loudly

I walked out of the grocery store and into the cool night air, grasping a bag of all-purpose flour and pawing through my purse for keys. I had just braved the night-before-Thanksgiving frenzy, slightly irritated that Aaron had forgotten to insure that we had all the ingredients for pumpkin pie.

I realized that a sad-looking homeless man was sitting in the shadows, directly in front of my car. An unusual combination of fear and compassion rushed through me as I assesed the potentially uncomfortable situation and possible escape routes.

There was no way to avoid it.

"Darlin, can you spare some change?"

I didn’t look up. I pretended not to hear him. I walked purposefully so as not to appear as uneasy as I felt. I could feel his eyes on my back, but it felt more like his eyes on my soul, searing my conscience into a state of awareness.

I drove away, but my mind lingered. What was I supposed to do, stop and talk to him? A young woman, alone in a dimly lit parking lot? Should I have given him money – I only had a 5 dollar bill and some change. Maybe it was a scam. Or not. Maybe he wanted to buy booze or drugs? Surely I didn't want to contribute to that. I'd already written my check to the nearby homeless shelter to provide Thanksgiving meals. I'd done my part, right?

My attempts at rationalization were futile. I'd already drunk an unsavory cocktail of guilt and helplessness; I was now inebriated with uncertainty, my head clouded. What once made sense was now blurred and distorted. Why did I feel so much for a man I didn't know and would probably never know?

When I got home I woefully recounted my feelings to Aaron, expecting to hear comforting words. Instead, he encouraged my pain.

"It's good that you felt that way. It means you're human."

C.S. Lewis wrote that "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

I am acutely aware that I am generally oblivious, self-absorbed and focused on my life and the small world that it encompasses. I don't often encounter the human face of suffering -- the dirty, gritty, unbathed and unloved side of life.

Yet when I do, and even when I don't, I want to do more that just hear the call and feel the pain. My feelings remind me to be compelled to action.

To be moved, literally moved, by compassion.