Daily Guideposts 2016: 14-Day Reading PlanSample

Millie and I detect Maurice one hundred feet down the block. Millie’s nose rises in the air. I wish I could cover mine. Pretty soon she is dragging me over to her friend’s doorway, where he is liquidly slouched.

“Millie!” he cries, arms out, speech garbled, eyes red slits.

Maurice is a wino, not homeless. He is particular about that. Maurice could never manage a home. He says the high point of his day is when he sees “Queen Millie.” Then in a wheezy aside he says, “I tell that to all the girls.”

By now Millie is trying to bull her way onto his lap. With the toe of my shoe, I inch his paper bag with a fresh pint of Mad Dog 20-20 out of harm’s way. We see the homeless, and it’s painful to imagine how to help them. We give up because we think they’ve given up.

Maurice and I are clear on one thing: I don’t give him money. We both know what he’ll do with it. I know what I did with it back when I was Maurice and begging change on the streets of New York City. Once I bought him a pack of cigarettes. He said he was dying for a smoke, and I thought, He’s dying anyway. I gave him a sandwich when he looked especially gaunt. He put it by his bag and said, “Maybe I’ll get to it later.” I gave him an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting book and he tossed it back to me.

It was Millie who struck up the friendship with Maurice. She looks for him during his periodical absences and is overjoyed when he returns, sporting one of those plastic hospital ID bands. Maurice has had lots of those, all different colors—his stripes.

Eventually Millie and I head toward the dog park, she glancing back at her friend. Friend. To her that’s what he is. She rejoices in his humanity. Have I lost sight of Maurice’s humanity? There but for the grace of God go I. Surely I know that. Yet, perhaps, for the grace of God there I should go.

Pour forth Your mercy, Lord, on Maurice, as You did for me. Let me help be the messenger, like Millie, and go there.

—Edward Grinnan

Digging Deeper: Hebrews 2:14–18