Two images

My kids and I visited Costco yesterday. It was like a trip to Disneyland: massive crowds and waiting in long lines, except that it wasn't fun.
As we entered the store there was a very dirty homeless man digging through the garbage eating the leftovers from thrown away lunches. He was a filthy, disheveled man and my kids noticed him at once. Zach was the first to say something to me as he was quite distressed over the fact that someone was eating out of the garbage can. (My son has a tiny bit of a germ phobia inherited from his parents--though I swear I am not as bad as I once was.)
We looked in my wallet and found three dollars. Not much, but it could actually buy a feast at Costco. So we walked over to the scruffy man and encouraged him to go get something to eat. He thanked us profusely...and then continued to babble on in a string of incoherent words that left me wondering if I was hearing him right, or if my hearing was going out. Fortunately, for my sake, my hearing was all good, but this left me explaining to my kids what the words "mental illness" meant. (Fun Costco conversation while shopping for daddy's prezzies.)

All joking aside...
I have been thinking about that man and the image of him digging through that garbage can. How a human mind and soul can be so bent inward upon itself that it imprisons the life that was created to be free. How painfully base your life can be that you are digging through trash to keep yourself alive.

But the part of the image that pierced me the most was this: the crowds of people pushing their loaded carts past him while he gingerly opened the used food wrappers atop the garbage can. In my mind he is a stark image of loneliness amongst the gross materialism, consumerism (that I was a part of) and busyness rushing past him.

I don't know why it has haunted me so much, but it has.

Today when I snapped the girls giggling and hugging, showing me their crafty tree ornaments, I saw a picture of friendship and love, two little souls nurtured by the companionship that friendship brings. This is how our lives are to be. Right? Having someone to love and to be loved is what keeps us connected to life and community. And I wondered how many of those Costco shoppers, though dressed in clean clothes with fat wallets in their pockets and loaded shopping carts, were actually more like that homeless man than they cared to admit: alone amongst a sea of people. How dangerously isolating that can be when your outward appearance does not match the truth of the inward reality of despair and loneliness. It is easier to spot the lonely homeless.

These two images of loneliness and companionship certainly fueled my thoughts. This season, and in the new year, I will pray for eyes to see, and hands to help, those that are "digging through the trash" with dirty and clean clothes on. Looking for scraps because they are lost, sick, or alone because no one has reached out a hand of love to share in the abundance she (myself) has been given. We were never meant to be alone.