Member-only story
My Need for a Good Samaritan
How being able to identify with someone else’s brokenness transforms contempt into compassion.
Skid Row
My eldest recently moved from the quiet and safety of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee to downtown Chattanooga. After a recent visit to see her new digs, Kristy and I took a back road as a short cut to a restaurant where we were going to meet my daughter and a friend for dinner.
It was an eye-opening experience, as just one block from her townhouse was the city’s free soup kitchen and next door — the community homeless shelter. A small crowd of men and women wearing tattered, unmatching clothes gathered by the entrance of the kitchen while several dozen others were lined up and down the street sleeping on broken-down cardboard boxes.
As we drove by, I tried not to stare.
My first emotion was fear — fear that my daughter lived so close to Chattanooga’s skid row.
My next emotion was deep sadness. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be homeless.
It dawned on me that the broken-down people lying on broken-down boxes didn’t want to be homeless. They would much rather sleep in a soft bed than a stiff box.
