I live in a city with lots of beggars. On our major streets, they can be seen on most days standing in the medians, waiting for red lights so that they can travel up and down the concrete street divider with pathetic looks on their faces that not so subtlety suggest drivers hand over some cash. Recently I heard that an entrepreneur (my label for the enterprising soul who has made begging a lucrative business) has organized the beggars, by picking them up, and dropping them off at “work”. I have no evidence that points to the validity of this information but I have to share that I find the concept entertaining. Of course, it is not new, since there are mercenaries and opportunists on every corner in this life we live, but here is the astounding part of all this that has me leaning in the direction of this “story” being true.
There are beggars in wheeled chairs riding the medians; interesting and challenging to say the least.
I saw a young man begging AND taking a reading break, only to resume his “spot” the next day.
This week, I noticed that medians had been shovelled! This struck me as hilariously funny!
Getting serious
Dear reader, these beggars are serious about their work. They are consistent. They show up under all weather conditions and they have some kind of work/play life balance that the rest of the stressed out “over-worked” rich world pays money to accomplish on weekends in expensive seminars and at retreats. Their work is rewarding too because lets face this truth, we only do what we do because somehow or another, it is working for us, even if no one else agrees!
What’s my problem?
Showing up for work despite a disability and with a quaking body has me wonder what my problem is? Why I am complacent and lazy sometimes? Why I make excuses for not working as hard as I can, being as committed and diligent as I am able? Why do I lie down on the job dear reader, why? It is pure privilege to live a blessed life and not have to scrape and beg, hoping someone will turn a kind and generous eye our way and give us a bit of extra change. If anything, I am appreciative of what God has shown me this week, in this very moment as I type on my Mac laptop in my comfortable family room… I am no better than anyone else in fact, I wonder about my own survival skills, my own fair-weather laxidaxical approach to life and its challenges.
Freely given gifts
It is easy to judge a “beggar”; to have compassion for a beggar; to have an opinionated sentiment of condescending indulgence of a beggar when we lower our window and generously decide to part with our ashtray coins… This week, I admire their tenancy, their strange work ethic, their commitment to plying their trade… this week, I see what God wants me to see, that we are all freely given gifts we did not work for, nor could we possibly earn… we simply cannot, dear one, out give God.
Lent is upon us, who will you give to these next 39 days out of sheer gratitude for all of your blessings? All good and perfect gifts come from above, nothing is yours to keep, it is all borrowed; we are all beggars and borrowers from a Great God who opens up the heavens daily and pours out upon us generously and waits to see, what we will do with the bounty? Share or keep your windows closed and sealed? You get the picture.
