I Was Just Thinking Love for the Mob He treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings. (GK Chesterton about St. Francis) April 2007

Whenever we go to San Francisco my wife, Rae, sometimes carries a pocket full of change for the panhandlers. I used to regard these people with disdain - hurrying past them, not looking at them, and not wishing not to encourage their beggarly activities. I'm gradually learning from Rae to hold these people with the regard that I ought to have for everyone, displaying the dignity and respect that belongs to them as kings of the earth made in the image of their creator.

On a San Francisco sidewalk Rae handed a buck to a scruffy street musician and greeted him in a friendly fashion. The man shared with her that she was the first person of all the hundreds who had passed that day who ever showed the slightest awareness that he was a human being.

At another point that same day Rae turned back to a street person we had just passed to give him a handful of change. The man was so grateful to her! He complemented her on a flower she was wearing in her lapel. Then he shared an interesting story of how he had come into possession of a rose a short time before and how the rose had remained fresh and lovely for a whole week.

As we left the man told Rae "Goodbye," and blessed her in God's name.

I'm beginning to realize that we have a wonderful gift to give to street people. Along with a dollar bill or a handful of change, we can give them the gift of acknowledging them as human beings. We can promote them for a short time from being non-entities to becoming people with faces. At least for a moment we can provide them an opportunity to be human with us.

Rae lives instinctively follows the implications of the words of columnist William Arthur Ward:

Flatter me, and I may not believe you.

Criticize me, and I may not like you.

Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.

Encourage me, and I will not forget you.

I'm sure that homeless guy still remembers Rae and her flower.

One of the signs marking my life as a person awash in grace should be easy acceptance of people around me regardless of status or personal characteristics. I should be as uncaring of other people's failures as I am hard on my own. No matter what terrible choices another person might have made, I can realize that I've done awful things myself - even if the results might not have been as public.

A wise observer of the human condition, Ouida Sebestyen, made the accurate observation that "Indifference is the invisible giant of the world."

The architect and inventor, Buckminster, Fuller stretched Ouida's proverb into a cosmic challenge when he wrote,

"We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.

It has to be everybody or nobody."

Perhaps performing little acts of humanity serve to improve our performance a crewmember on Spaceship Earth. Maybe the kingdom of the spirit comes not through blare of trumpets or some invincible surmise, but through small deeds such as giving a homeless person a friendly greeting and a dollar.

The great essayist, Ann Lamott, wrote:

The lie is that only big will do; only big will change the world, so everyone will be kind to each other and the killing will stop. Big is the magic we look for first, but grace is what makes things work out against all odds. If it were too big, it might sweep away all the bits of knowledge and insight we're granted as we go along. If it were too big, it couldn't get through the almost invisible cracks and holes in our walls, in our stone hearts; knowledge comes in tendrils.

The comment resonates with Emily Dickinson's observation:

"The truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.

I'm so grateful for Rae's small but important witness before me of how love can be shared with people who others regard as so unlovely. These are little acts, but with huge - possibly eternal - implications.

The Master once said that He was homeless so I'm going to try to treat the next homeless person I meet as a king incognito, as in this month's quote.

If I can't love perfectly like Jesus would, I can at least treat people like St. Francis treated them; I can love others as Rae loves them.