Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

I See Homeless People. Do You?

It’s Christmas-time, a time for joy, hap­pi­ness, love and fel­low­ship. It’s a time that many asso­ciate with see­ing smiles of joy and hearts filled with grat­i­tude. Is the great­est joy and grat­i­tude to be found in the smiles and hearts of lit­tle chil­dren as they open their gifts? Maybe. But I know for cer­tain that if you take a few moments of your time to see, acknowl­edge, and con­nect with a home­less per­son, you will see true grat­i­tude — one unfet­tered by greed, how­ever innocent.

I don’t stop to talk to every home­less per­son I come across. I’ll even admit that I don’t feel com­pas­sion for every home­less per­son that I come across. But some­times I do stop and con­nect with some­one who needs help and, more than that, needs to be rec­og­nized as a per­son of worth.

Just tonight, as I walked to Union Sta­tion (a sub­way sta­tion in Toronto), I saw a man sit­ting at the side of the hall­way, snif­fling as though he’d been cry­ing. He looked up, we made eye con­tact, and acknowl­edged one another. He didn’t ask me for money. I didn’t pass by with a “Sorry, man” or worse, just ignore him. I stopped, kneeled and spoke with him for 5 minutes.

5 min­utes of your time can make a real dif­fer­ence in another human being’s life. It is the gift of recog­ni­tion, of respect, and at its most basic level, of love.

The man told me about his his­tory with can­dor, as we are all wont to do some­times when trou­bled and talk­ing to strangers whom we may never see again.

He told me that he has been home­less for 12 years. He has over­come a drug addic­tion, but admit­ted that he was still alco­holic. He told me about being shoo’d away from every­where by secu­rity guards, and about the dan­gers of home­less shel­ters — where rape is an ever-present dan­ger, where your shoes and socks can be stolen, and even your under­wear right off you in the night. He told me he had been molested by his father from age 6 til 16, and he admit­ted, yes some­times he liked it and went back for more.

I was speak­ing to a per­son. I was speak­ing to a real human being with a past and a his­tory. I was speak­ing to a man with a heart, with emo­tion, with fears, and with long­ing. He spoke of his depres­sion, and yet I sensed in him dig­nity and strength, hard-won wis­dom and understanding.

But I was heart­ened to hear that I was not the only per­son that evening to see him, acknowl­edge him, and con­nect with him. Another man had just spo­ken with him and was going to see if he could get him some food and help him. My con­ver­sa­tion with the home­less man came to a close when the other man returned.

He was the same man I had passed in the hall­way just a few moments ago, who had held a door open for me.

Every time I have taken a few moments of my time to acknowl­edge and con­nect with a home­less per­son, I have come from it with new knowl­edge and new per­spec­tive. Each time I have given the gift of respect, I have seen real grat­i­tude and real hon­esty in the per­son to whom I spoke.

It’s easy to ignore the home­less. It’s easy to never even see them in the first place. But if you open your eyes, you will see them. If you open your heart, you will dis­cover some­one with worth. You will dis­cover a real human being. Try it some­time. And if you do it dur­ing Christ­mas sea­son, you’ll see real grat­i­tude and be enlarged by the expe­ri­ence, beyond what giv­ing a mate­r­ial gift alone could ever accomplish.

I see home­less peo­ple. You can, too.