Lao Tzu - Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Luke 18:22 - When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
The Koran - Prayer carries us halfway to God, fasting brings us to the door of His palace, alms-giving procures us admission.
Henry Ford - It is easy to give alms; it is better to work to make the giving of alms unnecessary.
John Acton - There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
I have been thinking about the devastation in Haiti and the scramble in the aftermath to get resources to the survivors. In the days that followed, Pat Robertson made some rather unhelpful explanations of the cause of the earthquake, triggering another batch of thinking and pondering.
Yesterday, Maria made an offhand, otherwise innocuous Facebook status update that evolved into a 30+ comment discussion about shopping at Wal-Mart.
In the end I am now thinking about little gestures that we make in the face of suffering and the value of those gestures. Do they say more about our own needs or are they truly about the needs of the afflicted? Do they really make any difference in the end?
Let's start with the Wal-Mart situation. I am one of those who feel that Wal-Mart is destroying the fabric of this country. Their policies and price warfare amongst competitors and suppliers is contributing to the corporatization of the economy - they are becoming like one large "company store" for the country.
I avoid shopping there as much as possible, and in recent memory have not been inside their doors in well over a year. By choosing to shop elsewhere am I really affecting change? Or am I simply doing a "feel good" action that allows me to feel superior?
Maria lives in a rural part of the Mid West and she has few other options yet she still tries to limit how often and how much she spends at Wal-Mart. Interestingly though she knows a number of people that work there and this complicates a genuine personal boycott. When she shops there she knows that she is supporting their income which in turn contributes indirectly to the local community. There are very few alternatives for employment.
The hypothetical question is how many retail jobs would exist in her region if the big box store giant wasn't in town? Even if the answer is that there are fewer net jobs now in the region as all those other stores were forced to close up shop, the reality is what it is. As a result of this I have come to see that my personal boycott of Wal-Mart really is accomplishing very little beyond what personal satisfaction I receive.
What then about acts of charity? (hence all the quotes at the beginning of this post) As I said in a recent Facebook status update, "...if you give a homeless person some change...have you done your good deed for the day?...for the week? Is the action more about you and your need or the homeless person and his need? Ultimately what has been accomplished with this gesture?"
There was a time when there were no safety nets - no Medicaid, no social security, no Red Cross, no OxFam...there was only the church and charitable giving of alms from the "have's" to the "have not's." The context of the giving was very much person to person - meeting the gaze of the poor. There was also a power dynamic - the poor were expected to be properly respectful and appreciative for the crumbs thrown their way.
We now live in a time of better (though it seems disappearing) safety nets. There are an abundance of organizations dedicated with varying levels of success at alleviating the suffering of the poor. Further, the development of nation states and post-colonialism in combination with modern technology has lead to bringing the suffering of the world into our living rooms and lap tops.
I am struck by an odd parallel here. In the game of warfare, we now have weaponry that can reach around the globe and obliterate our enemies. Combatants need not look each other in the eye any longer. Pilots of drone aircraft our hundreds of miles away. Bomber pilots are miles up in the atmosphere. Warships fire their missiles from over the horizon.
Similarly, we no longer have any need of meeting the gaze of the poor as we dish out our alms. Disaster strikes around the globe and through our agencies relief is sent off. Like our weaponry, our dollars can reach around the globe from hundreds of miles away over the horizon.
I think in both cases the lack of human to human contact is detrimental.
I continue to struggle over the tragedy unfolding in Haiti. Earthquake hits a relentlessly poor nation with next to no infrastructure. There's a huge outcry for donations to alleviate the suffering. Now with modern technology we are shown snippets of video and sound bites and told to text a code and voila! a $10.00 donation has been made. There is something very surreal about the whole thing that leaves me unsettled.
When I was attending St. Paul's in Marquette, we had a member of the congregation who made regular mission trips to Haiti. He has personal contacts in country. He can tell stories of individual children that he has helped. I will likely find a way to track him down and make a contribution to his Haiti fund as my gesture of charity - my reaction to this tragedy. I need more of a personal connection. I don't want to be merely throwing some coins at the beggar.
There's also this pay-as-you-go aspect of all this in combination with the news item du jour. I am willing to bet that if I did my internet research I could identify dozens of locales around the globe where there are children existing in abject poverty not far removed from the destruction in Port au Prince with the exception only of scale.
