The distress of others is not uncommonly overlooked. The matter was especially poignant for me today as I returned from a contrastingly buoyant meeting in Arnprior earlier this morning. Tricycling nonchalantly about the neighbourhood, admiring the lovely gardens and exhibition of general exuberance and grandeur, my smugness dissolved upon seeing a poorly clad middle-aged woman struggling up the hill from the river with what appeared to be a plastic bag loaded with empty bottles.  Upon subsequent consideration and reflection, I have deduced that she may have been rummaging through the waste bin along the river.

As I tricycled by the woman, going downhill at a substantial (though not reckless) rate, I hadn’t time or purpose to linger upon her visage, but her irresolute nod to me in response to my cheery “Hello!” as I flew by her on the sidewalk was evidence of difficulty. I wondered how and why she ended in the neighbourhood. It is a curiosity one normally hasn’t to pursue in similar circumstances. I was reminded of the ineffable words of a Rastafarian gentleman who had made his way into the enclave where Rolf Grant lived in Kingston, Jamaica.  As Mr. Grant tended exotic plants in his garden, the gentleman from the street uttered, “Ke’er it good, boss, for soon it will be mine!” I say this as a token attempt to abbreviate the differences between people, a reminder of life’s limitations and eternity.

Naturally these supernatural equivocations are not the answer to very real need and deprivation. My immediate reaction was to ask myself how much cash I was carrying.  But then I recalled that I had lately given all my cash to my partner because I haven’t any longer the need for it (he does all the shopping, my immobility prohibits retail generally and anyway I pay for gas, haircuts or whatever with my Wallet App on my iPhone).  Only as recently as this morning I had been obliged to decline an invitation to profit by “points” when paying with a credit card (which I also no longer carry) after being told that the retailer hasn’t the device required for payment by the Wallet App. Ironically these technological advancements have unwittingly obstructed what I had intended to be a modest demonstration of magnanimity.

By this time I had made it to the bottom of the hill where I paused to overlook the pleasing upriver view (the proximal resource which I now realize has different capital for others). I continued to ponder how I might be of some assistance to the woman; whether there was some agency I might call upon to help her (having already abandoned an elaborate hope of organizing a “Go Fund Me” style campaign).

Then as I re-entered the previous levity of my surroundings the momentary mournful state disintegrated and evaporated from about me. Once again though I was reminded of memorable words, this time reputedly of Jesus Christ to the effect that we shall always have the poor among us. My absorption in this instance was not the conflict of selling the valuable ointment for the poor or the merit of putting the ointment on Jesus (whose death was imminent).  It was simply a reminder that,

 “The poor you will always have with you” (Mk 14:7). Jesus spoke these words at a meal in Bethany, in the home of a certain Simon, known as the leper, a few days before Passover. As the Evangelist recounts, a woman came in with an alabaster flask full of precious ointment and poured it over Jesus’ head.

It is small reward for the coherence of one’s rationality and behaviour that even Jesus Christ was convinced thousands of years ago of the ineluctability of poverty. Nonetheless it is helpful to reconsider the plight of others. Reawakening one’s mind to these so-called blips of society is of no small consequence to those suffering a peril. Nor likewise is it petty profit to others to rekindle gratitude for what one is lucky enough to have.