"There but for the grace of God, go I."

I have started paying attention once again to the faces around me, and the faces in crowds. I have always been drawn to the desperate and down trodden - the people who have stories to tell. You can see their stories in their faces.

If God is in all of us, the face of god must be in all of us too. For me, it is easier to see the face of God in a face of pain. You will not find the face of God in a woman's fashion magazine or GQ. A face of pain is of a life lived. Not an easy life, but a truly lived life, a life that has been paid for. I have friends who have been through so much, my heart aches for them. I see the face of God in them that they do not see when they look in the mirror.

Anytime someone paints a picture of an angel it is something of beauty, or what we call beauty. If there are angels walking among us, what would they look like? Would they be the homecoming queen or the captain of the football team? Or would they more likely be hidden among the dregs of society? What if they watch us from behind the eyes of a crack whore or junkie? What would be more likely? Mother Teresa spent her life in the slums of Calcutta. Gandhi spent a many years in prison. Buddha left his life of privilege and lived as an ascetic. Jesus went among the lepers. Over and over again we are shown where angels are, yet we look away, cross the street, hold our noses. Angels, it seems, smell bad. They wear unclean clothes, they do not bath often, they sleep in cardboard boxes over the steam vents in our cities. When we see someone who has nothing, someone who is suffering, the words "There but for the grace of God, go I," spill thoughtlessly from our mouths. Really? Doesn't that mean a person suffering does not have the grace of God upon them? Is that the way it works? God places his grace on some, but not others? That doesn't seem like the action of an all-loving God. Unless, of course, those who appear not to have the grace of God serve a purpose our self-centered minds do not grasp. Are they living a life of torment to give us the opportunity to be saints? How many of us take even five minutes out of our week to be a saint to someone?

Many of the saints I have met in my life were atheists. They didn't wait for supernatural intervention to reach out their hand to someone. They believed it was up to them, it is up to all of us to make a difference. They act without the belief of a reward in an afterlife. If there is a great banquet in the world beyond, who will be asked to be seated at the table of most honor? Those who did nothing, those who acted thinking they would be rewarded, or those who acted without a single thought of reward?

When you leave this life, and it will be sooner than you think, what if it is not your family and loved ones who are there to great you? What if it is everyone you were kind to, and everyone you just walked by? What if it is all the people that were killed in wars you so gleefully cheered on? What if it is all of "those people" you did your best not to see?

If you were God, how would you sort the wheat from the chaff?