It's been a week, but I still remember how he looked and how he smelled as we walked by him on Broughton St. with barely a glance. It's hard to know what to do or say when encountering the homeless. The "easiest" thing to do is just to walk right by without making eye contact. And that's what we did. We were a group on our own mission, not expecting to see a dirty, isolated human in situ against a building. But seven days later, I still remember him. Not that he was the first homeless person I had ever seen, of course not. However, his empty eyes and the dark sadness surrounding him still haunt me. Once again, I am faced with the question of how I live my life when I see a person in such obvious need. I know the things people say--I don't give money because they might spend it on alcohol; I can't help every homeless person I see; What if he/she is a professional pan handler and I am being "taken"; There are soup kitchens in this city; People cause their own problems; etc. Nevertheless, the one question that keeps cycling in my brain is, and I don't mean to be trite with WWJD, but what would Jesus do? I can't quite see Jesus walking by that man whose image is branded in my memory without at least smiling and extending some version of human connection. I find myself wishing I could walk by him again for a do-over. The nagging query, though, is whether I would do anything different. I would like to think that I would, that I would stop and look him in the eye, smile at him, and ask him if he had eaten dinner. Why is that so scary? Maybe I am afraid that if I reach out to one person in those circumstances, I must reach out to everyone who I encounter in the same predicament. I don't know, but I do know that I want my responses to be be purified by the love of Jesus so that my first response is to connect, to acknowledge a common human existence, to see someone who is often invisible.