TIS THE SEASON FOR GIVING

I know the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holiday season is over. Maybe this should have been written for the November/December issue of Loaves and Fishes, and maybe not.

Back in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s the Salvation Army bell ringers bothered me. During those decades, if possible, I’d enter a store from a door different from the one where they were stationed. Sometimes I’d end up feeling guilty and give them some spare change while exiting with my purchases.

Later in the last century it became clear the best thing to do was on the way in give them paper money. Like most Americans I had plenty of optional type money. You know, the type that buys wants instead of needs. It surely felt better giving my first fruits instead of the leftovers.

Since the walk started back in 2002, even though I am a homeless drifter, putting paper money in the kettle on the way in is still the policy. I wonder why the bell ringers only ring the bell in between Thanksgiving and Christmas? I wonder why we think the Holiday Season is the TIME to give?

It’s been interesting being on the other side, that is the needy looking side. I am needy, but not in the way most people think. The huge majority of human beings interact with me by looking the other way or by striking out with negative behavior of some type. The tiniest minority reaches out to me in some positive way. If we only knew how much power we have to lift others up, or push them down. If only we knew...maybe we would act differently around others, and maybe not.

Late November 2002, in Idaho, I was walking across a huge parking lot to a grocery store. Stationed at the only way in or out was a bell ringer of the technically advanced type, he had his job down to a science. A dummy like me would ring the bell all the time, switching arms when needed, and later on in life wonder why my shoulders, elbows, and wrists were useless. This man only rang the bell when someone was approaching or leaving the store.

As I approached and then went past him he never rang the bell for me. It was like I was stealth or something. After buying groceries I was packing them in my backpack near the door and again noticed the bell ringer conserved his muscle power by sporadic timely movement of his arms and wrists.

My wallet has its place in my pack just like everything else does. The only time it’s not in there is during a spending spree or police harassment. I kept a dollar bill in my pocket to give the man on the way out and put my wallet away. On the way in my smallest bill was a ten, which at 11 cents per hour wages was more than I could afford to give.

While exiting the store with the dollar donation he again did not ring the bell for me. I walked on past, took my pack off next to him, removed my wallet from it, pulled out a five, and put it in the kettle. Then it was time to put my backpack on again and hit the road. What’d he think I looked too poor to be a giver?

Two years later while walking Texas during the “giving season” the bell ringers were doing something I‘d never seen them do before. Like the persons who hawk newspapers, wash car windows, or the Masons who hang out on street corners drumming up donations, here was the Salvation Army collecting money at a busy US highway and Interstate intersection. Surveying the scene I took my pack off in order to get a dollar out.

The pack was back on my back as I approached one of the men. He was busy working over the motoring public as I waved my dollar from a distance. Finally he saw me and starting running the other way. The faster I approached him the faster he moved away. I mean what would you do if scruffy old man with a huge backpack came after you waving his arms with something stuck to his fingers? Is this a robbery about to happen? Eventually, he figured it out and stopped.

As I pressed the bill through the opening in his kettle he said, “don’t you need this money more than we do?” As you might imagine this led to a thirty minute conversation, in amongst all the traffic, between two Christian men. After a while he agreed maybe he shouldn’t be judging people by the way they look, but “those Lexus and BMW drivers and well to do people...”. I told him I have a hard time with people who appear to have so much, but it’s the same thing if we judge Lexus owners or scruffy old men. Things might not be the way we think they are.

Jesus Christ is very clear at the beginning of the seventh chapter of Matthew in the Bible. We will be judged in the same way as we dish it out. This is scary fact for this recovering judgeaholic.

I wish I could find in the Bible were Jesus says do this in remembrance of me; “Celebrate my supposed birthday (December 25th) and over time have it morph into this orgy of gifts, gifts, and more gifts in my name. After that, spend the rest of the next year sorting out your debt until the next giving season starts and then make it an even bigger orgy.”

What Jesus says is don’t put the material world first in your life (which is truly in first place for most of us) and reach out to the needy (which are all of us in one way or another). Most of us don’t want to face up to this, as the orgies would have to stop.

Have you hugged a needy person lately, invited them into your home, fed them, clothed them, and loved them? I hope so. That person might be driving a Lexus, we never know. I know it’s uncomfortable reaching out to others that appear to be different than ourselves. My dumb old opinion is there is very little difference between any of us.

The “giving season” started long ago and is never ending. Last summer in Illinois a woman started chit chatting with me at a small town post office. This kinda behavior is not something that happens very often in my life these days. To make a long story short, she was employed by the Salvation Army, and asked what she could do for me. I gave her my grocery list and she went to the store and spent her money on me to fill my belly. From our conversation it was obvious she got it, that it’s always TIS THE SEASON FOR GIVING.

Till the next time...

In Christ’s Love,

Don