Today I feel a bit down. Someone I didn't know, hardly ever spoke to, and only ever saw for a maximum of 40 seconds a day has died ... and yet I feel like I've lost a friend. A beggar, whose name I never even found out, who would sit at the entrance to the Metro that I take every morning on my way to work, will be there no more. Every day, hundreds of commuters in the Rat Race to get to work, would pass him by without so much as even a glance. In fact, most people actually would hide behind someone else and try and pass by as far away from where he sat, in order to avoid having to drop some money in his little cardboard box.
Madrid's sub-zero wintery mornings make it difficult enough to get out of a bed that has an electric blanket (without groaning and complaining), and yet, there he sat on a strip of cardboard on a freezing slab of concrete, waiting for someone to have mercy and do a random act of kindness. I'm always reluctant to just give money. I'm never sure if it's going to be spent on drugs or alcohol, so I prefer to rather give something to eat or drink. He got both: in the form of a daily hot cup of coffee and croissant - and once I let him stick his finger in my tub of Nivea to moisturise his chapped and cracked hands, but his finger left black smear as he scooped, so I let him have the tub too - but I digress. On the odd occasion, that the line for coffee was too long, (i.e. one person in front of me), and I didn't have 5 minutes to spare, (i.e. no patience), I would give him 2 euros (10 times the going rate from others), and accompany it with a lecture about how he was not to buy drugs or alcohol, but rather some fruit or nuts because they were highly nutritious and rich in energy.
Well now, sadly, my unnamed friend passed away on Wednesday, 29 January 2014, at an unknown hour in a frigid alleyway, and I wonder if any one else, other than me cares. According to the barman at the cafeteria where I bought the coffee, unless he had an insurance policy, his body will be buried in a communal unmarked grave, 'sin sagrado' (which means without a funeral service/mass or whatever), along with anybody else who died in similar circumstances. And that makes me sad.
It reminds me of the account in Scripture, where a teacher of the law, tried to test Jesus by asking Him what he had to do in order to inherit eternal life (Lk. 10:25-37). As a pharisee, a self-proclaimed elitist even amongst his own people, the man wanted to know just who exactly could and should be considered as a 'neighbour' to him. Jesus responded with what we know as the parable of the Good Samaritan - well worth a re-read if you haven't done so in a while. It's Jesus' closing comment, like so many of His other comments, that has affected me greatly: "Go and do likewise." Giving a couple cents, euros or rands is not doing likewise. In the parable, the Samaritan 1) treated and bandaged the injured man's wounds, 2) put him on his own donkey, 3) personally took him to an inn and 4) stayed the night nursing him, and only on the next next day when leaving, took out the money, that we so quickly (or never) drop into the box, in order to pay the inn-keeper. How we have lost sight of what true mercy, generosity and caring actually is.
I know we can't eradicate all poverty in the world, and that's not what I'm trying to say, but each one of us, if we just extend ourselves a little bit more, can do something extra for someone else and try and make their life a little better. This man, that I hardly knew, will never get a funeral, a eulogy or be honoured, but perhaps in his honour, we can do something post humus to correct that. We can make the effort to show true mercy, genuine generosity and godly compassion to someone we maybe walk past every day ... and ask their name.
To my unnamed friend, rest in peace.
I know we can't eradicate all poverty in the world, and that's not what I'm trying to say, but each one of us, if we just extend ourselves a little bit more, can do something extra for someone else and try and make their life a little better. This man, that I hardly knew, will never get a funeral, a eulogy or be honoured, but perhaps in his honour, we can do something post humus to correct that. We can make the effort to show true mercy, genuine generosity and godly compassion to someone we maybe walk past every day ... and ask their name.
To my unnamed friend, rest in peace.
