I have been meditating on the parable of the Good Samaritan for about two months in relationship to the death of George Floyd, and then the poet, David Whyte in a recent online seminar talked about the Good Samaritan as meeting the stranger!  It got me to continue thinking about different aspects of the parable.  Wondering if I was the wounded person?  Well I’d written a poem about that.  Wondering if I was one of the people who walked by?  And why would I do that? What would I be afraid of?  Wondering if I was the Samaritan and did I walk by only to come back?  And what drew me back?

Wonder if I’m still the wounded person and I find myself looking at me? Do I know where those wounds come from?  Am I willing to help this wounded me or will I walk on as though I haven’t seen?

Yesterday (July 22) I was out for my walk and almost home.  A little girl ran up to me and told me her name, I told her mine.  Then she spelled her name for me.  She is 6 and had just turned 6.  She was riding a little scooter with pink wheels which I appreciated very much.  She couldn’t have a birthday party because of the virus….didn’t I know.  She is in kindergarten like my grandson and where does he live?  Very far away.  And her tooth so loose it is dangling, hanging by one thread and I think it will come out today and she is very excited, because it’s her first!  Well, I should go, I told her (because she is talking to a stranger and I worry about her openness).  Which way am I going?  Up the block and to the right.  So I’m going this way and then that?  Yes.  Ok, let’s go.  Wait, I say and ask, do your parents let you go around the block?  Yes, my dad says its ok.  So she rides the sidewalk and I walk the boulevard.  I notice the slope and am sure that it is fun to ride down and then hear that the other side of the block is better and she will show me.

I move onto the street and around a car, and there she is waiting for me, because she is faster with her wheels than I am with my feet.  I move around another and there she is again loving the game she is creating out of absences.  And when we reach the other side of the block, I stop and watch as she sails down the slope of the sidewalk to the alley.  She knows I have watched, and when she stops, she turns and waves and yells goodbye.

I met a stranger yesterday morning and so did she….but, which one am I?