More guilty or less guilty.

She's a beggar. Withered and old. Sprawled on the cobblestone walkway leading to the Vatican in Rome. She has a misshaped leg. And a tin cup. Asking for alms. So she can last another day. That's the most memorable and vivid picture riveted in my mind on my visit to the Vatican and St. Peter's Square last Sunday. Yes, that beggar. Even more so than the elegantly robed pope giving a benediction from the balcony of his lavish residence. I thought about the contrast. Between the rich and the poor. The squalor just outside the church. The pope living in grandiose and crowd-adoring style. Only a few hundred yards from a miserable beggar. That's the world in which we live. I don't particularly like it. But that's the way it is. And I hurry past the beggar. In an attempt to wipe the image from my mind. But I can't. The beggars will always be with us. And what's even worse, I feel helpless. Unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Except maybe write about it. Reflect. Lament. Which is a rather cheap way of salving my conscience. Acting like a pope. I wonder if that'll make me feel more guilty or less guilty. --Jim Broede