Dignity

I often wonder if the dignity of man is based up that which we give or neglect to give to a person. When doing rotations for mental health as a nursing student a couple of years ago I remember sitting back, looking upon the clients we interacted with and wondering what if. What if these people had been loved from birth the way they were designed to be loved? What if abuse and neglect had never been a part of their lives? What if society could see people the way God sees them? What if we truly lived out the 2nd commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? What if people lived with more dignity? Would this world be different?

I was reading an exerpt from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and was challenged to ponder the ability that we as humans have to create or project an image upon someone else. The exerpt reads:
I was on my way over Mount Hood to spend some time in the high desert with a few friends. I was driving alone and decided to stop in at Safeway to pick up some provisions for the weekend. While standing in line at the checkout counter, the lady in front of me pulled out food stamps to pay for her groceries. I had never seen food stamps before. They were more colorful than I imagined and looked more like money than stamps. It was obvious as she unfolded the currency that she, I, and the checkout girl were quite uncomfortable with the interaction. I wished there was something I could do. I wished I could pay for her groceries myself, but to do so would have been to cause a greater scene. The checkout girl quickly performed her job, signing and verifying a few documents, then filed the lady through the line. The woman never lifted her head as she organized her bags of groceries and set them into her cart. She walked away from the checkout stand in the sort of stiff movement a person uses when they know they are being watched.
On the drive over the mountain that afternoon, I realized that it was not the woman who should be pitied, it was me. Somehow I had come to believe that because a person is in need they are candidates for sympathy, not just charity. It was not that I wanted to buy her groceries, the goverment was already doing that. I wanted to buy her dignity. And yet, by judging her, I was the one taking her dignity away.