We have beggars here, too

The mornings are growing colder.  The beggar on the sidewalk is holding his coin cup with his hands pulled inside the cuffs of his sleeves.  Bettina and I see beggars often along this stretch, but this particular sight tears at my heart.  I have no small bills to offer him, and we pass awkwardly by.  Bettina asks me why beggars beg.  She already knows that money comes from people working, and I explain as best I can.  Something about the double cruelty of not being able to work and having no family or friends to turn to.  "Can we give him some food, Daddy?"  That's an excellent idea.  There's a grocery store right here.  Bettina will be late for kindergarten, but this is education, too.  We go in, and she helps me pick out some things—bananas and a bag of rolls—and we walk the half-kilometre back to where the man is crouched.  I speak to him and Bettina holds out the items to him.  He takes her hand and kisses it.  His smile is half toothless, but Bettina does not recoil.  She's too young to be afraid, too wise not to smile back.  Jesus was right; sometimes kids are wiser than the rest of us, we who have perhaps just seen too much, who have forgotten just how insulated, tepid and comfortable we really are, how afraid we are to go near anything less comfortable than ourselves.