ex(PR)essed

Sometimes I watch the “Today Show” in the morning while I’m getting ready for work. I like getting a head’s up about national stories and the weather before I even have time to glance at the front page of the local newspaper. Well, this morning I heard a story and saw a video that I will not soon forget.

There was recently an incident on a Philadelphia subway that was caught on video by security cameras that makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it. (You can see it for yourself here.) A man, riding the subway with his six-year-old son, boarded the subway. He is seen directing his son to the front of the subway car and then opening his backpack and removing a hammer. The man then grabs a guy who is sleeping in a seat near the doors of the subway, throws him to the ground, and begins repeatedly beating him with the hammer.

As if that’s not bad enough, here’s the part that makes me ill: The security cameras show multiple people get up from their seats and move away from the incident. NO ONE EVEN ATTEMPTED TO HELP OR TO INTERVENE. The beating (which was totally random, by the way) goes on for several minutes before the guy with the hammer and his son are shown exiting the subway. At that point, a woman finally calls for help.

The “Today Show” said that one person even put the victim’s cell phone back in his pocket after it fell out but never spoke to him or offered help.

I am feeling such an unsettling, powerful mixture of anger, disappointment, frustration, and fear. I can’t get the images out of my mind. I am in disbelief at the deplorable moral condition of society. And, if I’m perfectly honest, I think it’s because I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. At midnight, on a Philadelphia subway, would I have tried to help? I certainly couldn’t have strong-armed the man with the hammer. But, would I have called for help? Would I have screamed for someone else to get involved? Or, would I have looked away too?

I want desparetely to believe that I would have made an attempt to help the victim. But then I remember times when I have walked past a homeless person or a beggar without making eye contact. Times when I have turned my head from the problems of the world because I didn’t want my day to get messy or off schedule. Times when I didn’t even care to offer at least a prayer on someone’s behalf.

I take little comfort in the times when I have offered a beggar a few bucks, a granola bar, or a bottle of water because that wasn’t about being brave or compassionate. It was about feeling better about myself. And that’s a pretty egocentric way of looking at the problems of the world, if you ask me.

I suspect I will wrestle with the images of this subway beating and the total non-response of the other passengers for awhile. And, I hope God uses it to continue to draw the ugliness of my humanity out of me, so that I might be filled with even a few drops of the mercy, grace, and justice that comes with loving Him and caring about His work and His people.