Lessons From the Journey: Charity Vs. Dignity

         This morning I found myself thinking about my time on Iona and in particular my encounter with the young man studying to be a Jesuit priest whom we had met on the bus around Mull.  There are only two places to eat dinner on Iona, so inevitably you encounter people that you've met before.  One night when David and I were at one of the two places, the student was there having dinner with one of the employees of the Abby.  It was fairly early and as a result, the four of us were the only ones in the room.  While David and I tried to focus on our own conversation, the conversation of the student and the employee became pretty heated at one point and was hard not to hear.

    It seems the young man was upset because the policy at the Iona Abby is that you can stay there, but it is in exchange for work.  He was upset because he felt that charity should be the value, and he should be allowed to stay without working. Again, we weren't trying to listen in, so much of the conversation we did not hear as we talked with one another as well, but that was the part I was able to gather, and it has caused me to reflect on the values of charity vs the importance of working for what you need.

    I think there is room for both, in different situations. But let me start by saying that there is great value in working for what you are given.  When I was a college student, I volunteered with several groups working to help the unhoused population in the Berkeley area.  One of those was the soup kitchen.  This particular soup kitchen "charged" those who came to eat a quarter per meal.  If the person did not have a quarter, they were invited to help out in the kitchen or with serving the food.  This was the policy of the soup kitchen because they found it gave some dignity back to those they fed. Those who came to eat felt they had paid for their meal, they had contributed.  They were not "charity cases" who could not help themselves, but were people who, like the rest of us, paid for what they were given.  Of course a quarter is a token amount.  But it made a difference in how those who paid for their meals felt, not only about the meal they were given, but also about themselves, as people capable of contributing.

    We tend to value more what we pay to have.  I've found this with our own church programs as well.  When we invite the kids in the community to come for VBS, music classes drama classes, or whatever it is, we have found consistently that if the parents don't pay, the kids are inconsistent in attending.  If the parents pay, even a small or token amount, the kids attend.  The families value it more because they have paid for it, even if the amount they pay is minimal.   

    I've also seen too many situations in which charity is another way of separating people from one another, putting folk into categories of "us" and "them."  For example, when churches are serving meals, providing laundry services, or even giving away clothing, many times the workers are wearing name tags and the guests aren't.  

    "Why?"  I've asked.  

    "Well," I've been honestly told, "it helps us keep track of who is the server and who is being served." 

    "Why is that necessary?"  I always ask again.  I've never received a satisfactory answer in response.  Would it be a terrible thing if the guests or clients helped out?  Would it be awful if some of those helping also used some of the resources that we are giving away?  Why must we separate people out?  It inevitably ends up feeling like some are "good" people doing and giving good things while the others are unworthy but are being graced with the charity.  Instead of seeing our common humanity and universal need, we see some as generous givers, and others as recipients or takers: "not us!"   

    So what is the argument, then, for pure charity?  For the recipients, the times I've been given something that I cannot pay back have been opportunities for humility on my part.  Sometimes we need the humility of learning to accept gifts that we cannot reciprocate or pay for.  On the other side of this, giving, truly giving, without expectation or even hope for a return is also an important lesson for us to learn.  It reminds us that all that we have is for the good of all God's people, not just ourselves.  It reminds us that we are deeply blessed by all that we have.  It has all come to us through grace, truly, and is lent to us for us to share.  It teaches us to be more generous and less greedy, to stop always looking for what we might gain from what we give.

    There are times when charity is necessary.  I spent a summer in Alabama working on fixing and building houses for people who could NOT pay at all for what they were being given.  It was different from Habitat for Humanity in that these were for people who were disabled, or elderly, or truly in situations where they could neither work nor pay anything in exchange for their abodes that we were either fixing or building.  These were necessary charities.  But I still found myself at times thinking that there were ways, still, that it could be and sometimes was, an exchange.  As we listened to the wisdom of those we served, as we heard their stories and their experiences, what we were given in many ways surpassed what we were giving.  

    I think it is important, always, to think through why we are choosing charity over finding ways to give the dignity of an exchange.  I think it is important to be more intentional in this.  Always.  

Charity Vs. Empowerment OR Privilege and the Things We Take for Granted.

