Live Simply

When I went out of the house to go to school this afternoon it suddenly rained hard. Since I didn’t have an umbrella with me I used my knapsack to cover my head. But my knapsack wasn’t big enough so I got drenched in the rain. I ran to find the nearest cover. I tried hard to keep my back from getting wet but the wind was relatively strong and it came from many directions. My jeans and my rubber shoes got mud-spattered too. I won’t be surprised if I’ll have coughs and colds in the next few days.

Thankfully I was able to take shelter in a bus stop. I shared the canopy with three beggars: a middle-aged woman, a boy and a girl. They were there ahead of me and they were talking very animatedly with each other. I smiled at them and they smiled back. They looked relatively radiant despite their grubby clothes and unpleasant smell. I could tell they were family. They did not look nor speak Italian. They carried with them a small placard with a message written in Italian. I didn’t completely get the message but it somehow said that they were hungry and they needed money for food. Had it not rained I supposed that they would be in the streets brandishing their placards to motorists and pedestrians alike.

It was such a heart-rending moment for me. There I was under a small canopy being sheltered from the rain with three vagabonds beside me. God must be telling me something. The boy and the girl were both more or less ten years old. I consider education not only as very vital but also as very necessary. I was sure these two broods were out of school. I did not even want to imagine their future. How could children with no education have a bright future in a very competitive, degree conscious city like Rome? I wished there was something more I could do for them than just give them loose coins. I wished governments would make more classrooms than battle stations, more encyclopedias than missiles, more textbooks than war tanks, more crayons than bullets, and enlist more teachers than soldiers.

I have read somewhere that there are “professional beggars” in Italy. And that these characters have plied their trade since ancient times. The early Roman chroniclers record their plight not because they were important to Roman history but because they were such a common sight to be ignored. I have recently browsed over these records in a history book. According to the book there were places here that are known for their professional beggars. Famous among all was the Clivus Aricinus, a steep gradient of the Appian Way, just outside the gates of Aricia, fifteen miles from Rome.

On this ill-famed slope swarms of filthy professional beggars used to take up their station, to tax the benevolence of travelers with their importunities. They actually followed riders and drivers up the hill, harassing them with their vociferations, until the victims, to rescue themselves from such a persecution, would throw a handful of coins among the dirty crew, which ransom would make them stop and fight one another, and leave the traveler alone. On these occasions wonders could be seen, — the blind recovering eyesight, the crippled and paralytic recovering the use of their limbs, and the like, — scenes and incidents which the traveler in modern Rome can still reportedly witness.

I myself have seen many suspicious vagrants in many corners of the tourist-congested city center. Some of them look pathetic alright but there are those who look as healthy and as good-looking as Antonio Banderas. I’m not joking. On my home one afternoon I passed by this man who sat in a doorway of a shop passively holding his begging bowl to passersby. He was quite well-dressed, looked clean with well-groomed hair. Remove his begging bowl and you would never suspect that this is how he makes a living. .

I could not tell whether my three companions under the bus stop canopy this afternoon were among these “professional beggars”. But whatever kind of tramps they were, one thing was certain: they were in need. If not of regular earnings and security, they were in need of love and understanding and sympathy. Thus the rain had proven once again that it brings only music and positive things for me. For it was the rain that brought me near these sisters and brother in need. And not only that, it was also the rain that allowed God to talk to me through them. .

I came to realize now that this afternoon I was not only given the opportunity to share with the three of them one canopy from the rain but that I was also allowed to experience for myself how much God loves and cares for each of us. Because, after all, we are all beggars before God. We are all at his mercy. Just as street beggars cannot demand from passersby, we cannot demand from God. We cannot even choose what he’ll give us. We can only ask… expectantly, earnestly, humbly. Being a good father, God may not give us everything we want but he will surely give everything we need.

An author once said that the richest person in the world is the person who needs the least. It’s like saying: the more simple you are the more fulfilled you will become. Just consider the three vagrants who shared a shelter with me yesterday. They were poor, yes, yet their poverty did not dampen their spirit. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company. I had the feeling that that’s what all that mattered to them: to be happy together no matter what. Well, if we come to think of it no one can ever really say who is the more fulfilled person. Is it the beggar who scours the street for some coins and after a day of toil come home to a loving family? Or is it the multinational CEO who sits in his office all day while earning millions of dollars and come home to an empty mansion?

Live simply.

Maybe this was what God wanted to tell me today.