I write this to those compassionate hearts who want to help those in need instead of arguing about whether they deserve it or not. If the notion of deservedness is your concern, I ask that you don’t read on, because I am one of those who does not deserve your patronage.
The first time I saw Matthew I liked him immediately. He was young, 30 perhaps, maybe younger. Dressed in baggy blue jeans, a heavy coat, and a canvas backpack, he had a beanie on to cover his mangy long hair. He reminded me of someone I went to high school with, one of the boys I hung around my sophomore and junior years. I could imagine myself hanging out with him: playing hack or going to lunch, everyone piling into the back of my car like we used to every day. I immediately saw his face in my rear view mirror, laughing just like he had been there. As soon as I saw Matthew, he was my friend.
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For a long time I watched Matthew with a strange sense of affection, but I never talked to him. He walked down the aisle of the Blue Line train every night with a Burger King cup and a sign taped to it, asking for change. Unlike the other Metro salesman with clever catch-phrases to sell their candy and pens (50 cents a piece or a dollar for three, candy even sweeter than me! Don’t be shy ladies and gentlemen!), or the persistent men on the street that dish out compliments to get change (That’s quite a sexy haircut, ma’am. Spare a dollar?), Matthew never said anything. He stared straight ahead at the other end of the railcar and walked slowly with his hand barely extended to receive whatever spare dollars or cents might make it into the cup by chance. No gimmicks, no announcements, not even any eye contact. Just a slow shuffle and a blank stare to the other side. He looked just like a person who had lost all hope.
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I saw my friend when I looked at Matthew, like I was gazing into some horrible prediction of the future. It was like seeing my laughing, joyous teenage companion at our high school reunion, and he didn’t have a home or cent to his name, and all of the light had gone out of his face. All I wanted to ask was, “What happened?” And how could I have let this happen to you?
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I finally got to ask him one night when my roommate Kim and I were waiting for the train and Matthew shuffled onto the platform to wait as well. All Kim and I had between us was a five dollar bill and a Ziploc bag half full of almonds and cranberries. So I approached Matthew with my meager offering in hopes of striking up a conversation with him.
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It was the first of several conversations in which Matthew looked to the side as he talked, never meeting my face for more than a second. Something always kept him from looking at my face. But he did talk. He talked about how he got there, and why. He assured me he was going to get out, assured me that he wasn’t “like this” before. But when he came from Seattle to be with his girlfriend who was with child, she disappeared. And when he was robbed and left with no money or I.D., that was it. Now here he was, without a home or a friend or an identity, as far as the state was concerned. A full year had passed and Matthew was still on the street.
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To make matters worse, he had health problems. The next few times I saw Matthew, I noticed that he was in pain. He grimaced each time the train turned and he bumped up against the rails. Nerve problems, he said simply. Lots of pain. I asked him once if he knew anyone in L.A. that he could stay with. He said yes, he is a musician and has some friends here who are musicians also. But he is afraid they would look down on him for being homeless if he went to them for help. Maybe someday, when he got onto his feet again, he would give them a call. He would start playing again. He would play for money instead of beg for it. He would live life without a constant, unavoidable stigma that made him an exception to almost every opportunity. Maybe someday he could live life for real again. Someday, outside of this temporary hell where has no name and no purpose outside of the struggle to survive.
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When it came down to it, I was just another sympathetic passer-by in Matthew’s life, one of the many who will come and go, dropping dollars and cents into his story. No matter how I wanted to help, my presence in his life was temporary and fleeting, only of enough significance to provide a few meals and a few conversations. I’m sure he forgot me the moment I stepped off the train, for $5 and open ears were not enough to give Matthew his life back again. And who knows if I would have, given the chance? I hope that in the grand scheme of things, from the kind of perspective God has, my role in Matthew’s life did have some significance. I think that it did. But compared to what he needed, I was helpless indeed. When it came down to it, I could not save my friend. I could not give him a home or a job or a committed friendship that would see him through to stability. But someday I will be able to.
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Someday I will be at a place in my life where I am stable, God-willing. I might have a home of my own, or an apartment with an extra bed. And I might have money for extra food and some time away from work. And I hope and pray, I deeply wish, that when that day comes I will see Matthew again, in the face of someone else who needs a little help. I hope that when God asks me if I am ready to be hospitable I answer, “Yes.” I hope that when I am faced with the long, hard task of radical love of the stranger and Biblical hospitality, I rise to the challenge. I hope that I remember my Father’s open arms when I came running home, ready to accept and celebrate a daughter who had squandered her inheritance. I hope this for the whole Church: that we would invest ourselves in others, that we would be generous beyond the reaches of our immediate family and hold nothing back. Because there are so many people who need more than our spare change. When their mothers and fathers fail to, or are not able to, open their arms and their whole lives to them, I believe that it is our job to step into the gap and provide that love, as far as we are able.
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I understand, and I honor, the wish of so many to help those without a home by offering food or money. These are necessary acts of love and they make a difference, they fill the bellies of the hungry in our nation. They bring hope. But $5 a day, spread across the many homeless men and women one may encounter in a day, is a band-aid. I know there are too many hurting people. I know it is impossible to help them all as an individual. But I believe that all of us will have an opportunity in our lives to give more. If Matthew had a room to stay in for free, with a shower and new clothes and three meals a day, an opportunity to look for a job... if only the circumstances of his life would align with another’s in just the right way, I can imagine him being free. This is what I call a miracle. All of us have chances to participate in miracles. Sometimes it’s filling a hungry belly. Someday it might be saving someone’s life by letting God use our resources (His resources) for the good of another. I hope that when my time comes, I am less selfish than I am now.
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At the end of the semester I made Matthew a Christmas card. I saw him on the Blue Line the last time I ever rode it and I gave it to him. He looked at the card through his broken glasses, only one lens, and then he smiled at me, and said “Thank you.” I told him to have a good night and to stay warm, and then I walked home. It was the last time he saw me, but I know it will not be the last time I see him.
