Nothing to Write Home About

It’s not supposed to be this cold in Texas, y’all! The temperature dropped 50ºF from 80ºF one day to below freezing the next. And here, snow is unusual – more often, we get “freezing rain”, which is a euphemism for the major highways acquiring a surface like glass, and being littered with cars that have spun off onto the grassy verge, and the flashing lights of Emergency Services vehicles slowing down the traffic to almost a complete standstill.

The fountain outside the hotel, though still trying valiantly to maintain its credibility, is essentially frozen – and the picture was taken around noon!

Meanwhile, back in Eggesford, the winter landscape continues to look stunningly beautiful – the picture is of our local church (in the foreground), and Eggesford House, of which I know nothing more than the name (in the background).

So there’s literally “nothing to write home about” – and I had such great plans for this weekend. I’m sure that within a week the unusual cold spell will be over, but for now, I can do no better than include a small vignette that I wrote some time ago – if for any reason my memory fails me, and you’ve seen this before, I think you’ll just have to grin and bear it!

Panhandling is illegal in Dallas. Every now and then they have a crackdown, and it disappears for a while. But it always comes back.

While waiting at a red light, a young black man with a feckless smile stood by the side of the road, baseball cap in hand, held out expectantly. He waved cheerfully at the occupants of cars as they drew up. He didn’t look hungry or drunk or drugged – merely forlorn. His clothes, though old and ragged, were clean, and he wasn’t the usual panhandler that you’d cross the street to avoid.

I stared resolutely ahead. The light took forever to change, and that gave me time to think. Why did I refuse to make eye contact? Presumably because, in the inner recesses of my mind, I could pretend that I hadn’t seen him, or that he didn’t exist. If he’d been wounded, or fainting from thirst, would I have helped? I think so. So why not help with some loose change (which I dump into a jar when I get back to the hotel and then donate to Children In Need in those little envelopes they give you on the plane anyway)?

Maybe it helps if you have a rule – you know: “I never give money to beggars”, or “I donate to charity through my church”. But I don’t think it would help. Somehow the thought that I completely ignored a fellow human being that was in need of help, and worse, that I tried to convince myself that he wasn’t even there, weighs on my mind. I know you can’t give money to everyone who asks for it; I know he’d “probably only go and buy beer”; I know that “he ought to get himself a job like everyone else”. But I also know that not everyone in similar circumstances has deliberately thrown themselves under the wheels of life.

The trouble is, how do you tell the difference? And what do you do about it? In my case, the answer is, sadly, nothing.

In my defence, I have to say that, now, I invariably give money to people that look as though they need it. The most recent said something like: “Hey, thanks man – now I can buy some soap and get cleaned up.” Whether I, or you, believe that is inconsequential. I felt better. I really hope he did, too.