Looking "at" not "through" poverty

As we approach this upcoming holiday season, I encourage everyone to think about the importance of sharing their time, talent and treasure with the less fortunate among us in our country of plenty.

Often during this time of year, I reflect back to the summer of 2003 when my wife, Diane, and I were traveling back home from a conference in Clearwater Beach. The conference was informative but the life changing event that took place, reshaping my view about poverty forever, happened at one of the interstate exits between Tampa and Ocala.

Diane and I exited the interstate to take a coffee break and encountered a gentleman in tattered clothes standing at the exit. This disheveled individual was probably in his late sixties. He was holding a sign that read: "On the road and hungry. I need help. God bless you."

Many of you are probably asking, “What made this person's plight more significant than other's we had encountered on Florida's highways on our trip?” The honest answer is I don't really know.

However, as Diane and I sat nervously waiting for the light to change, which seemed like an eternity, we kept gazing into this man's piercing, yet sparkling eyes, which seemed filled with pain. I still see a vivid picture of this man's darkly tanned and weather beaten skin indicating he had probably been on the streets for a long period of time.

Diane quickly handed me a twenty dollar bill and told me to give it to the man. As we drove off, the man said in a clear but trembling voice: God bless you.

To my shame, instead of marveling at Diane's kind gesture, I immediately started looking "through" and not "at" the cruelness of poverty. I wondered why this man let himself get into this situation and just knew this street person would spend Diane's gift on alcohol, drugs, cigarettes or on some other vice.

Yes, like many Americans, I focused on poverty in a negative and judgmental way and not on my wife's kindness in making a difference in this man's life, even if only for a brief moment in time. I got teary-eyed and felt tremendously ashamed in assuming the worst about the manner in which this man would spend Diane's precious gift of unconditional caring for her fellow man.

Diane's act of kindness changed my life forever. I rededicated my life that very day to looking "at" the causes of poverty and promised myself to make a difference whenever I could in the lives of the disenfranchised people among us. I pray that all of you will join me this Christmas season by sharing your time, talent and treasure with those beautiful human beings who live in the condition of poverty for whatever reason.

As you love and embrace your family and friends this Christmas season, please do not forget the poor among us. At the very least, keep them in your thoughts and prayers and join me in remembering to look "at" and not "through" the blight of poverty from this time forward.

Just maybe, by working together in fighting the causes of poverty, we may be able to change America one individual, family, neighborhood, and community at a time. Merry Christmas!

Robert W. Wilford

Alachua City Commissioner