The Homeless Man

Earlier today, when I left the house where I am living to go to Dollar General, I discovered that a man was sleeping on the front porch. As I passed by, he woke up good-naturedly.

I said, "Are you okay?"

He nodded yes, and said something I didn't quite hear. His voice was gentle and sweet.

When I came back, I went in the back way and told Paul that there was someone sleeping on the porch. Paul went out, and, in a few minutes, came back in with the man. The homeless man's posture was straight. Paul invited the man to sit down in the living-room, introduced him to me (yet I cannot remember the man's name) and said: "We're going out to get something to eat. I'm just going to change, and then after we eat, I'll drive to the shelter in Ottumwa." Ottumwa is 30 miles away.

While Paul changed, I got the man some juice. To everything I said, he said: "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am." So polite, so sweet, the way cowhands in movies talk to the lady of the house.

Here was this man with no one and nothing, and, suddenly, he had transformed me into Lady Bountiful. Here I was,  just so wonderful, inflated with my goodness, a veritable Goody Two Shoes. And here was this humble man.

Which of us was the giver, and which was the receiver?

Which of us was possessed with ego, and which of us had none?