It is easy to feel empathy for the homeless but harder to act

His face was hard, brown, and weather beaten. His stringy, dirty blonde hair hung in greasy shoulder length waves under his toboggan.

He always seemed to be standing guard outside the grocery store or the coffee shop; watching.

He would ride his bike to local businesses each morning and linger to watch people.

I had seen him in several places all over town. 

Each time I saw him, I felt uneasy.

I didn’t know whether to make eye contact or ignore him.  I didn’t know whether I should eke out a greeting or mind my own business. I didn’t know if speaking to him might open up a lengthy dialogue and I wanted to avoid that at all cost.

He just gave me the willies.

Once, I said a quick, “Hey,” while passing him at the coffee shop and he laughed at me, showing his tobacco stained teeth. It unnerved me and made me angry at the same time. He seemed to know he made me nervous and enjoyed watching me squirm with embarrassment. 

After that incident, if I saw him on the sidewalk, I was careful to make sure I crossed to the other side. If I caught a glimpse of him through the coffee shop window, I opted for coffee in the drive through instead. 

I speculated about his backstory. I knew he was probably younger than he seemed, however the outside elements made him look ancient. While the hardness of his face was disconcerting, there was something strange behind his crystal blue eyes he viewed the world through.

His facial expressions confused me. I couldn’t decide if it was wisdom or madness; yearning or psychosis. He seemed to be walking a fine line between the natural world and the supernatural.

There is a Bible verse about being hospitable to strangers because you never know when you might be entertaining angels unaware. Maybe he’s an angel sent here to interact with human beings to test them; to find a measure of kindness or compassion left in the world.

His eyes were so distressing. I felt an unbearable sense of shame when I passed him by, struggling to keep a safe distance while looking through him instead of making eye contact. I knew the right thing to do. I knew the nice thing to do.

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t seem to muster the courage to extend a measure of human kindness.

Maybe he forced me to examine my level  of compassion for others, maybe he shined a  mirror in my face and revealed pretentious tendencies I was unaware I possessed, or perhaps it’s much simpler than all that.

Perhaps it was just fear. 

Fear isn’t all bad, right? It is meant to protect us from imminent danger-after all, it is our internal warning system. But fear left unchecked is an unruly, uncontrollable monster that slowly chokes the light out of us.

I feel such empathy but my fear stopped me from connecting; and so I remained safely hidden in the distance.

For now, I will continue to watch from the sidelines, after all, the guilt I feel after a brief sighting is only temporary. It passes quickly and I continue on with my simple, safe, uncomplicated life.