Anxiety levels and doing the Good Samaritan thing!

So the Priest and the Levite passed by on the other side. And ever since we have assumed those two patron saints of the Don't Get Personally Involved Society, represent the way people other than oursleves might react to a man lying hurt on the road. The Good Samaritan, however, is the one we imagine ourselves to be, faced with a similar incident.

Yesterday on the way to church I came to the junction with Glasgow Road and as I checked the traffic to my right, 20 metres away, lying in the middle of the road, holding a bunch of pink balloons, was a young black man. Cars were passing by on the outside lane; that piece of road is on a hill and at a bend, and is where speed limits are routinely ignored. I didn't know if he had been hit, or was ill, or drunk or what – but what was obvious was his life was in serious danger. None of the cars were for stopping; several walkers on the other side of the road looked curiously but kept walking.

I left the car, ran towards him, waving to traffic to stop or slow down, and when I reached him he was lying looking vacantly at the sky, till I spoke. He focused his eyes, and it became clear he was returning from a party and had decided he needed to sleep. I pulled him up, he stumbled to the pavement, asked where he was, said he needed to get to Glasgow. Refused a lift, made it clear he didn't want company, was clearly disoriented but determined to go, and so he made his uncertain way back along Glasgow Road. I watched for a while till he was safely out of sight, and then went to church.

I still wonder if he made it. If I should have called the police. If it was drink or drugs that had rendered him not only helpless, but life threateningly careless. I sat in church wondering, and worrying. Which raises the interesting question about that Good Samaritan parable. If you have compassion, if you care, if you get involved, it isn't just the use of your donkey and the settling of someone else's expenses; the care itself has some cost attached to it. Worry for the other, even if that other is someone you've never seen before and might never see again, is the inbuilt cost of compassion.I have the uncomfortable feeling I should have done more but don't know what. Now if I'd taken my normal route and gone down our street instead of up the street – I'd never have seen him and saved myself unnecessary worry. Hmmmmm – not sure about that. Hope he's OK though.