The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
15 February 2004
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Birthday wishes for Aloysius
SA parishes merge
Focus on family
Gregorian Schola offers singers big chants
Gibson’s Passion ‘work of faith’, says cardinal
How to help create a ‘culture of peace’
Pregnant pause: The joy of showing our baby the way
There is a doctor in the house
Wollongong diocese buys site for high school
Boree log bush bash
Work in Catholic education brings honour for four
Bishop launches ‘significant’ new faith courses
$80,000 boost for drug fight
Editorial: Greatest story
Letters: Something special
Conversation: Fr Aiden Kelly, prison chaplain - Helping souls in a captive Congregation
On a walk with God ...
A credible Jesus
A biblical-based Mary
A life of Mercy with music
Care, prayer still very much in order
The Polding legacy
‘Catholic-only’ order denied
US-bound on the pitcher’s mound
On a walk with God ...
By Jenny Hammond
It was a hot, humid morning as the pavement vanished beneath my feet. The early morning street was busy with the rush of people intent on travelling to their places of work.
I, too, was intent upon my destination, head down, feet moving in a relaxed rhythm, my mind receptive. It has become my custom to walk. Primarily to keep fit, walking has become an anointed time where I can draw aside and spend time with the Lord.
He has blessed my commitment to health by walking with me each day. As we walk together he shows me new visions and offers much for evaluation and contemplation. This morning was no different for he was about the challenge me once again.
At a pavement café, my eyes were drawn to a man seated upon the steps. Given his dishevelled appearance, he was obviously a man who lives on the streets. My glance at him prompted no response for he was far too involved in his early morning occupation.
I was merely passing by as he conducted a ritual, which had probably become a daily routine of years. Sitting on the step, legs parted, and with his treasure in a crumpled brown paper bag on the step below, he was gingerly holding the lighted butt of an old cigarette between his soiled fingers. His ‘treasure’ was a heap of similar butts that he had obviously pounded the pavements during the night to collect.
With each draw on this secondhand cigarette he was able to share intimately in someone else’s life experience. How close he was to another human being and yet how far removed as he found enjoyment in their cast-off butt.
Pity overflowed from my heart and I had to ask myself if his choice of lifestyle brought him satisfaction. Was it shame that made me feel uncomfortable as I passed by? On immediate reflection my answer would have been a resounding ‘no’.
On deeper reflection, comparing his pavement walk with my own, I came to the conclusion that his choice was probably born of a desire to move away from the very people he was now using to feed his habit.
Existing off these scraps brought my puffing man his daily fix.
Sadly, in the world that he had chosen to walk away from there are many whose companionship and wisdom could have offered so much more. Why had he made this choice? What had happened in his life to make him walk away?
Even deeper reflection offered the challenge that conceivably his ‘walk’ had actually brought him closer to
God than my own, and that he now enjoyed a freedom that few of us would or could contemplate.
Forgive my audacity, Lord that I dare compare my walking treasures to his. Furthermore, seated there on the step, removed from a demanding and judgmental world, perhaps he pitied me!
In reaching my destination I had also reached the challenge that I was not to judge others.
Jesus himself told us that we should not judge by external standards, but by true standards and that God, his Father, judges everyone by the same standard.
Instead, it would be more appropriate to offer some meaningful prayer for the man who had been the object of such a profound revelation.
It would also be wise to offer a prayer for myself that I might have a better sense of judgment and a broader vision.
I might also hope that my response to the call of Jesus to go into the field and assist with the harvest would find my harvest basket filled with the lost and lonely.