No one is texting messages for them.
It would seem that some disasters are sexier than others. We also have an exceedingly short cultural attention span - in another week we will have moved on, I am certain. Until the next big news story/tragedy demands our attention. Peace.
Yesterday, Maria made an offhand, otherwise innocuous Facebook status update that evolved into a 30+ comment discussion about shopping at Wal-Mart.
In the end I am now thinking about little gestures that we make in the face of suffering and the value of those gestures. Do they say more about our own needs or are they truly about the needs of the afflicted? Do they really make any difference in the end?
Let's start with the Wal-Mart situation. I am one of those who feel that Wal-Mart is destroying the fabric of this country. Their policies and price warfare amongst competitors and suppliers is contributing to the corporatization of the economy - they are becoming like one large "company store" for the country.
I avoid shopping there as much as possible, and in recent memory have not been inside their doors in well over a year. By choosing to shop elsewhere am I really affecting change? Or am I simply doing a "feel good" action that allows me to feel superior?
Maria lives in a rural part of the Mid West and she has few other options yet she still tries to limit how often and how much she spends at Wal-Mart. Interestingly though she knows a number of people that work there and this complicates a genuine personal boycott. When she shops there she knows that she is supporting their income which in turn contributes indirectly to the local community. There are very few alternatives for employment.
The hypothetical question is how many retail jobs would exist in her region if the big box store giant wasn't in town? Even if the answer is that there are fewer net jobs now in the region as all those other stores were forced to close up shop, the reality is what it is. As a result of this I have come to see that my personal boycott of Wal-Mart really is accomplishing very little beyond what personal satisfaction I receive.
What then about acts of charity? (hence all the quotes at the beginning of this post) As I said in a recent Facebook status update, "...if you give a homeless person some change...have you done your good deed for the day?...for the week? Is the action more about you and your need or the homeless person and his need? Ultimately what has been accomplished with this gesture?"
There was a time when there were no safety nets - no Medicaid, no social security, no Red Cross, no OxFam...there was only the church and charitable giving of alms from the "have's" to the "have not's." The context of the giving was very much person to person - meeting the gaze of the poor. There was also a power dynamic - the poor were expected to be properly respectful and appreciative for the crumbs thrown their way.
We now live in a time of better (though it seems disappearing) safety nets. There are an abundance of organizations dedicated with varying levels of success at alleviating the suffering of the poor. Further, the development of nation states and post-colonialism in combination with modern technology has lead to bringing the suffering of the world into our living rooms and lap tops.
I am struck by an odd parallel here. In the game of warfare, we now have weaponry that can reach around the globe and obliterate our enemies. Combatants need not look each other in the eye any longer. Pilots of drone aircraft our hundreds of miles away. Bomber pilots are miles up in the atmosphere. Warships fire their missiles from over the horizon.
Similarly, we no longer have any need of meeting the gaze of the poor as we dish out our alms. Disaster strikes around the globe and through our agencies relief is sent off. Like our weaponry, our dollars can reach around the globe from hundreds of miles away over the horizon.
I think in both cases the lack of human to human contact is detrimental.
I continue to struggle over the tragedy unfolding in Haiti. Earthquake hits a relentlessly poor nation with next to no infrastructure. There's a huge outcry for donations to alleviate the suffering. Now with modern technology we are shown snippets of video and sound bites and told to text a code and voila! a $10.00 donation has been made. There is something very surreal about the whole thing that leaves me unsettled.
When I was attending St. Paul's in Marquette, we had a member of the congregation who made regular mission trips to Haiti. He has personal contacts in country. He can tell stories of individual children that he has helped. I will likely find a way to track him down and make a contribution to his Haiti fund as my gesture of charity - my reaction to this tragedy. I need more of a personal connection. I don't want to be merely throwing some coins at the beggar.
There's also this pay-as-you-go aspect of all this in combination with the news item du jour. I am willing to bet that if I did my internet research I could identify dozens of locales around the globe where there are children existing in abject poverty not far removed from the destruction in Port au Prince with the exception only of scale.
No one is texting messages for them.
It would seem that some disasters are sexier than others. We also have an exceedingly short cultural attention span - in another week we will have moved on, I am certain. Until the next big news story/tragedy demands our attention. Peace.
