What are the differences among the beggars I’ve met in my life? In uptown Manhattan near one of the music conservatories, I often passed a young man who played his violin on the sidewalk, his open instrument case usually stuffed with cash. His feigned artistic idealism appealed to the yuppie crowds, who blindly financed his chauffeured limousine. On the other hand, what of the young, filthy woman with an outstretched hand I passed in Milan, Italy, sheltering an obviously sick child in a rancid quilt, the two of them huddled tightly together against the cold? I remembered at the time the advice of a relative living in Mexico City, who warned me of beggars with rented children, preying on the pity of rich American tourists. If a person was truly in need, how was I to know?
In the summer of 1987 a young boy there asked me for money in a subway station, and I ineptly shook my head and glanced away. At first I blamed my poor Neapolitan dialect for not understanding him (except for his open hand), but when others also looked puzzled, I realized that he too was foreign. I watched him go as he walked the length of the station.
It was always the same. He took a few slow steps, bent his right arm at the elbow, and rested it on his bony hip, his left hand behind his back reaching through to grab his upper-right arm. His right hand was cupped near to his body and almost closed, weakly drifting back and forth. He shifted all his thin weight to his left leg, turned his other foot to its outside edge, and bent his back in a slow arch. He never looked those he confronted in the face; his gaze went past you, about chin height. He repeated the same incomprehensible words over and over, and after each rejection he scuffed his feet, shuffled a bit sideways, and moved on, first to this group, and then that—a businessman, a mother, some imitation punk rockers, a factory worker, a man in uniform. He went to each person in the crowded station, a captive audience for his pitiful performance, and no one gave him anything. A few laughed. The teenagers mocked him. Most just ignored him.
As I watched the scene unfold, I thought, "He’s about the same age as my own 11-year-old son, about the same height, same hair color, same complexion, same awkward, uncomfortable posture that all 11-year-old boys have." Then suddenly, as I stood in that crowded Neapolitan mélange of humanity, I saw my son in his face as he stumbled into the press around me. I panicked and wanted desperately to go after him. But my train arrived, and I got on, maneuvering myself next to the window to search for him. I saw him standing there, alone in the deserted station, and then he was gone.
The face of that young boy in a subway station will be one of those images that will never leave me. Like the face of my young brother, years ago, as I led him into a hospital room to say goodbye to our father, or the face of my firstborn child, the face of that young beggar was the face of need. I’ve thought a good deal about beggars since then. The young boy had no money, and I had no will to help him. Which of us was the beggar? "For behold, are we not all beggars?" was the question posed by King Benjamin (Mosiah 4:19).
When blind Bartimaeus, at the roadside, heard it was the Christ passing by, he could not be silenced,
but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.
And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? [Mark 10:48–51]
Throughout my life I’ve wondered when I would next see that boy’s face—the face of need—and, even more, what I would do when he approached me once again. What will he ask of me this time, and what will I offer? I’ve often thought of how Christ responded to Bartimaeus: "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" For each time I see that boy’s face now, I think, "What can I do?" and these days he, like Bartimaeus, almost never asks for money.
For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy. [Mosiah 4:19–20]
Who, then, was that blind beggar Christ met on the road but each of us, blind and begging in our own ways, crippled by emotions, pride, tragedy, a fainting heart, doubt, or sin. At times we seem surrounded by darkness. It can be so difficult to see the tree, the path, and the iron rod. As Nephi warned us, "The mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost" (1 Ne. 12:17). There to one side you might come across a young girl without hope or a young man confused by the iridescent reality of a hectic modern world. There are people all around us, in our classes in school, in our workplaces, in our homes and families, who cry, like Bartimaeus, "Have mercy on me." And we, in turn, reflect on the Savior’s answer to Bartimaeus:
What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way. [Mark 10:51–52]
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