I was running late into the lobby of the Micronesia Mall movie theater Friday night, when I saw Mikey on the ground a few feet from the ticket checker looking for something in his bag. Mikey is in his 40s, has a learning disability, and walks up and down the streets of northern Guam pushing his bicycle. I don’t know where he sleeps or lives, if he does have a home to go to. He can speak, but rarely does. Whenever I run into him at the store he just points to what he wants, and we’ll bring the stuff up to the cashier before he heads on his way to wherever his next destination is.
That night, I didn’t stop at the ticket check of the theater lobby to see if Mikey was okay. I had to use the restroom and wanted to get the popcorn and nachos and Pepsi Zero I had been craving all week, then haul that into the movie I was already late to (it was Ballerina and it was really good). I guess Mikey saw me, so he hovered a few feet behind me while I was in line at the concession stand. I saw him from the corner of my left eye, turned to him and asked and said ‘hi Mikey,’ and asked what he wanted. In my head all I was thinking was, ‘Please be clear about what you want so I won’t be any later to this movie.’
He chose what he wanted, the attendant handed the hot dogs and root beer across the way, and I handed them to Mikey, letting him know he didn’t have to wait for me and that he could go watch whatever movie he was there to see. That was it.
That encounter was all I could think about from that moment until I confessed my sins this morning right before the 10 a.m. Holy Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Yigo. All I could think about was how ready I was to ignore Mikey, and how even when I ‘helped’ him, there was an indifference to my actions and my intent. Every few days I go to Confession and my sins always are the same, leading with gossip, followed by the ill thoughts I have of people here and there. Today was different. This morning I was weighed down by a much greater sin.
I didn’t see Christ in Mikey. And not just him. One of my biggest failures in life is that when I encounter people, I don’t see Christ in them.
Most of the time it’s just because I’m in a hurry. In this rat race of life, where oftentimes I’m simply rushing or on my way to do the work that will pay the bills, the people in front of me and around me – strangers, neighbors, friends, family – are more like colors in my world canvass than indelible marks on my soul. What more those who anger or hurt me, or people whom I judge by their misdeeds? In those moments when I am tested, I fail to see Christ in these people.
I have been so judgmental about those on the political far right for their views that spurn vulnerable populations I’ve failed to see that I’ve got a ways to go in being the good, empathetic citizen I want everyone else to be. And it isn’t enough that I do things out of a sense of obligation or even moral uprightness. I need to see Christ in every person I encounter, and treat you all, people of God, with the same gentle charity and joy I imagine I would if the Lord Himself asked me for my help.
We live in a country and an era of unmatched national wealth, yet we suffer the great poverty of love and soul. Imagine how many problems could go away if only we fed each others’ needs with mercy and compassion.
What I know is this. I’m too old to be blind to the face of Christ shining from the heart of every person I encounter every day. I didn’t make all those mistakes and suffer all those self inflicted wounds and struggles in my first four decades of life, to close my eyes and my heart in these days of ever-approaching judgment.
Thanks for reading my Sunday thoughts.
“I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned. In my thoughts and in my words; in what I have done, and what I have failed to do. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I ask the blessed Mary ever virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.” – The Penitential Act
