"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
David Sims and his family had gone to the park to watch their daughter play softball. At a picnic table, near the highway, David noticed a man in dirty clothes, his possessions stuffed into a shopping cart.
For a moment it appeared the man was about to walk toward them. David tried not to notice. To his relief, the man was only going to the drinking fountain.
As the man lingered at the fountain, watching the girls play ball, David studied him. How had he gotten this way? Did he have kids? What had forced him onto the street?
At the edge of the park, David’s young sons were playing kickball. David was too absorbed in the softball game to pay attention until, suddenly, he heard the nine-year-old scream at his three-year-old brother, "Erik, stop!"
David turned to see little Erik chasing the ball toward the highway. Cars whizzed by. David raced toward the road. But the man in the dirty clothes already had reached the boy, and snatched him to safety just seconds before one speeding car most certainly would have struck him.
Only a short while before, David had tried to pretend this man didn’t exist. Amazing, isn’t it, how quickly our view of another person can change? It’s not only in sports that someone can be transformed — instantly — from bum to hero.
