Just Another Passer-by

          

                Jennifer sits in the back seat of the car. It has been so long since she has sat in the back seat. She is often the driver or the passenger, but never the backseater. It feels like a new perspective. Out the window stands a man on a street corner. Money on his mind. No, relief on his mind. Sign in his hand, but Jennifer feels too guilty to read it. She is a hypocrite. Every Sunday, to and from church, she sees that poor man. Too scared to help him. Giving the money isn’t the issue. Being bold is the real problem. She prays for someone braver than her to help him. Her family drives on. No one mentions or acknowledges the sad sight they see. It is too shameful to admit they sin.

            No one stops; everyone drives; no one cares; everyone ignores.  The guilt is too heavy for Jennifer, so she lets it go. She forgets, in that moment, that the man; the unique life form; her fellow sharer of the earth; her neighbor whom she was called to love as she loves herself ever existed. Never asking, what is that man’s story? Do people give him money? Does he hate the world? Is he smart? Kind? A follower of Christ like she is supposed to be? What has happened in this man’s life that forced him to become a beggar? Maybe he is a man “who carries in him the greatest message in the world,” but no “passer-by suspects” a thing (Woolf 83). Questions she doesn’t care to ask. Her thoughts, actions, and beliefs orbit around her own gigantic head. How rare it is when her universe attempts collide with another.