By Miloš Tomić — Now, that our favorite travel destinations include a brisk walk to the shed or a romantic stroll to the fridge, it’s nice to recall some pleasant memories of real travel experiences. So, here is one.
Italy! As we were trekking Florence, a man on the street reaches to us offering something. I just wave my hand brushing him off. So many of them. Everywhere!
“Let’s buy something from him,” my wife said.
Oh, c’mon! – my thoughts were nagging at me, while my feet unwillingly turned toward a black, homeless-looking guy selling some thrifts on a cardboard box.
Then, inadvertently, our eyes met. And I saw it. Not just an urge to survive, not at all a desire to take few euros from me… but a desperate cry to be acknowledged.
At that moment I saw my own, long forgotten, eyes.
Long ago, while being stuck in a vertigo of endless immigration limbo, I faced those looks. Frowning looks that just saw me as something that’s in their way. And now, this man faced the same frowning look – in my eyes.
Tables turn… and we forget.
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)
Jesus presents something, almost extinct in our society – compassion. I say “almost extinct” because compassion requires caring for others first. And we have been so smothered with these odd circumstances that everything starts being a nuisance.
That guy coughing behind me, that lady without a mask, that hideous mother shamelessly bringing her child to the store, loneliness at home, no privacy at home, howling at 8pm…
But… if only… if we would only stop and ask ourselves if compassion of our savior lives in us, …really lives.
So, we got some bracelets from him, and gave him few euros extra. The bracelets will wear out, but I’ll keep a memory of a smile as he waved at us yelling “Ciao amici”.
But I walked away ashamed.
“Why didn’t we just give him some money?” I asked.
“Because that’s not what he needed, my dear,” my wife said.
But I didn’t see that being blinded by my own wants and needs.
As Mahatma Gandhi said: “Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.” May God find us working out hard!
— Miloš Tomić is associate pastor for the Arvada church, Colorado
