Pleas for Help
We should not cast a cold eye on pleas for help. When we see a distressed person in a safe place we should give help.
I fund raise for my college, my church, and for Promise the Children, a Unitarian Universalist related charity that advocates for low-income children and families. I feel sympathy for children, or their parents who are asking for money on the street. After all, is there a difference in campaigning for a church or school, or giving money to to a child, parent or adult on the street? Is the person on the street who needs money to be avoided, and the organization to receive a gift? Aren’t they very similar?
Oh, you say the child or adult on the street will misspend your gift. How can you be sure, but how do you know that the organization might not do the same?
I want to carry single dollar bills and hand them out to children or adults on the street. But there are times when I have turned a cold eye. In Morocco a small boy held out a carved figure he had carefully made, and I drove by him. He turned his head in tears. My excuse was that I didn’t understand the money, but I could have given it anyway. Another time an older lady in my care had $35 stolen from her. She was very upset and died shortly afterwards. I will be sorry all my life that I didn’t give her the $35.
Our Bible tells us not to turn away from a beggar. But the newspaper is filled with stories of well-to-do members of government who are walking away from their responsibilities to those in need in our country perhaps by closing down the government and but also by cutting funding to the programs that support lower income people, families and children in our country.
