Random

I went to see 300 with my wife today. It was beautiful, heartening, exciting, and tragic. Yet, at the end of the day it is not this spectacular movie that truly sticks out in my mind.

It is what happened after the movie.

While walking out I noticed someone abandon a video game he was playing. I took over as he walked out of the building. My wife was tolerant of my indulgence as I played. It was not long before a young man stepped out of the bathroom nearby and approached me. From his facial features and body I rightly guessed him to have Down Syndrome.

He tapped on my hand and sort of moaned at me. I thought maybe he wanted to play the game, so I offered it to him. Instead of taking over the game he tapped my hand again, moaned, and picked up the corner of his coat and showed it to me. Not understanding him I offered him the game again and told I did not understand him.

He repeated his sounds and gestures again. I held my hands up helplessly, unable to understand the sounds he was making.

I am still unsure what he wanted from me, but after thinking it over for several minutes after he walked away I came to the conclusion that he probably just wanted help zipping up his coat. I am saddened that I did not figure even this simple solution out before he gave up to seek help from someone else.

My heart aches for the plight of this young man. Unable to communicate effectively with the majority of us, reduced to vague sounds and gestures to communicate his every need. And equally so I ache for him because people like me are unable to truly understand him and meet his simple needs.

I finished my game, and as I turned to leave I realized what he may have been trying to tell me. Instead of simply leaving I went in the direction he did when he left me to see if he was still around and in need of help. I did not see him, and it is my hope that someone understood him and took care of his needs. I left then to go about my business, and still his face haunts me. That simple, innocent face of a young man in need but unable to tell me how to help him, and of my own inability understand him and help him.

There are those who consider such people to be unworthy of our help. These pitiless, dark souls have no place in a compassionate society such ours. They would see people disabled in this way tucked away, killed before birth, or simply abandoned. These, the least of us all deserve better than that. They deserve our compassion, our mercy, and our help however and whenever we can give it.

I do not think highly of social welfare programs for the able. I think that if you are able to work you should work, and if you will not work you should be allowed to wallow in poverty and hunger until you choose to work. It serves no one to allow the able to be lazy leeches on our compassion. However, people like this young man deserve all of the help we can give them. They are the unable, the ones social welfare should protect from cold, hunger, and nakedness. They are the ones the rest of us should spend time with from time to time to show them that they are not outcasts, but welcome members of our society and our families.

I say all of this not merely as an American. Belonging to a nation does not automatically create a compassionate heart in a man. I say it first and foremost as a Christian. One whose heart was turned this way by God Himself, and not by anything I learned in school, books, or television. One time long ago I was one of those who I now speak of with disdain. I was one who had no mercy in his heart for the least of us. It was the mercy of Jesus that changed my heart and gave me the compassion that drives me to write this tonight.

In the eyes of God the least of us are the most precious among us. It is they who keep an innocence the rest of lose at every earlier ages. These are the ones who remain blameless before the Lord simply because they cannot know any better. It is the rest of us who have filth souls that deserve the damnation of Hell and have no hope without Jesus.

These innocents are blessed in a way most of cannot appreciate. They are our very best because they show us what innocence is like. They show us what it is like to live with purity of purpose even when we err. They show us how to be happy with the simple things in life, and they openly express feelings most of us hide for the sake of appearances.

The least in this world shall be the greatest in the next. Any man who misguides an innocent is deserving of some of the greatest judgments of God Himself. Yes, these people deserve out mercy. Yes, one day they will be greater than most of us in Heaven. This is right. But for now, guard them, help them, and treasure them for what they are now.