True respect for life is an ongoing challenge

I worked in the heart of a major city for several years during my 20s, and it was an eye-opening experience: my first real exposure to poverty and homelessness.
 
I’d walk a mile from the train station to my workplace through downtown streets populated by a significant number of street people. Some sat on the sidewalk, displaying crude signs and perhaps boxes or mugs requesting spare change from passersby. Some stood at the crosswalks muttering polite greetings and explaining why they were down on their luck. The saddest were those who silently lay in alleys under ragged blankets or slowly pushed shopping cart filled with their possessions. These, to all appearances, had abandoned hope. The vast majority of people rushing to work passed them by as if they were invisible. It was heartrending to see.

My conscience officially tweaked, I settled on a plan: I’d carry enough $1 bills each day that I could hand one to each beggar I passed. That made me feel I was doing “something,” but soon I realized I wasn’t doing much — except emptying my wallet. I began to question my obligation here. Surely some of these beggars were addicts or scam artists. I didn’t want to feed someone’s habit or be taken for a fool. Some undoubtedly had contagious diseases or were mentally ill and might get violent. Why put myself out there like that?

Soon I became like so many of the well-dressed business people hurrying along those same streets to high-rise buildings in the Financial District and other destinations. I developed a certain urban deafness and blindness, pretending neither to see nor hear these street people. I didn’t want to hand over money, and I didn’t have time to stop and converse, to get to know them as persons. I did not want to put myself at risk in any way.

I didn’t like myself that way either.
 
I’d remind myself that I give generously to the Church and to charities that serve the needy. But that too was just throwing money at the poor. I was helping them, but from a safe distance. I was not being truly present to them. I was not respecting their human dignity.

I’d like to say I’m older and wiser now. In reality, I’m much the same. I still give to charities, and I have ample work and family responsibilities to occupy my time. I haven’t come appreciably closer to “getting my hands dirty” with the neediest of my community. That’s my failure in virtue.

It’s good to feel compassion, but it’s better to put it into practice on a personal level. Respect for human life is rooted in love. To truly love, to “will the good of the other,” requires vulnerability, sacrifice, and a willingness to suffer for their good. Love of the poor demands nothing less. In this, as in so many other areas of my life, I remain a work in progress.

GERALD KORSON 
is editor of Legatus magazine.