I had what appeared to be one of those “watch and learn” demos set before me by God yesterday. I was seated in a taxi and ready to be on my way home when, looking out the right window, I observed a rather ironic interaction between two homeless men. One man was walking with his eyes foraging the ground for 1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent and 25 cent pieces commonly left lying there in the bustling traffic of passer bys. As he searched, picked at the ground, and searched again he proceeded obliviously towards the other homeless man, who all the while had been sitting at the corner observing him carefully. As the first guy seized what appeared to be the last coin along that stretch of pavement, he resumed upright posture and proceeded to walk past the guy sitting at the corner. It was then that I observed the sitting guy calling the attention of the one who’d been picking the coins, and was amazed when he pointed to a spot on the ground behind him – lying there was a bronze 5 cent piece, so cleverly blended with the colour of the ground you’d probably need to kick it to know it was there. “Look, yuh forget one...” said the sitting guy to the other. The taxi pulled off at that point, and I couldn’t hear what the coin-fetcher had said in reply. But by the cheer expression of pleasant surprise as he clutched his head between his hands, I knew it was gratitude. The sitting guy gave a gentle nod, with a smile.
The selflessness of the act amazed me. What is a 5 cent piece to any of us, that, should it fall to earth (on a busy, not-so-clean-looking pavement) we would hastily go back to retrieve it? Yet the homeless man at the corner must have realized how precious a mere “5 cents” had been in the eyes of the cent-seeker, having seen, all along, his meticulous eye for the fallen coin. Three observations have led me to conclude that the sitting man did not seek self-interest:
1. Had he needed the coin, he could have easily waited till the first guy had walked a bit past before snatching the lone coin himself. He did not act in this manner.
2. Had he not needed the coin, he was at no obligation to care that the man had forgotten one coin. He could easily have let it slip. Yet, he chose to alert the coin-seeker of the treasure piece he had missed.
3. He couldn’t have done it for the sake of self-gratification, nor for any form of public acknowledgement. Mot vagrants are generally ghosts of the social sphere.
An act as simple as responding to the recognition of needs, goals or passions of another human by aiding their steps toward achieving and fulfilling such without desire of personal praise or self-gratified motive. Such an act embodies, in its purest form, the truth of what it means to be “your brother’s keeper”. I long for the day when, like the man at the corner, we shall all become guardians of each other’s needs, dreams and aspirations, simply because we can. Thank God for great lessons, taught through the least of men.
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