The Man on the Corner
by Jacque Anderson, Kaio Member
It was my first night of Outreach in Boystown—part of my interview for the Kaio program. I listened intently as Andrew, a man whom I’d just met who lives on the streets, talked about how he is God and controls the universe.
“I don’t know why people worship Jesus. The Father [meaning himself] is who should be worshipped. Jesus came here, and look at all the suffering still on this earth!”
Although his theology is flawed, I can’t disagree with him: suffering plagues our world. I glimpsed a small portion of it that night.
At 2:30 a.m., we decided to head home. As I strode to the car with Heather, a current Kaio member, all I could think about was how tired and cold I felt and how eager I was to climb into my bed. As we rounded a corner, I caught sight of a man lying on a storefront stoop to get out of the rain. He was wrapped in a plastic poncho and dressed in stained and worn clothes, with a gray winter hat pulled over his ears.
Heather paused near the stoop. “Do you need anything?” she asked.
The man sat up, startled and confused. “No, no, I’m okay,” he stammered. “Thanks for asking.”
“Okay. Stay warm,” Heather replied.
All I wanted was to wrap the man in clean clothes and give him a warm meal and a comfortable bed to sleep in.
But I couldn’t.
I had to walk away.
I felt helplessness and guilt stir in my stomach, spread throughout my body, and climb up my throat. I felt like I would choke on it. I held back tears as we walked to the car.
The suffering in the world was manifested to me in that man. I usually avoid the suffering of others, because I fear the pain of compassion. But that night, a fire erupted in my heart: a painful fire, but a fire that ignited in me a desire to come face to face with the suffering of others and be the hands and feet of Christ as best as I can, even if that means I’ll have to hurt.
In Streetwalking with Jesus, Emmaus founder John Green talks about a reflection he heard at a retreat: When a man died and appeared in heaven, St. Peter asked to see his scars. When the man revealed that he had no scars, St. Peter said, with tears in his eyes, “Was nothing worth fighting for?”
When I get to heaven and show Peter my scars, I know the scar from seeing that man on the streets that night will be one of the largest. And I hope to see that man from the corner, no longer dressed in dirty clothes, but dressed in the glory of Christ. He’ll show me his scars, I’ll show him mine, and we’ll laugh at the pain we endured on this earth, nothing compared to the eternal joy in heaven.