         I was in a situation a number of years ago where I was setting up for a church function.  I was busy running around getting things ready with a couple other people.  I had a friend with me who was visiting the church for the first time, a friend who grew up in a different socio-economic group, a friend who had been extremely poor most of their life.  This friend was sitting on the side-lines while I flitted about taking care of things, trying to get ready.
        As I worked hard to get ready for the upcoming event, I found myself really irritated by my friend's inactivity. Why were they just sitting on the sidelines rather than helping? I thought.  Is my friend just that kind of person who expects to be waited on and served by others but won't lift a finger to help? What kind of entitlement thinking and lack of caring are being demonstrated here?  This went on for some time before, in exasperagation, I finally snapped at my friend, "You know, I could really use your help here."
       My friend looked surprised.  No, it was more than surprise.  I think it might even have been a bit of shock.  They got up and did help, though the whole time my friend sort of floundered around, looking uneasy, and more, unsure of how to help or what to do.
       Later, we had an opportunity to talk about what had happened.  My friend shared with me that, until I had snapped at them, they had not felt it was their right to help.  My friend was surprised at my snapping because they had thought they were being respectful by allowing me to do what needed to be done without my friend's interference or clumsy attempts at aid.  They had felt they needed to be invited to help in this way and that until they were invited, they had better just stay out of the way.
       Then, I was in a situation in which our congregation (at my last church) was serving a meal for those staying at our church through our Family Promise program (this is a program where 3-4 families are temporarily housed in churches for a week at a time per church until they can get back on their feet).  After the meal was served, the children are organized into an activity and while the parents are present in the space, the children are really engaged in the activity with the helpers from the congregation where the families are staying.  These families are all suffering from chronic homelessness, deep poverty and lack of resources.  One of the people serving with us told me that they were baffled and concerned by the fact that the parents of these children never offered to help - either with serving their kids or helping with the kid's activities.  The parents hung back, looking uneasy, and just watched as their kids were fed and cared for in this place.  It bothered the person to whom I was speaking, who is a person used to jumping in and offering their services and help in any situation, especially when their kids are being given something for free.  But I recognized the looks on these parents' faces.  It was the same look I had seen on my friend's face when they didn't feel invited to help.
       I believe these are both examples of something we rarely acknowledge.  It is a privilege to be able to serve others.  It is a privilege to be able to help in a situation and to be seen and acknowledged as a person who gives their time and energy to help others.  
      I think at some level we know this.  When I am over at someone's house for a meal, I always offer to help clean up.  Most of the time, that help is refused.  But when it is accepted, I feel that I have been "let in" to a closer place in that person's heart, that person's home, that person's life.  We don't let guests help us.  But we do let family help us.  So at the point at which someone allows us to help them clean up, we have moved from a place of distant guest to friend, at the very least.  Our older or infirm friends also recognize this at some level.  When one of my parishioners is hurt or in the hospital, the thing they always have the most trouble accepting is help from others, especially if there is no chance of returning that help.  Those who are on the serving side of the equation feel a sense of honor, privilege and purpose in their efforts to care for the one down.  But it is hard to accept that help.  We forget that we give people a gift by allowing them to serve us: we give them the gift of feeling useful, of having activities that are meaningful, of giving something really needed to us.
       We see the truth in these things, but still, it can be hard to remember that service is a privilege.  It can be even harder to understand that those who have very little, the underprivileged, the marginalized, the ostracized, the disempowered - that many of these people do not know they have the right to help, to serve others, to give back.  They have been told by our society in so many ways that they have nothing to contribute, that their very existence is suspect.  They are treated as an "under-class" - as lesser than.  And one of the surest signs that they have internalized that is that they do not know they have the right to give, to serve, or to help, even when those receiving aid are their own children.
      We believe that when we are giving something to another person, whether it be goods or services, that their response should be one of gratitude.  But the reality is that it can be really disempowering to serve people without letting them give something back in return.  When I was volunteering with a homeless chaplaincy in Berkeley during my college years, one of the local soup kitchens understood this so fully that they charged those coming to the soup kitchen a quarter per meal.  A quarter was not hard to come by (and the reality was that if someone really couldn't come up with a quarter, they would still be fed!), but the difference in how it made people feel was extraordinary.  The guests went from feeling that they were "charity cases" (that very term and the way we use it says a great deal about how people experience both sides of our one-sided acts of charity!!!) to feeling that they were people contributing to their own well-being.  They were purchasing their meals.  They KNEW that they were purchasing their own meals.  They were not helpless, hopeless charity cases.  They were empowered people who were buying their own food.  And as a result of that, they also felt empowered to act on their own behalves in other ways.  Many began to volunteer themselves serving food at the soup kitchen.  It became a community of people working and serving one another.
       I believe we would do well to offer more invitations to people to be able to work with us in serving one another.  We should invite those being served to be on the boards of the programs that serve them.  We should invite those being served to stand with us and help us to serve.  We should invite their thoughts, their opinions, but also their hands and their abilities in our joint missions of service to one another.
      But perhaps more to the point in this blog, I hope that we can strive, all of us, to remember when someone is NOT helping or not serving alongside us that this may say more about their lack of a sense of being worthy to serve.  They may not be helping because they don't realize they are worth enough to be able to help.  Sometimes charity, and especially the charity that leaves no room for those receiving it to give back, leaves those receiving feeling worse about themselves than they already did. This may be a different approach, a different understanding for us to try to remember.  But it is one more time when we are summoned to put ourselves in another person's shoes.  We who have been born into privileged places in society, where we have enough, where we can be what and who we want to be - we sometimes forget that we are privileged in more ways than we often know, recognize, or remember.  Being able to serve and give to others is a gift of privilege.  We would do well to remember that.  So I say it once more:
      It is a privilege to serve.  It is a gift to be able to give.  We honor the other by inviting their service and their giving as well.  

