Have I assumed the arrogant air of my atmosphere? Today, as I was walking down the street with a latte in one hand, the keys to my new car in the other, my stomach full from lunch, I shuddered when I saw a homeless man with no shoes walking around Walnut Street, bobbing through traffic like a ping pong ball. When I recognized my reaction, my spirit recoiled.
I got into the elevator in my building and I started to cry.
That reaction is not me. I don’t know the person that I am becoming. I work in one of the most affluent parts of the city. I walk amongst the most historic, expensive houses in Philadelphia. Yet I hop in my Saturn Ion and come back to suburbia every night. I live in middle class America…a working class town in Southern NJ.
I have a heart for the homeless. Perhaps what recoiled in me is that I’ve not done anything to change the plight of the homeless in Philadelphia since that one man yelled at me for not giving him exactly what he wanted. Perhaps I allowed my compassionate heart of flesh to become encrusted with bitterness and apathy rather than pushing through and remembering that not everyone is a jerk. Perhaps driving into the city and walking half a block rather than taking the bus and walking 13 blocks has desensitized me. Perhaps I’ve become sheltered from the daily reality of homelessness in Philadelphia.
I don’t know what is going on with my heart. But today my stone encrusted heart crumbled.
My prayer is that God continues to remove the scales from my eyes that I may see Him.
Deneen White 