In case you missed this radio story, or haven't read it elsewhere, here is a link to a great story. It is a story that, in part, illustrates just how cynical we have become as a wealthy society feeling so overburdened by widespread neediness and entitlements that we are often left feeling that, anymore, no one is deserving of charity. More and more we feel no one makes an effort to help themself. No one is really a victim of anything more than their own poor choices and lack of self-control and discipline.
In this story the reporter relates how an NYPD cop bought a pair of boots for a homeless man and how, subsequently, the man has been the subject of an media investigation as to just how deserving he was.
Poverty and homelessness are complex issues that few, if any, fully comprehend. The seeds are probably planted in childhood, fertilized by society at large, and harvested by pushers and johns. Poverty and homelessness can be the results of illness, the result of circumstances, bad luck, bad choices, but rarely occur by choice. It is a condition I find overwhelming to think about and, I'll admit, it's one where I've also encountered my own dose of cynicism.
But Scott Simon in his essay really comes to a proper conclusion: It's not about who, how, or why. It's the what: The shoeless man, the child ill-clothed for the cold, the family sleeping in a car. Sometimes it's important to remember that criticism and cynicism do little in the way of problem solving. Sometimes someone really does just need a pair of shoes.
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