Burn out on Caring in a difficult time, and one response.

         We live in a time when burn out for people who really care is an increasing risk, an increasing likelihood.  If you care about the homeless and the housing crisis in California, if you care about our immigrant brothers and sisters, if you care about people of color, people of faith traditions other than Christianity, if you know any women (and we all do, whether we are aware of it or not), or even men, who’ve been assaulted: if you care about the “least of these” as we are called to do every single day; if it bothers you that we live in a society that manifests increasing apathy towards those who have suffered and even condones violence towards those who are already knocked down then this is a hard time to be active and engaged in our world. If you take seriously the call to love your neighbor as yourself and therefore are able to have compassion for people who are different that you are; if you remember that all of us are God's children, and that by corollary, all of us are siblings to one another; if you are aware therefore that the suffering people are people we are both deeply connected to and called to love like our biological siblings; if you care about the increasing division and growing irreconcilable differences between people in our country, in our communities, and even in our families; if you see meanness and are affected by the lack of simple courtesy and kindness towards strangers, then this is a hard time to keep going with hope and purpose and conviction that we can make the world a better place.

         Of course we hear about things we can do to counter this: focus on gratitude, name five things for which you are thankful each day; make sure that you have room for play in your life; take breaks from the struggles; exercise; laugh; sing.  But there is one other thing that can really help. In the midst of the daily struggles, sometimes the choice to do or be part of service that helps others (or even just one other) at this moment, now, with a real problem they are having  - this choice in itself can bring healing, can bring a tiny and reassuring sense that we can and do make a difference, a glimpse into the possibilities for genuine change and healing that can be brought on by people who care no matter what else is going on in the world.  Find a place to help.  Donate to a food bank, give school supplies, help serve meals, be part of a shelter program, donate to other organizations that make a difference.  Or, join in, give to, and work with organizations that create more permanent long term healing and change for people who are down and out: a new job training program, an education program, tutoring and care for disadvantaged children and youth, be part of a permanent low income housing program.  Yes, advocacy will always be of prime and extreme importance so that deep problems and issues can be confronted before they become monumental traumas and tragedies.  But being involved in a program that is not dependent on the politics of the day, but is simply dependent on our time, energy, resources and dedication and that really touches and changes lives: this can be healing not just for those served, but for our tired and frustrated souls as well.  Truly, we are called, as we are called into any caring work, to do this as much for our own souls, our own minds, our own spirits as we are for others.  I am grateful there are programs and opportunities out there for this kind of service.  They give me the strength and renewal to continue to work for advocacy too.