So, something has really been bugging me for a while. I don’t have a claim to any faith. I’ve been exposed to a lot of them. I seem to embrace elements of several, and I find the most comfort in faith paths that teach us to love one another, to honor our spirits, and to understand our connection to every living thing in the wider universe. Like it or not, none of us is truly ever alone in our existence or our impact on things around us.
One of the elements of Christianity I particularly embrace is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Show mercy. Help your neighbor. Do what you can. I don’t have much love for the Old Testament. I don’t have a lot of use for self-espoused Christians who choose to ignore the most important values in their book.
When you give money to someone, it’s no longer yours. It’s not up to you what that person does with it. If you are uncomfortable with what someone might do with the money you give to them, that’s about you—not them.
Giving and trying to help someone in need should not be predicated on whether or not you believe that person is worthy or not, or if they are going to do something that—in your view—is misusing it.
Charitable giving was never addressed with me growing up. I know from time to time my step dad helped pitch in and buy bicycles for kids at Christmas a few times, but he didn’t ask for praise or talk about it a lot. Neither he nor my mom told me what I should do.
We all see people standing on street corners asking for handouts. We all see that some people roll down their windows and hand over a buck or few. In that transactional moment, a person decides that person on the street corner is a human being. All human beings are flawed and have failings. Some are con-artists and ne’er do wells. Some are suffering from mental illness or ended up asking for handouts because of some tough break in their lives. You may never know who’s a “good guy” and who’s a “bad guy” in this street corner begging scenario.
Giving something to someone happens because something in you feels a kindred sense of humanity, and because you know that life is unpredictable and at any given moment, you too could find yourself hoping someone will be moved to help you. Those feelings are about you. Your actions are about you.
This time last year, my husband lost his job. We were lucky. We were prepared for a rainy day. A lot of—most of—us aren’t able to prepare for a rainy day. We didn’t need help from strangers, but it was still worrisome and stressful. I can’t imagine what that worry and stress would have been if we hadn’t been prepared. We didn’t have to worry that if we needed help, someone might question whether or not we were worthy of that help, or that we would do the wrong thing with it.
I don’t typically give money to strangers—mostly because I hardly ever have any cash on hand, but also because I know for every kind person around me who thinks I did a decent thing, there will be twice as many who think I’ve been a fool. Every time I see these folks, I have that feeling gnaw at me—that kindred humanity and the sense that it isn’t my job to decide who that person is, it’s my job to decide who I am.
Children often have that naive innocence that tells them people who need your help are always worthy. My daughter has been in the car with me when we come upon these busy street corners, and she has asked me why someone is standing there. I tell her that they’re standing there because they need help. Her response: “We should give them some money, shouldn’t we?”
I don’t want to teach my daughter that helping other people might make her a fool. I don’t want to teach her that we should only help people if we know they “deserve” it or can be trusted to use it in the way we think they should.
Of course, I don’t want to teach her that it’s okay for people to con or take advantage of us either. But in that moment, when she sees someone needing help, I know I will be much more at peace knowing that her inner debate about whether to give someone money or help is about the feelings she has and not whether we should or shouldn’t help our fellow humans based on their worth. I will be happier knowing her decision is about who she is and not who that panhandler on the street corner is.
When we hand over a buck or few to a stranger, that money is gone, and we will likely never know how the person used it. The thing we will know is who we are and that the action of giving defines us, no matter what happens after that.
As far as that panhandler goes, it’s not my job to address whether they actually go to a car at the end of the day and drive home with a couple hundred bucks. It’s not my job to address whether they go out and buy meth with it later. That’s Karma’s job.
My job is to recognize that I sometimes let the judgment of others dictate how I respond to that feeling of kindred humanity when I see someone ask for help. And it’s my job to decide whether I teach my kid informed empathy, or bitter judgment. I also have to help her understand that someone is always sitting in judgment of our actions, and it’s only normal to be impacted by that. Sometimes, we’re going to allow our need to be accepted by others to keep us from doing what our hearts tell us.
We’re going to make mistakes with our fellow humans and we’re going to have to develop our own strategies for meeting all of those feelings about kindred humanity and the need for acceptance with our own truth—either in the moment, or as soon as we are able.
I always feel like it isn’t right for me not to help someone—not because of who they are, but because of who I am. It’s a feeling I can’t shake, and when I actively ignore it because I might be seen as a fool, that feeling morphs into something else. Shame. When I don’t accept my own feelings about what seems right, I feel so much guilt and shame that I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with the human I am consciously ignoring. That feeling isn’t about them. That is ALL me.
It’s okay to fail at being a good human. It’s okay to fail at empathy. There will always be another opportunity to help someone in some way. Whether it’s seeing someone begging at the corner of the Walmart parking lot and guiltily driving on by, then buying one of everything on the list of needed items for a local food pantry, or reading a stranger’s heartfelt plea on Facebook asking for programs she can access to give her two kids Christmas because her husband lost his job and deciding that I can spare a little bit of what I have so she can maintain some level of normal for her kids.
I have no idea if the man I passed up on the parking lot got help or not. Unless he’s a “regular,” I’ll never know. I don’t know if that woman from Facebook and her husband are responsible with their money or have trouble holding down jobs or not.
But I know who I am, and at the end of the day, it’s myself I live with. I may be a flawed human who doesn’t help every time I can. I also might be a fool when I do. But I’m only a fool in someone else’s eyes. In weighing the importance of being true to myself against the insignificance of someone else’s judging my empathy as foolishness, I think it’s way more important to be able to look myself in the eye.
