Sidewalks

The sidewalk on a better day

The sidewalk was covered in red splotches. My mind went in a dozen different directions of what it could be. There was a Starbucks nearby. Could it have been the unfortunate outcome of an acai strawberry refresher gone wrong? Southern California trees seemed to bear lots of red fruit this time of year. Perhaps the wind had its way and dropped the red berries to the ground. But there was one possibility that I wanted to leave unspoken.

It looked like blood.

I followed it for a few blocks until I saw a woman standing outside her apartment complex. She was engaged in a conversation with another passerby who was expressing concern over the possibility that the red substance (whatever it was) meant that someone was hurt.

"Yes. I know. It's everywhere. I just called the fire department."

I debated stopping, but with a chill down my spine, I continued home.

Did I just walk through a crime scene?

I was on my way back from daily mass. After a few weeks in California, I was used to passing by people living in tents or people sleeping on the sidewalk. It was common to encounter people asking for money on the streets. But I wasn't at all expecting to see what I saw that day. Fire trucks passed by, and I breathed a deep sigh, whether out of fear or relief, I'm still not sure.

Walla Walla where fancy sidewalks abound

I've spent most of my life in places where sidewalks are safe. From sidewalks, we admire displays in shop windows, hunt for the ideal cafe for lunch, or breathe in fresh air. But here I've passed by store fronts littered by dirty clothes and garbage while odors other than fresh roses and lilacs pollute the air.

And yet...

Even here, I encounter pockets of beauty. It takes me about half an hour to walk from the house to the closest church for daily Mass. Nearly every day, I pass by the same man with a beard dressed in warm clothes. And every day he waves, says good morning, and asks me how I'm doing. He has an accent that makes me wonder where he came from and what led him to the tent that he calls home. His area is always neat and clean. And one day, I even saw him with a basin filled with water...he was washing his hands.

In his apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, Pope Leo XIV says,

"Only the closeness that makes us friends enables us to appreciate deeply the values of the poor today, their legitimate desires, and their own manner of living the faith… Day by day, the poor become agents of evangelization and of comprehensive human promotion: they educate their children in the faith, engage in ongoing solidarity among relatives and neighbors, constantly seek God, and give life to the Church’s pilgrimage. In the light of the Gospel, we recognize their immense dignity and their sacred worth in the eyes of Christ, who was poor like them and excluded among them."

I have no idea what the man on Sherman Way's story is. I don't know even know his name. But I know he is "an agent of evangelization." When I saw him washing his hands in a basin of soapy water on the sidewalk, he taught me there are no excuses for not presenting myself well. Every morning when he greets me and asks me how I'm doing, he teaches me there is no reason to ignore the person beside me, but there is every reason to be kind.

It looks like a simple street in Sual, but really it's a cathedral.

In the Philippines I encountered a lot of people living without the conveniences Americans enjoy - hot water, dependable electricity, reliable plumbing. The life is simple. As I think about people who I learned from without them saying a word, I think about Pong Pong. Pong Pong would walk the streets of Sual wearing basketball shorts, some kind of sports jersey, and tsinelas. He would stand in the marketplace or around the church, with his hand extended for money. He was always smiling. It would have been easy to dismiss him. But there was something in my heart that softened every time I saw him. When my mom passed away, he walked reverently with us from the church all the way to the cemetery. There was a time when he came to our house, sat at the table and had lunch with us without saying much but with a big smile on his face. I have no doubt that God smiles even bigger as He watches Pong Pong. He doesn't worry about whether or not he will be cared for. He just sits at the table with the confidence that he will be welcomed. And by some grace that transcends human expectations, he is.

I wish I could say my reaction when I see one of these souls who our culture often overlooks is always a positive one. But it isn't. And yet, Pope Leo XIV, says that our future depends on how we respond to the poor:

As it is, “the current model, with its emphasis on success and self-reliance, does not appear to favor an investment in efforts to help the slow, the weak or the less talented to find opportunities in life.” The same questions keep coming back to us. Does this mean that the less gifted are not human beings? Or that the weak do not have the same dignity as ourselves? Are those born with fewer opportunities of lesser value as human beings? Should they limit themselves merely to surviving?  The worth of our societies, and our own future, depends on the answers we give to these questions. Either we regain our moral and spiritual dignity or we fall into a cesspool.

It can be as simple as changing the way we walk down the street. Whether we're walking through the simple town of Sual or the upscale downtown of Walla Walla or even the sometimes questionable neighborhood on Sherman Way, how do we react to the people around us? Do we cross the street like the scribes in the story of the Good Samaritan? Or do we see what those who we have labelled as "poor" may have to offer us? Do we receive them as the gift they are?

I don't think I'd be the same person if I had never met Pong Pong or if I had just walked past the man on Sherman Way. In fact, I think I'm a better person. But maybe the real question that Pope Leo XIV asks us to ponder is how can they be better because they have met us?