept asking: “Where is he now, can you see if he has moved his location?”

I did not have an answer. I could not see. He was no longer in my view.

“I was nervous to stop,” I said to my colleague. “He seemed like he might be on drugs, or unpredictable. Maybe violent.” I sensed the emptiness of my excuses even as I spoke them. I could have easily stopped my car and watched from a distance until the ambulance arrived.

It was the least I could do.

But I did not do it.

I told myself help was on its way. Took comfort that the man was wearing a winter coat and cap.

But that’s not what I see when I think about him this morning. I see him on his knees, cold hands held toward me. Beseeching.

Welcome “divine scrutiny,” Richard Foster advises in his book Sanctuary of the Soul. I read the words this morning as I sat in the comfort of my home, coffee warming my hands. I was, and am, fully aware, embarrassed and convicted by my decision to keep driving, to pass by a man who was asking for help.

It’s of little comfort to me, my own embarrasment and conviction. And it’s useless to the man, distressed and alone on that cold sidewalk as night approached.

“I was a stranger in need, and you did not stop. I needed gloves. You didn’t give me any.” I hear the words of Jesus. All of them.

“And what you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

I purport to be a Jesus follower. Yesterday, I didn’t even notice him when he was so clearly in view.

I do not know the end of the stranger’s story. I cannot change the outcome. But I can work on changing the outcome of my own. I must learn from the discomfort I feel at the expense of another human. It’s the least I can do.

My heart was as cold as the pavement yesterday. Today, under Divine scrutiny, I recognize my own need to grow in compassion, kindness and mercy. I hold out my hands, beseeching.