4 comments:
Here's my similar moment of truth about Haiti.
I immediately made an online donation to Episcopal Relief and Development to help. But it did not make me "feel good." It made me feel lazy. I know there are people who were boots on the ground the day it happened, and I did not take up my net to the call of "follow me." I'm too tied down at work.
Did I donate to feel better? If I did, it didn't work. But then I realized maybe it is like the floods in Iowa--again, I could not pick up and go. But I did plan to use one of my vacation weeks a few weeks later to help with cleanup.
What I am reminding myself is I may NOT be able to help "at the moment" but I can help later.
But you are right about looking the poor and needy in the eye is an important thing to do. My diocese is companions with Lui. I am blessed that our blog friend Lisa Fox has been there, so when I donate to Lui, I can use her eyes to help me see that yes, I really am helping with that money. Although my eyes did not meet the poor, someone I know did have the experience and I can still "see" it differently than if I had no connection to it. That's another way to look at it.
Larry,
please don't take this the wrong way. You know this is not my first response to your questions and we have been having conversations on various blogs.
I appreciate your question. It is honest, searching, you allow yourself to be very vulnerable in public, I truly admire that.
But it also all about you.
It is about you wanting to make a difference to the world and feeling helpless because you only have the choice of whether to shop in WalMart or not, whether to give a copper to a beggar or not.
It's about you needing to feel useful, helpful, having an impact, far beyond what any single one of us can ever do.
There are only ever a very few individuals in any generation who genuinely make a huge impact on society.
The rest of us has to stop wanting to be quite so grand and influential.
You only have two choices in any moral dilemma. Do I do something I believe to be positive in itself, even if I will never make a big difference to the world, or do I not do it. Is it a moral good in itself and therefore worth pursuing, or does its morality only depend on its impact?
The impact question is again twofold. The one tiny snowflake that started out blizzard was absolutely nothing in itself, but in its wake came a whole flurry of helpless snowflakes and together they changed the landscape. The early supporters of black civil rights must have felt terribly helpless. The movement they helped to shape, all made up of helpless individuals, was powerful indeed.
The fact that others may give cynically or that society and the news move on fast is neither here nor there. It does not absolve you from making your own moral choices based on your own assessment of what is right and what is wrong.
Haiti can live without your $10. But if everyone felt like you, Haiti would never be re-built.
To some extent, you’re free to have your moral paralysis precisely because you can rely on the rest of society picking up the tab.
Your $10 will never make all the difference. Either because if they were the only $10 given, they’d be nothing, or if they were only $10 among millions and millions given by others, they are nothing. No single one of us ever amounts to anything.
That still leaves you with moral choices and with moral responsibility.
I love the Jesus stories not because they are about grand moral instruction or about change-the-world schemes, but because they are minute tableaux about small moral choices of small insignificant individuals. The small individual choice can then be expanded into a general moral truth.
Either it is important to give and to stand up for social justice, or it isn’t. The choice is yours. But make it a choice about the issue itself, not about your own importance in the final outcome.
Hugs and prayers.
My thanks to Maria and Erika for their comments. A bit of clarification - this was certainly not one of my better posts. However, if I left readers thinking that they should just stop "giving alms" out of a sense of futility, then I should clarify further.
I have sought and discovered the spiritual rationale for giving alms, no matter how small a gesture, particularly in the quotes I included at the beginning of the post.
I am encouraging people though to try to get back to a sense of giving that involves looking the beggar in the eye - human to human.
I am encouraging people to not only give what they can in reaction to crisis but to open up their giving so that a broader sample of suffering is touched.
In response to this tragedy, pick an agency and give generously - but take the time to read their material - learn about who they are helping. Try and make some kind of face to face connection.
Renz,
Yes. But also no. There is too much suffering in the world, in our own families, in our own circle of friends, our towns, our country, our world.... it is impossible to get completely involved in all of it.
As long as we are deeply involved in some of it and neveer believe that we're not our brother's keepers, it's perfectly acceptable not to read charity material and learn about the people they're helping. It's perfectly acceptable to cry at the news, make a donation and then hope and trust that those agencies know what they're doing, while we return our energies to that suffering we can personally help to alleviate.
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