Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Just a slice of life - a picture of Hungary to remember

A quick story. The other day, maybe a week ago, Abbie and I were riding the subway back to our neighborhood from the nearby mall (she needed a new watch). As the doors closed, a young woman entered our subway car carrying an infant in her arms, and a small paper cup. She didn't look particularly poor, until you looked closely, which took me a minute to do. But as soon as the doors closed and the car began to move, she made eye contact with each of us near to her, referring to her cup, and asked (I assume, since I couldn't actually understand her) for money, or change, or maybe just help. Another women near to us, who looked like she was perhaps going home from work, and had a small travel bag with her, immediately looked into her wallet for change, and I noticed that when she discovered that she only had very small change, she then went for a bill, one worth perhaps six dollars American. And the young woman with the baby quickly moved away, up the passage in the middle of the subway car, asking for more from others as she walked. The second woman, still near us, then proceeded to rustle through her bag, retrieve a banana, leave the bag alone on a full subway car, and run after the first woman to hand her the banana. I remarked to Abbie that we had witnessed a holy moment - it is not often that we get to see in person someone with that kind of energy for giving to others - to run after someone in a moving subway car is not an easy thing to do in the first place, and to do it in order to give a little more to someone in need was something I won't soon forget. This is just one picture of Hungary that has impressed me so far. "Do not grow weary in doing good."

No comments:

Post a Comment