Nine-year-old Cheikh Faizal was walking with his father on the way to meet some family friends, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
They had just left a mosque, and were passing the Bukit Bintang train station, which has a large population of homeless.
Cheikh has not had a lot of experience with seeing homeless in their element.
They passed a mother with a child about the same age as Cheikh, who was being sheltered by an umbrella.
Cheikh went behind the umbrella to say hi….and realized the boy had no shoes on, and that his feet were badly cracked.
He then said to his father, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
And with no hesitation, he then sat down on the ground and took off his shoes and socks….and put them on the boy.
When his father asked him, “Are you giving him your shoes?”, he replied…..
….”Yes papa...they’re my best shoes.”
So simple.
So powerful.
Interspersed with kisses.
Later the two boys were found playing soccer together in a field across the street, one with bare feet.
What parenting!
Says his father, Sofian, “My son saw the young boy without shoes and made the decision himself that he wanted to help him. He showed his love for everyone there. He then went home without his shoes.
Hopefully everybody in the world will see this positive message and we can make life better for every human being. There are many homeless people but if everybody makes a small gesture of kindness we can improve their lives.”
I know what this perfectly natural act and expression of unity and love has done for me.
In recent years, i have done so little, in comparison to most of my life, to truly help the vast problem of the plight of our homeless brothers and sisters.
And that plight, i have found, can best be served by both individual acts of the heart, like displayed here....and a government that puts the priority of helping and healing first.
There was a time, my family wouldn’t walk down the Venice boardwalk with me, because i was constantly stopping to chat with a seemingly homeless person because of a mutual smile and hello.
It’s been awhile since i’ve been in the area to do so again, but though i have gotten jobs for more money…..i fear that I have lost the very things that made me rich.
This organic demonstration by Cheikh has hopefully fully recalibrated my inner compass.
I look forward to walking down that stretch of eye-candy once again with my family, and have them just as annoyed as they were before.
We all were born with Cheikh’s humanity and spirit within us.
It’s still within us.