THE MAN OUT OF DICKENS -- Merry Christmas

 

Once upon a time when I had a mediocre job, I had just enough money to keep my head above water. My car was used, and breaking down. My family was dwindling -- my father had recently passed and other close family members had also recently gone. It was nearing Christmas, and in my eyes there was little to feel joyful about. I looked around and saw all the gaiety, and did not feel a part of any of it.

This one particular Christmas season I was walking down the main street of the University District in Seattle. At the time, one of my pastimes was hanging out at used book stores, and the Avenue in Seattle's University District had several very good ones. Over the period of two years I bought probably several hundred books -- some of which were reference books and history books that I still use periodically.

This particular evening was a cool night in late December, and it was probably a few days before Christmas. The "Ave", a major shopping street, was cheery and bright with sparkling red, white, and green Christmas lighting, and many of the shops had Christmas shoppers and Christmas decorations in the windows.

         
As I walked from one of the bookshops towards my car, I passed a homeless man, in shoddy clothing, who was standing in the entryway to a shop that had already closed. He literally looked like something out of a Dickens novel. He was begging for some money. I looked at him. At first, I thought to myself – “this guy is just going to use whatever money for liquor.” Then my conscience was tweaked, and I remembered the words of Jesus, where he said something like "give to those who beg."

Often – perhaps way too often -- I lay those words aside. I’ll admit that. It is not easy to give money to someone who you suspect may or may not be a con artist. Especially now during the Recession, it is too easy to think that begging people are drug addicts whom you are just enabling when you give them money. So it is easy – convenient, perhaps – to put such people out of your mind when you are making meager money yourself. But there are those homeless in genuine need also, and you can’t always differentiate between them.

And yet here was this guy -- with a full, ragged beard, long hair, aged skin, shoddy clothes, just asking for some spare change.

This time -- instead of walking on -- I reached my hand into my pocket, and gave the homeless man all that was in it – maybe two or three bucks in quarters and dimes.

“This is all I’ve got that I can afford to give you,” I said, handing him the handful of coins. "Merry Christmas."

He literally jumped and cried out in joy, with a sparkle in his eyes.

I shall never in my life forget that moment.

It has stuck with me years later.

In fact, I remember virtually nothing else about that particular Christmas season except that incident.

I have no idea what the homeless man spent those two or three dollars on. Maybe it was a can of strong beer. But he obviously was in need. His clothes were dirty, and undoubtedly stank some. He obviously had no place to live. So what if he bought a can of beer with the money? It was only two or three bucks at most, but it gave the guy some joy, especially during the Christmas season.

Aside from this incident with the Dickensian homeless fellow, I don’t recall anything about that Christmas. If I think back, it wasn’t a good one. A breakup, a recent death in the family, financial hardships, overwork, poor health, and other factors made it a time – like many Christmases, unfortunately – a time that I wanted to forget.

But I remember that homeless man’s joy at just receiving a handful of quarters, during an encounter in the Christmas season. It is my only memory of that Christmas.

Christmas, of course, is a Christian holiday. It's the time of year many people in the U.S. think of family, children, giving, celebrating, gaiety -- and thanks to Charles Dickens' novellete "A Christmas Carol", they also think of charity.

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; I was naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)

The person whose birth many of us celebrate during this time of year told us to give to those in need.

It's ironic, that my only memory of that particular Christmas is not anything I received, or any partying or celebrating I may have done -- but it was when I gave a poor man in shoddy clothing all the change out of my coat pocket -- and saw his joy.

If only I had more such incidents of my conscience being awakened, perhaps I would be better off for it.

Merry Christmas everyone.

C.C.

Christmas Eve, 2015