Sep 28, 2009
So what if beggars with cardboard signs make me feel uncomfortable.
I sometimes wish it were illegal to panhandle at intersections.
Then I remember, I don’t have a right to not feel awkward.
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Really? Why don’t I have the right to feel awkward?
he says he doesn’t have a right to not feel awkward. in other words, others have the right to make him feel awkward in some instances.
Perhaps another way to phrase it might be:
He does not have the right to stop others from making him feel awkward.
There. No more double negative. I feel better now. :-)
What did you think of Jon Bloom’s post at DG today?
Could what he is getting at be part of the reason people feel awkward in those circumstances?
actually, panhandling at intersections appears to be illegal.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/crime-reporting/AggressivePanhandling.asp
but, that changes nothing about your point. it would only make it more awkward if, instead of handing the panhandler some change, i rolled down my window and said, “Hey buddy, did you know this is illegal? Just a little FYI!”
Read Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski.
we are all beggars.
But we are not all panhandling at intersections.
and there you have the difference between spiritual beggary and actual beggary.
funny, because on the way to bbc this weekend i pulled up to the first stoplight off 35w, where there was a beggar and another man walking his dog. the dog-walker shouted from across the street, “sir there’s no pan-handling is illegal here”, and the beggar picked up his sign and walked away.
whoops, typo.
i meant to write, “sir, pan-handling is illegal here…”
Instead of just giving them money, offer to buy them a meal or buy them food at a grocery store, and also give them a gospel tract.
We have told our children that unless God prompts us to offer help to someone on the corner, we have a policy to help others wisely as stewards of what we have. God can and has prompted this (in fact, one time the man refused my muffins … wanted money).
In my opinion, if you have the strength to stand there all day and ask for money, you have the strength to use all the resources available to you to get a job, get the free counseling offered, get the help offered (people go out to our bum camps regularly offering assistance). If you want to.
We don’t as a rule reward the dubious skill of placing yourself in the public eye for the sole goal of mastering the art of the pitiful look. It’s not a lack of compassion. In fact, I believe that not being able to succeed by standing on the corner is one way to place people on another path in tough love.
I know full well I’m making sweeping generalizations (disregarding past and what they’ve been taught all their lives and Christ and …), but this is our general rule that guides us. My husband has a job which places him in contact with this population on a regular basis and he knows things that are said like, “Hell, no, I could live with my mom, but then I’d have to follow her RULES.” A lot of this is actually choice.
Our local paper had an article on a bum with a leg that had been amputated. The article was all about his hard life. They failed to mention the part about him getting drunk, passing out on the train tracks and getting run over by a train as the MEANS for losing that leg. All the compassion on the lost leg that was just a basic consequence of his behavior.
We choose to help through organizations that offer tangible assistance alongside spiritual.
Some are in real need, while others are needing a good swift kick in the pants, either way I think we should allow the Holy Spirit direct our hearts in whether we should help them or not. I have given a couple beggars a couple bucks because I felt lead to. Other times I don’t.